Funny, But Not Really.: It's the Chase, not the Prize.

They say dreams are your brain’s way of working out some issues or struggles in your present life. Although for me, I’m not even usually aware that I have a problem until I dream about it. Sometimes I will wake up from a dream blissfully content and not wanting to wake up, but once in a while I have a dream that felt more like I had been tripping on acid. This was one of those dreams.

I dreamt that XXX decided to be gay. (XXX – Person wished to remain anonymous). Now XXX is not a homosexual in the real world, nor had any part of me ever speculated that he was. This is why it came as a shock in my dream that he decided to be really, really gay.

In my dream, there was never any transitory period from his heterosexual life to his eye-blindingly flamboyant new life. He went from zero to butt-hero in 60 seconds flat.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t have anything against homosexuals no matter their level of flamboyancy. In fact, I had a childhood friend that was very light-in-his-loafers and would come over and play Martha Stewart. Now that I think about it, that friend also once ate an entire bag of prunes to stimulate his colon health, and tried to show me the remains he made in my toilet.

But I’m getting off track here. The point is that I am not homophobic, but rather that XXX’s sudden dive into the homosexual community came as a shock. And not only that, but he immediately had a new Latino boyfriend only moments after breaking the news to his wife.

XXX and his new lover were inseparable. I could not find one without the other. They were like a mutated-conjoined-amorphous blob of milk chocolate skin, trendy scarves and phallic grocery items.

Just as I was getting used to the idea of XXX being with a man, Hector came running to me in tears. Hector claimed that XXX had just broken his heart and tossed him to the curb without any explanation as to why. He begged me to find out what was going on.

I went looking for XXX and found him at some sort of techno club, gyrating his hips to altered Madonna music. I asked him why he took such a huge crap on Hector’s heart, and XXX replied with “I like the chase more than I like the prize.”

Then I woke up.

It took me a while to recover from the dream and bring my thoughts back to reality. But then I was paranoid – was XXX secretly gay and going to leave his wife for a caramel flavored lollipop?

I had to investigate.

Me: How do you feel about….the chase?

XXX: What?

Me: How do you feel about the chase…in relation to the prize?

XXX: …

Me: Do you like the prize more? Or perhaps the chase appeals you?

XXX: This is making me uncomfortable.

Me: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a caramel lollipop?

XXX: I’m leaving now.

My research was getting me nowhere, but I wasn’t willing to give up yet. I had to look a little deeper. I decided to look up dream meanings to see if I could find anything of use.

GAY - *Please see Homosexual

HOMOSEXUAL :

1. If you are not homosexual in your waking life and dream that you are homosexual…

(Nope, that doesn’t apply…)

2. To dream that the guy you like in real life is gay, represents…

(That doesn’t apply either…)

3. On a side note, it is common for expectant fathers to have dreams of homosexual encounters.

(A little creepy, but definitely doesn’t apply.)

4. If you are homosexual in your waking life…

(Doesn’t apply, I am giving up now.)

I even tried looking up “Latino” but there was no such word in the dream dictionary. I stared at my computer screen until the sudden realization hit me – XXX had changed quite a bit over the last year, and my brain was probably just trying to work through some of the changes! I felt at peace with this new knowledge and didn’t feel the need to examine it further.

I decided to pay XXX a visit to have a less disturbing conversation with him, and it was going pretty well.

We were lost in pleasant conversation until I noticed a rather familiar looking Latino gentleman through the window, in XXX’s yard.