I think there‘s some kind of homophily in old white hetero-cis men. Looking the same, having the same hair color, or being as bald as the next man, wearing the same suit, the same spectacle frame. It's some kind of (self)love they project onto others like them. They are able to like that other men progress in life, because while they do, they see themselves - and so all of them progress a little. It’s just like a look into the mirror. Or the pond, if you like.
I don't meet the criteria for homophiliac desire or love. In this scenario, I am the other.
The guy sitting next to me on the train is one of these men. Wearing a suit in the oh-so fashionable and unobtrusive gray, and flirting in what he might have deemed a low-key way with me by saying he’s sitting next to an attractive young lady when talking with his colleague on the phone. He probably thinks this would be elegant, while I just wonder why he would even feel the need to do this. I was merely being friendly before, so he might as well well have called me a nice young lady if he had to. But anyway. He turned to watching something on Netflix on his tablet, and I’m struck by awe about the levels of meta this shit can have: the guy in the suit is watching Suits. Is this some next-level inception shit or what?
–NMS