Day: 2 November 2006

Dear $agony_aunt;

I am an intelligent graduate with a low-paid but satisfying job writing computer software for businesses. I am a very rational person, taking things as the evidence presents them, unaffected by superstition and trusting in my own senses and morality. I am an atheist. I am a non-vegetarian, and, in fact, particularly enjoy red meat that still bleeds when I spear it with my steak knife. I read the popular science books. I carry an MP3 player that isn’t made by Apple. I can program a VCR, but I wouldn’t stoop to doing so in this increasingly digital world. I am an exemplary model of the boot-wearing geeky white male engineer that has become such an icon for everything I stand for. If I were born twenty years earlier I would have owned a slide rule and a pocket protector, and been shunned by society. Instead, I carry a camera phone and tell jokes down the pub after a curry with my friends.

Recently, while working on the website of a client of ours, an abbatoir, I found myself momentarily squeamish at the stack of corpses depicted in some of their publicity. Just momentarily, and I still fully understand how irrational this was – I’m no stranger to the way that food is prepared, and I’d quite happily kill animals myself in order to eat them – I wasn’t at ease.

Does this mean I’m gay?

Sincerely,

Confused.