to set the scene, me and my dog were walking our usual route on a thursday evening. arriving at a field, the standard game of fetch commences. heidi makes some fairly impressive catches, she’s got her eye on the ball. through my headphones i hear muffled shouts of ‘hello’ and ‘excuse me’ and other such heckles/greetings. i sigh. youths. disgruntled, i wrench one earbud out and trudge towards the basketball court from which i am being heckled by a trio of boys, approximately 10-12 years old. their leader leans nonchalantly on the fence. the conversation proceeds as follows (my lines are in italics):

hello

hello

how can i help you?

we just wanted to know whether you’re a supporter of the LGBTQ community?

well i’m pretty gay, so yeah. i am by default i suppose.

oh. oh okay. right. well we’ve asked 5 people already and 2 have said yes.

2 out of 5 isn’t that bad given the state of the world at the minute. it’s pretty fucked.

yeah it’s pretty good.

[end scene]

walking away, i struggled to process what had happened. they seemed polite enough, but also annoying pricks who shouted at random people in a field. their question in itself didn’t seem malicious, but my response definitely caught them off guard. they hadn’t accounted for the fact that one of their unwilling field survey participants might actually be part of said community. i didn’t feel threatened as thankfully i am 6’3’’, bald, tattooed and hold a 19 minute 5k PB. i could easily outrun these annoying little children.

dog and i looped around the park. a decent 30 minutes of chasing tennis balls, squirrels, obnoxious cocker-poos, sticks, etc. the dog joined in occasionally too. (a joke, well done ewan.)

on the return journey through the gay research community park, familiar teenage boy shouts make it through the podcast i was trying and failing to digest. diligently, i made my way back to the despatch box (the fence that sections off the small concrete basket ball court).

hello again

hello. we were wondering if you wanted to come and play basketball with us?

erm, no thanks. i have things to do.

oh come on, just one game.

i’ m very bad at basketball.

we’re shit too, it doesn’t matter. please.

i really must go. thank you for the offer though, that’s very kind. see you later.

okay, bye.

[end scene]

now, this took me by surprise. being scouted for a potential career change into the world of professional basketball was not on my to do list for that thursday afternoon. the more pessimistic among you may say that they only wanted me to fill some diversity quota on their 3 man youth squad, but i like think they saw my potential talent and wanted to snap me up before one of their rivals did. i still don’t know the intentions behind any of their comments, however they seemed like fairly polite young people who were just trying to get some attention and provoke some strangers in a park. regardless of their intent, i’m sure they didn’t think it would be recorded in detail, preserved for years to come.

anyway, i really need to wrap things up as i need to go and practice my dribbling and shoot some 3 pointers.