It was a computer at which, in years past, I had exchanged e-mails with middle-aged men about sex and sexuality. Some of them had been good to me, offering advice and the vaguely comforting sense that they'd "been there." Most of them were unhappy, unattractive in that they were still sitting in the darkness of their own living rooms. Hiding.
It was also a computer at which I had constructed fake internet personalities that suggested the kind of boys I wished I had been. Boys braver, more boyish, more likable than I thought myself. You are what you are not. The boys who I pretended to be were those whose energy was directed outwards rather than inwards. Boys who explored what lay under the stones they found in the woods rather than what lay beneath those less-tangible things they found within themselves. They laughed often; swung their arms when they were excited; grinned broad grins; spoke countless words to crowds of attentive people rather than writing to an audience that consisted only of the self.
"My eyes look back, they self-examine," I wrote at seventeen in my journal. "They look for solid answers. My mind wanders back to... the fact that I'm always alone..."
I was lonely and alone among friends, writing to a girl who lived in California simply because she existed in the realm of elsewhere, in a world other than my own. She was less of a threat to the reality I wanted to preserve, where I could be silently gay forever: "If I could go my whole life without telling anyone what I'm about to tell you, I would"-- a sad statement not only because I desired such a fabricated existence, but also because my internal ache was becoming so unbearable that my speaking out, my coming out, was perceived as inevitable in spite of such a desire.
"I think I trust you more than anyone," I write to Megan. It's a lie. She was the intended recipient of this letter, the later recipient of another letter saying a more concise and less honest version of this one, but the only reason that I was sending it to her was because I knew she didn't exist in my day-to-day world. I could live with her never speaking to me again: "I'm not ready to lose a friend over it." I just needed to prove to myself that I could do it. I was in the bottom of a well looking up at daylight, realizing where I was and where I could be. This letter unsent signifies the beginning of my ascent.
In one of the paragraphs most unusual for to me read now, I mention my friend Jacob, who I've known longer than I've known any of my friends, and how I might not blame him if he found out and never spoke to me again. Six months or so after this, I will have come out to him. He will be driving his car and I will be riding shotgun, waiting until this moment exactly because that way I do not have to look him in the eye. My hands tremble and fumble in the dusty heat exhaled from the vents of his station wagon. In the year that follows before we leave for college, we will continue to have these conversations, confessing things we had imagined we would never speak, assigning words to ideas thought inarticulate. We are infatuated with our own reluctant audacity. We drive through the darkness of the night, through the sleeping suburbs we've grown up in, then in-between the tall buildings of a city we're only beginning to know and then we ascend the mountains. We reach the peak and for a moment we can see through the dead winter trees the persistent quivering light of Harrisburg. Here we are not still going up, not yet coming down; we are all potential energy, like a book on the edge of a desk. We are glowing. And then we are not--we are descending, weaving through the trees which are no longer trees but shadows pierced by headlights. We are breathless, returning.
-----
"OK, Megan. The e-mail I'm about to type is the single most difficult thing I've written. Because I'm typing something I've held inside for many years. It's something that's torn me up, broken me down, taken over my mind and confused me for a long, long time. I've never told anyone this before and I don't want to now. If I could go my whole life without telling anyone what I'm about to tell you, I would. Because it's not something that makes me happy, it's not something I want, it's not something that will, in any way, make my life easier. And maybe I'm wrong for feeling like I do, but I can't help it. I feel like I'm justified, even if it is wrong of me.
I'm gay, Megan. By that, I mean exactly what the word means. I'm sexually attracted to guys.It doesn't define me in any other way, it doesn't change who I am, it doesn't make any different than any other guy other than that one detail. The reason I say this is because, in our culture, it seems to mean a whole lot more than it should. It seems to imply that a guy is effeminate, that a guy likes things that straight guys don't. But it doesn't and that's the only reason this is difficult for me. Because I refuse to be defined like that. And I can't say this to most people without them attaching a stereotype to me. I would be assigned to a grouping, a mislead belief, a standard. And that alone makes me upset, angry, possibly even ashamed of who I am.
