My own feeling about JJ, without knowing anything about him, was that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke American. A lot of Americans are gay people, aren't they? I know they didn't invent gayness, because they say that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it back into fashion. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: it disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century. Anyway, I didn't know anything about gays, so I just presumed they were all unhappy and wanted to kill themselves.
The speaker reflects on their first impression of a character named JJ, associating his long hair and American speech with a likelihood of being gay. They generalize that many Americans are part of the LGBTQ+ community, although they acknowledge that homosexuality has historical roots in ancient Greece. The speaker seems to view gayness as a concept that was revived in modern times, akin to the return of the Olympics. This comparison suggests a belief that gay culture was once lost and later rediscovered.
Despite the characterization, the speaker admits to a lack of knowledge about gay individuals and inadvertently reveals a stereotype by assuming they are generally unhappy and even suicidal. This presumption indicates a societal bias that conflates being gay with despair. Overall, it highlights a mix of confusion, assumptions, and societal narratives surrounding sexual identity and the complexities of understanding another's experience.
