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smartwittyurl asked: Performance Interview Question: Do either of you have any advice for young, gay, teens?

Holmes: I find it endlessly annoying that I am now looked to for advice on all manner of so-called “gay issues” just by virtue of being in a relationship with a man, as if that empowers me as some sort of spokesman or expert on the subject. I was never a gay teenager so I have no advice to offer.

Watson: Sherlock, do shut up, you’re very much in the way. Please don’t mind him, he was sick the day they taught tact at school.

Holmes: And a good job I was, as that would have been an abhorrent waste of my educational time.

Watson: I wasn’t a gay teenager either, but I was a very poor teenager who was ostracized, so I think I can empathize. My advice would be the same that I’d give to any teen who feels like an outsider. Find people you can connect with, wherever and whoever they are. On the Internet, you’re never alone. Find a safe person in your life who you can talk to, whether it’s your parents or an aunt or a friend’s parent or even the barista at the coffeeshop.

Holmes: Oh, that’s lovely advice, John. Advise an at-risk youth to seek out the company of strangers.

Watson: Don’t sit there and act like you weren’t an outsider as a teenager, either. How did you handle it?

Holmes: I didn’t need to handle it. I was quite independent and happy to be so.

Watson: Some of us need the society of other people. The other thing that helped me when I was a kid was having my own pursuits. I used to want to be a doctor. I studied medical textbooks all the time and thought about what I’d do when I was free and could do as I liked. Because that time will come. Sherlock, please bestir that massive intellect and offer some kind of advice that isn’t useless, there’s a good chap.

Holmes: Very well, then. I’d advise any teenager, especially one struggling with their identity and their place in the world, to make themselves interesting. You’ll be the one living inside your own head for your entire life, make sure the environs are stimulating. Read on a variety of subjects, listen to a lot of different people. Learn about everything you can. Practice talking about your own thoughts and opinions. Become a communicator. Absorb as much of the vastness of the human experience as possible. Make yourself interesting and you will never be bored or alone, and neither will the people you will meet in life.

Watson: Now, was that so hard? That was lovely advice.

Holmes: By the way, “young, gay teens” is redundant, as “teens” are by definition “young.”

Watson: I rescind my previous statement.

18 August 2011 ·

• Tags
• performance in a leading role
• ask john and sherlock