Why did I run away? (I guess maybe I was having a bad day)

People are jerks!
Plain and simple, I know, I can be a big jerk when I want to. But most of the time I try not to be.
The problem I have with jerk-esque people are those who do it who do not know that they are doing it. Who hide behind labels or what not in order to say: "See that is not as jerky as you think"
For example today at work on break I was drinking some herbal tea. A co-worker asked me what kind of tea it was and I replied "herbal fruit explosion." She immediatly began to laugh and mock the fact that the gay guy was drinking a tea called "fruit explosion."
Ha fucking ha.
Why is that funny?
I mean when she's drinking her lemon tea or eating her salad I don't make some breeders joke (not that there is any way a connection between the items and sexuality, but it is the best way that i can make my point). So why is it when I drink herbal fruit explosion tea it is hilarious and a good time to ridicule me. Could it be homophobia? I wonder.
I realize that racism and hatred are very dynamic things and that they can appear in very different packages. For example what happened today is what I would call a subconcious homophobic action. I don't think that my co-worker considers herself to be homophobic, yet i found her action to be as such.
Some of you may be telling me to suck it up. I can not.
When someone makes fun of what I listen to or what I watch for entertainment that I can handle becuase I can defend that. When someone makes fun of me becuase of my sexual orientation that hurts me because it is me. The joke is not so funny when it attacks who you are and your identity. Especially in that format when the person who has made the negative comment tells you something like: "Oh lighten up it was a joke, don't you have a sense of humour?"
Well no, apparently I don't. Not when it comes to this kind of thing. It is not funny to attack me because I am sexually attracted to men. Would it be funny to make a racist joke? I think that in most cases that would be frowned upon, yet in this instance everyone else was laughing (except me). I was somehow left out of the joke that was all about me. I guess they weren't laughing at me, they were laughing for me.
Why is this kind of subtle homophobia okay? And why is it when you call someone on it, they immediatly deny it and tell you about their gay friends, or their gay uncle, or their lesbian aunt. Well that is all fine and good, i am happy that you are friends with these people but you are still homophobic. Hell I am homophobic and I am gay.
It is true, I have internalized homophobia that I try to deal with. I am one of those people who at times hates myself because I can not be more butch, or because I find winter toques with cat ears to be really cute and something that i want to wear. My problem is that i am torn, I want to be the muscly, jocky, "straight acting - straight looking" (whatever that means) gay guy. But well, lets face it I am not. And because I am not I get picked on a lot and I get these little jokes made about me a lot. And to be perfectly frank i am fed up with both.
I am aware that I will never be more than I am. I am trying to accept that.

BUt all of you mother fuckers who insist on making fun of me because I am the way that i am piss me right off. I am not going to apologize for being me, I have done nothing wrong. BUt why is it that is it okay to make fun of the sissy boy? Huh? Why?
I can not help the fact that i am sensitive, graceful and elegant epitomized in a mans body. I also can not help the fact that the core of homophobia is a hatred of women. (why else is it such a problem that my mannerisms are associated with the female of the species?) Society tends to let persons walk all over gay men who behave in the so-called "effeminate" way. BUt as my friend Nadine pointed out, those gay men don't behave like women, they behave like gay men. Women are not all limp wristed or flamboyant, but some gay men are. So why is this such a problem?

And the worst part about it is that i find the gay community to be the ones who are the most homophobic when it comes to girly boys. And it is usually because they hide behind the: "You can not say I am homophobic, cause I am gay." Well actually you are homophobic and probably more so then heterosexual people becuase you internalized the hatred and took it personally. (I know that I did.) These men are your brethern, why on earth does it matter how they behave or act? Should this not be about how they treat people and whether or not they are nice people?

In my undergrad I got really pissed off when at the end of a play my tech clas had to dismantle the set. I was given a hammer and sent to pull out nails and well having grown up on a farm I knew how to do this. Everyone was so shocked and surprised that the homo was able to handle the hammer and pull out the nails. It was this huge deal and people kept making these awed comments at me. And well, yes I did carry around a lunchbox as a purse and I did dress rather extravagantly, but that was only one part of me. These people had a notion of who I was inside their heads and it was obvious that although I had known these people for four years that none of them had a clue as to who I was, as they would have known that i can pull out nails, or use a drill, or paint a wall, or change oil in a car, etc.

It saddened me greatly that this was how I was perceived. Not as who I was, but as some stereotype of a gay man.

Now i am aware that I make generalizations about cliques and members of them (I have also be brainwashed about that type of identification as well, i don't know what it would be called, I guess it depends on the situation so I suffer from: jockphobia, princessphobia, etc), but as much as I do this I also do not treat them any differently then I would treat anyone else. If someone came up to me and asked me for help, it would not matter what group it looked like they belonged to, I would help them if I could.

I don't know what else to say. Except that what happened today hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt way more then some random person calling me "FAGGOT!" as I thought that this woman was friend. But I guess you never can tell about people, can you?