I was flipping through the channels the other day when I came across a game show called Baggage.  The details of show are a little fuzzy, but the main point is that a man or woman will somehow select a person they want to potentially date.  Once selected, the dater then opens a suitcase to reveal their “baggage” and the datee has the option to decide if it is “too much” baggage and not go on a date or look past whatever it is and hit the town.

In this particular episode a man was revealing his baggage to a woman.  When he opened the suitcase there is a small sign that read “I’ve had sex with a man.” The woman claimed this was too much baggage and sent him on his merry way.  Clearly I was outraged (as I so often am)!

First of all, why does this constitute baggage?  So he got drunk at a party in college, or (gasp) enjoys sex with all people and is comfortable enough to share that with you.  I seriously do not think that a heterosexual person who has at some point in the past had some sort of sexual encounter with someone of the same sex consider that baggage.  For me, baggage is something like I was left at the alter and now have commitment issues, I have 3 children, I live with my mother, etc.  There is no reason that sex should constitute baggage.

Of course the, slightly, larger issue here is that the woman said his baggage was TOO MUCH!  Seriously, lady?  I understand that baggage comes from events and emotions in the past and dealing with past relationships.  But his admission of having sex with someone of the same sex seems to me as though it was a one time encounter (purely by the use of man and not men).  Should that then deter her from picking him?  He did not say he is currently having sex with men or that he intends to do so in the future.  Why is it such a deal-breaker for this potential date to have had sex with another man?  If he’d had sex with a prostitute or used a call girl would she have still said no?

I simply do not understand why this was something too shocking and out of the ordinary that should could not (or would not) look beyond and enjoy a date with a man she was clearly attracted to.  I just don’t ‘get’ people.