By Mike Sain't Louis ·
Hetero, or the night of the wine, the cheese and the dignity
We arranged to meet. I arrive. And he already has someone else in bed. Hetero (Straight) starts like that, with three short sentences that land like three slammed doors, and what comes after is one of the most humiliating and most recognisable scenes I've put in a song.
No pretending. The other guy doesn't care. And the narrator is standing there, at the door, with the wine, the cheese and his dignity wrapped in tinfoil. That image seems to me one of the most tragicomic on the GAYFOLK planet. You've come prepared for a date, with your little gift under your arm, and you find nobody was expecting you. The tinfoil gives it a homemade, Tupperware touch that makes the scene even sadder and funnier.
And then comes the question that gives the song its title. Would it be easier to be straight, or simply easier not to be me? It's a doubt many of us have had some night or other, not because we really want to change, but because being tired of certain dynamics on the scene leads you to ask. The second half of the sentence is the heavier one: not so much orientation as the feeling that the problem is you.
The song defines itself bluntly: the scene is absurd, tacky, honest and fucking real. It's the kind of night you don't explain, you swallow. I really like that verb, swallow, because it describes very well what you do at those moments: take the hit and go home with your cheese.
It's GAYFOLK without make-up, without poetry and without shame. That's where its value lies. Not every queer story is about pride and glitter; some are about being stood up and taking the metro home.
I dedicate it to anyone who's ever been left holding the gift with a foolish face on the landing. It's not you. Put it on, open that wine on your own and eat the cheese, you've been through enough for it.