As a senior, I knew I had to make my last Halloween at Binghamton University memorable. And a great Halloween always starts with a great costume. It was always a dream of mine to go as a plug and socket but this year, circumstances only allowed for me to take on this costume with another guy.

My friend Benny and I made our purchase while hysterically laughing, but we had yet to decide who would be which half of the costume. With my luck of a coin toss, I got the pleasure of being the socket, even though Benny basically comes up to my elbows.

As we hit Downtown, most people looked at us and laughed. Often, though, the laughter of bystanders gave way to curiosity.

Random people started asking if we were actually gay. No, neither of us are gay; we both think women are annoying as hell, but we’re straight. One kid even came up to me and said, ‘Dude, you’re basically the vagina out of the two.’ It was at this moment that I couldn’t have been prouder of the reasoning ability of the students at this fine University.

With our peers’ mounting curiosity about our costumes, I could not help but think of the recent suicides of kids our age for being bullied over their sexuality. Who is to blame for these tragedies? The bullies themselves, or society as a whole for perpetuating this intolerance?

Just recently, my childhood babysitter, with whom my family remains close to this day, came out to everyone through a speech he made to his synagogue. My family and I had absolutely no idea of his lifelong secret until he forwarded his speech to us. When we saw him in person for the first time since coming out, he jokingly asked me, ‘So do you and your brother feel bad for tossing the word ‘faggot’ around me for all these years?’

I respected him so much more for doing what he did, coming out to an intolerant society where the repercussions could have potentially been devastating. Luckily, he’s faced no backlash from any loved ones since coming out, and continues to face life with a sense of lightheartedness and willingness to deal with any insularity that comes his way.

But our peers who have committed suicide handled their impasse differently.

The fact that they even had to deal with intolerance in an apparently progressive society is shocking. Do people have nothing better to do with their time than to set up streaming webcams to reveal what a same-sex couple does in the privacy of their own bedroom? How does a peer’s sexuality affect us? Why is it any of our concern what anyone’s sexual orientation is?

It’s hard for a straight male to put himself in the shoes of a gay male, but being the socket was the closest thing for me. I was annoyed at all the questions I was receiving about my sexuality just from a harmless costume.

I can’t even begin to imagine the trials and hardships the gay community has to go through on a daily basis just for being themselves. I admire and respect them for refusing to conform to an intolerant and often irrational society.

We’ll see what bigotry next year’s costume provokes from our society.