What's wrong with expectations?

I pulled a nice book out of the library. When I Knew, ed. Robert Trachtenberg. A very easy read - a bunch of short essays (sometimes just paragraphs) dealing with, well, when folks knew. Self comings-out.

It has something like eighty, eight-five different stories, listed at the front of the book. Along with each contributor's name, the book gives their primary occupation. From those occupations:
-Nine contributors list their sole occupation as "comic." Apparently growing up gay is growing up in a slowly-ripening joke field. ...I don't know whether I'm being sarcastic there or not, but I did find it a little surprising.
-Fourteen contributors identify themselves as writers. Here, though, they're a lot more likely to double- or triple-occupy themselves; there's a "writer / actor / comedian" and "actor / writer / musician," among others.
-Eight identify themselves as "designers" - fashion, interior, production.
-Seventy (as in an order of magnitude greater than seven) contributors, the vast majority, identify themselves as working within the entertainment industry.

There are a few minority positions. Two of the contributors work in education, one in business, one is a former politician, and one is an attorney.

I'm trying to think of a way to sugarcoat it, but it's not coming. So: If I had gone to the gay section of the library, picked this book out, and sat down to read it and get a realistic (not relativistic) picture of gay people, I would have been disappointed. Crisis: Growing Up Gay in America is a much better anthology, I think, and I would recommend that to anyone who really wants to read what a variety of different experiences are like.

But I shouldn't be too hard on this book. I think it's largely a coffee table book (not about coffee tables, though ... reference, anyone?), and is patently and lightly fluffy in a way that will please any casual readers when they see "I knew I was gay when I outgrew my mother's high heels" or "My father was watching the evening news [in 1969]. The announcer said that Judy Garland had died. I fainted. I was nine." Cue reaction: "Oh, those silly homos!" Such would be my expectation.

The essay I enjoyed most was the attorney's. Excerpted: "While Judy and I spoke, Guy looked at me. He pushed the drawings around on the table. He paged through the brochure. At some point, he interrupted and said, 'You like this stuff? The dancing and the music? You'd rather be here at home by yourself instead of at the baseball field?' ... I said 'sure' or nodded my assent. But the look on his face - which I recall to this day - did me in; it was a mixture of bemusement, disapproval, and disgust. ... My mother found me sitting in the living room, curled up in a corner sofa. I told her I must have fallen asleep, though I hadn't. I'd been awake the whole time, thinking as only a child can, 'Why didn't he like me? What's wrong with me?'"

Maybe the truth of the matter is more in the armchair boy than the boy who experimented with high heels and eyeliner? Or maybe it's just my truth.