I spent part of last weekend working at a Tennis Tournament benefiting local LGBT charities, so I had the opportunity to hand gay men their balls for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. Although I hate working on weekends, they were relatively easy workdays, so I can’t complain too much. I basically got paid to sit around munching on donuts and conversing with affluent gay men.

Working the tournament really hit home a truth that grows more and more obvious the longer I work at the Gender and Sexuality Center: that people in the LGBT communities are painfully normal.

The (mostly) men at the tournament were nice, as would be expected from people paying money to play in a state-wide tennis tournament for charity, but there were more than a few who were kind of testy and sore-losers. One gentleman, upon losing his match and thusly getting eliminated from the tournament, stormed out of the clubhouse, exclaiming “I hate this fucking game” as he slammed the door behind him. The man, and other sore-losers like him, were the exception and not the rule. Most of the men in the tournament were just happy to be in a place where they could be open with their sexuality while playing their favorite sport. Most of the men in the tournament, both match winners and losers, left the courts with smiles on their faces.

People in the LGBT community are so painfully normal, that they border on being just as boring as the rest of us. When they weren’t playing tennis, they boringly sat around talking about the boring things they did over their boring weekends. “I just sat around watching tv,” one man said upon being asked what he did the night before. “Let’s go get some McDonalds,” one man said to the group of men sitting around him. "I work as an accountant with Dell."

Yes, gay men, like the rest of us, are fucking BORING! The sooner the rest of society learns this truth, the better.

But at the end of the weekend, I also came to the realizations that stereotypes exist for a reason. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve come to a bit of closure about stereotypes. I used to be a strong advocate for breaking stereotypes, but I’ve come to the realization that stereotyping is a natural process that nearly everyone uses to categorize people into ready-made containers.

It’s not good to generalize anything about an entire group of people, and it’s not good to assume that you know someone just because they fit into a stereotypical mold, but I’m tired of fooling myself into thinking that stereotypes don’t exist and that they should be done away with. If anything, we should be celebrating our diversity through the numerous stereotypes that we navigate through on a daily basis. There’s nothing quite like a gay men’s tennis tournament to hit home this truth.

Is there a better sport for stylish gay men than tennis? Baseball uniforms are too cotton “the fabric our lives” blend. Basketball jerseys are too open and baggy. Football players wear too much padding. But tennis players wear either the sleeveless lycra shirts or full-on collared shirts and “just the right length” shorts.

If there’s one shitty thing about the tournament, it’s that everyone there assumed I was gay. I really wish people wouldn’t assume that they knew anything about my sexual orientation just because I’m hanging out with a bunch of gay men … (removes tongue from cheek)

Watching everyone play tennis really made me want to pick up the sport. It looks like it's a pretty fun sport to play. I'll have to check it out at some point.

my two cents for this Monday.