let me have a turn

May 31, 2022 7:56 AM

And SHE, this 50-something lesbian talks to this stranger on the phone. And a LINE FORMS BEHIND HER. Every customer in that store knows that call, knows that feeling, and every person takes a turn talking to that man. That story comforts me so much to this day.

What happened one night when a desperate stranger called a local queer bookstore to ask for help and found a community eager to do so. (First link to the original Twitter thread, second to the queersplaining podcast (12:07 minutes) going into greater detail.)
posted by MartinWisse (23 comments total)

Opposite end of the same spectrum:

@arabellesicardi: if you ever need to cry on cue, what works for me is thinking about the fact a queer person once would call every gay bar they had a number to just to hear the sound of other queers laughing somewhere, just listen, say nothing. as to not be alone. every week. for fourteen years.

posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:45 AM on May 31, 2022 [19 favorites]

Thank you MartinWisse. Listening now. "the first time it really hit me as a young gay person that we were all really looking out for each other."
posted by brainwane at 9:13 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I remember reading that tweet a few years ago. The follow up podcast is interesting. Thanks for sharing.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:29 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

That hits me hard today. I got so lonely over this long weekend that I called the suicide hotline last night and just talking to another person for ten minutes was amazing. Hell may be other people but it's still hard to get by without them.
posted by bendy at 11:14 AM on May 31, 2022 [109 favorites]

Hey bendy, I'm glad you're here.
posted by custardfairy at 11:43 AM on May 31, 2022 [49 favorites]

Thanks for posting this. I needed these feels today. Good tears.
posted by whatevernot at 12:11 PM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

bendy, I’m also glad you’re here.

And thanks for this story, MartinWisse.
posted by gauche at 12:22 PM on May 31, 2022 [8 favorites]

I guess the punishment for browsing metafilter during a boring meeting is that you sometimes have to turn your camera off to avoid crying on screen.
posted by eotvos at 1:08 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

*waves* Hi, Bendy! I recognize your username, and it's one I am always glad to see in a thread.

Drop me a line in MeMail if you ever want to chat: I check in a few times a day.

Offer is open to anyone, honestly: we all gotta be that Party Of Sheltering Lesbians to someone else, at some point in our life. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 3:48 PM on May 31, 2022 [13 favorites]

I'm really glad you're around Bendy.

(This story got me all misty, too.)
posted by thivaia at 4:10 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]

Y'all are making me blush and thank you for that.
posted by bendy at 7:10 PM on May 31, 2022 [17 favorites]

Hi bendy, I'm also glad you're here!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:10 PM on May 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

Bendy, I called a suicide hotline a couple weeks ago as well when I was in crisis. While having someone going down a list of standard questions and ticking off boxes may not have been the most helpful thing per se, yeah, just having a person on the line speaking with me got me to calm down enough to focus on something else

I was happy to see this story going around again. It's a good one.
posted by Maaik at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2022 [14 favorites]

Oh man, I love y'all. Thanks for all of this.
posted by TheCoug at 10:05 PM on May 31, 2022 [2 favorites]

posted by bendy at 11:14 AM on May 31 [51 favorites +] [!]

Jayzus. Metafilter has given me so much over the years but this support may be the best thing ever.
posted by bendy at 11:36 PM on May 31, 2022 [11 favorites]

And I would totally be in that line to talk to that man - I have no skin in this game but I would give him as much acceptance and time as I could.
posted by bendy at 11:49 PM on May 31, 2022 [3 favorites]

MartinWisse I love your post and I apologize for hijacking it.
posted by bendy at 1:35 AM on June 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Honestly, bendy, it's seems to me like it's perfectly in the spirit of the story. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:22 AM on June 1, 2022 [9 favorites]

I recognise your usernames bendy and Maaik and I am very glad you're here.

Many years ago I wrote an essay on the history of gay liberation in New Zealand. I've since forgotten nearly all the details, but my memory is that at one point there was a coordinated movement to organise pride marches on the same day at the same time in cities and towns across the country. And this book or article or whatever it was had the various efforts and also the estimate of the number of people who turned up, in Wellington, Christchurch, etc., and then said, almost in passing, that there was one small town in rural NZ where a woman marched through town alone. It's always stuck with me - someone being so isolated and yet taking part in the collective action, and, presumably, reporting it to the organising committee. It never fails to make me tear up, thinking about it.
posted by happyfrog at 4:54 AM on June 1, 2022 [18 favorites]

Hi, bendy and Maiik, this random guy from the other side of the world is happy that you're around.

Thanks for the post, MartinWisse, it's always good to see people looking out for each other.
posted by Harald74 at 5:15 AM on June 1, 2022 [5 favorites]

This reminds me of when I was working at Barnes and Noble - we had to periodically clear the shelves of customer holds by calling them and seeing if they still intended to pick up what they ordered. Someone had placed a special order for a self-help book for Christians dealing with their homosexuality that we let take all the time they needed to pick up.
posted by gee_the_riot at 7:21 AM on June 1, 2022 [12 favorites]

No worries bendy, hopefully you're doing better now?
posted by MartinWisse at 8:03 AM on June 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am reminded of a favorite analogy, by firecat, that activism or "any action that requires input and vigilance from a multitude of people":

"is like a chorus of people singing a continuous tone. If enough people sing, the tone will be continuous even though each of the singers will be stopping singing to take a breath every now and then. The way to change things is for more people to sing rather than for the same small group of people to try to sing louder and never breathe."

The bookstore worker, growing frantic, getting unsolicited backup from that first customer.... that.
posted by brainwane at 5:48 AM on June 4, 2022 [1 favorite]