At the same time, Megan, I have to make sure that you know that in no way do I want to be pitied or sympathized with. If I was stronger, I'd tell everyone who I was and let them make their assumptions about me and, very easily, I'd prove them wrong. That's probably what a lot of people need right now, someone to break down barriers and, at least at this point in my life, I cannot be that person. I really just can't be myself Megan, but at the same time, I don't want to be myself then. Because more important to me than anything else, I want to be accepted. People do accept me now. I make an effort to be everyone's friend and I succeed in that. I love people. I thrive off of knowing that people like me and genuinely care for me. I thrive off of knowing that people know I care about them. I'm a sensitive person, Megan, I know this. I'm fairly sure that you can't be an artist without being a sensitive person and I do consider myself an artist. I'm a creative person. In order to be an artist, you have to be sensitive to the world; sensitive to it's beauty, sensitive to it's people, sensitive to emotion and feeling...my English teacher, Mr. Frengel, and I had a conversation about what qualifies one as an artist and that's what we came up with. He's married and has a kid, so that can't be a characteristic of someone who's gay, unless he's living a lie.
What I'm really trying to say, Megan, is that I don't fit the part our society's assigned to gays. I may not be the most masculine guy in the world (I'm far from it) but I don't think anyone would pick me out as gay. I could be wrong. But people like me. I've seen what people do to the gay kids, but I don't act like them either. I never would because it's not who I am. They flaunt their homosexuality like it's a statement of some kind, as if it's a style or a way of life. But it's not. I don't think it's as simple as anyone makes it out to be. I'm not saying everyone's attracted to both sexes, but I know that I'm emotionally attracted to women the way most guys are. I write stories about falling in love with women and it comes out perfectly. In my mind, in my stories, I don't have to be sexually attracted to them. I can see all that is appealing about them without lust or sexuality involved. I guess it makes for very romanticized writing, but it works none the less. I know for a fact I can't write for anything about guys. I can only write about them as friends or brothers. Maybe that'll change when I'm more comfortable with myself. This is the only thing about myself that I'm not comfortable with, but it's a big thing.
Maybe I'm just a rare case. Or maybe there are other guys like me, they're just not ready yet as well. It's probably much easier for the people who fit what society expects of them to come out. They're easy to detect.
I don't know, Megan. I'll only be able to tell people I trust for now, like you. It's funny...you were my first girlfriend. I didn't know at that age...I wasn't even thinking much sexually at all at that point. But all through middle school I told you everything, up until 8th grade. I've known since the end of 7th grade....at first I just thought it was a phase and I mostly ignored it. But while I was dating Noelle, I knew deep down. That's why I never did anything with her, not even kissed her. I couldn't. It didn't feel right. I cared about her a whole lot, I just couldn't feel all the feelings I was supposed to, needed to. I wanted to want to kiss her, but that's not good enough. It was the most confusing thing I've ever dealt with. I was dating Noelle, but I kept thinking about Kyle. Which is made even weirder by the fact that he was her ex-boyfriend.
I just want you to accept me Megan and understand what I'm going through. All I need you to do is honestly understand that I'm not any different. So i guess what I'm saying is that this e-mail should make no difference in your perception of me other than the fact that I'm not into girls. Which, I guess, is both a big difference and not really much of one at all.
One last thing. You're the only person I've told this to and plan to tell this to for a good while. I'd hate for anyone else to find out in any way other than me telling them, but the reason I'm telling you is because I do trust you. Really, I think I trust you more than anyone. It helps that i don't have to tell my first person in person, but I don't think I would've been able to. And after you reply, maybe it'd even be a good idea to actually talk on the phone. But I'm not ready to just yet.I'm afraid of how Jake or any other of my guy friends would react. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't faze Jake that much actually, but I'm not positive and I'm not ready to lose a friend over it. Because I don't think I'd be able to hold it against him if he didn't want to talk to me ever again, honestly. That sounds awful and maybe it's not entirely true. I don't know.
The last thing I'll say is that I've been writing this e-mail in my head all day. It's taken me almost two hours to write. But it feels so good to get it out. What finally got me to send it to you was remembering that in 9th grade you wrote a speech supporting gay marriage. I figured that meant you had an open mind and that sealed my decision. And although I'm still not sure whether or not I agree with the idea (just because it still seems weird, the idea of two guys getting married) I knew I could count on you not to judge me. So thanks Megan. For everything you've done and everything you mean to me."
No comments:
Post a Comment