I just finished watching āTo All the Boys: Always and Forever.ā Iāve been waiting for inspiration to write; I needed a memory far enough back in my past that the blowback from myself would be minimal. (Iāve often thought that other peopleās opinions stop me from writing- most of the time itās to keep myself from exploding.) The movie is about Laura and Peterās senior year of high school, which inevitably made me think of my own. It was so messy and difficult- like many peopleās, probably, with the uniqueness of coming out all over again.
I was out at HSPVA, but my mom didnāt want me to come out at Clements. I had the chance to start over, and she wanted that for both of us. Even at HSPVA, I constantly worried that coming out at school would lead to people finding out at church…. but I didnāt have to worry about that. Everyone in my life figured it out before I had the chance to tell them.
I remember fondly the night I came out to my friend Dianne Maurice, who said āif this conversation hadnāt happened, I would have sat you down and told you.ā She didnāt have to worry. Iād thought and felt attraction to women my whole life, but didnāt have the words to express what I was feeling until I turned 13. But that didnāt mean I didnāt have my share of boyfriends as well, just that it was what I thought I was supposed to do, and dating Ryan was a mountaintop experience for someone so young. How many middle school couples make it to a year and two months? Iām guessing it had something to do with us as friends being two halves of the same person, and middle school romance is sweet and lingering without the constant peer pressure and internal drive to sleep together. As a result, that friendship has grown more tender over time, because we didnāt have a horrible break-up, either….. although it was strange. I came out to him by telling him all the attraction I was feeling to people that were not him, to which he had the best response ever, which was that I was free to think but not to act.
He eventually found someone else, which was wonderful and terrible all at once. Part of me was relieved for him to find someone whose heart wasnāt tearing them apart. The other parts of me felt his absence like a missing limb, and I didnāt date anyone else until the summer before I was a senior. It was a terrible decision, because six weeks later, I met someone I thought was THE ONE, and had to go through the heartbreak of breaking someone elseās heart, always harder than someone breaking yours. It wasnāt a cheating situation- THE ONE didnāt even know I was alive until Christmas.
But I was her friend from the first day of school, because once my dad left the church, I felt free to be whomever I was going to be that year…. which was wearing pride rings to advertise.
I will never in my entire life forget our first phone call. Dr. Steed, my senior English teacher, told us to get the phone number of someone in our class because the work was going to be difficult. I knocked over two desks to get to her and slipped her my number, because it was easier than asking for hers.
The moment I walked into the house after school, literally 30 seconds in, my phone rang. I said, āhello?ā She said, ādo you wear those pride rings because youāre gay, or because youāre an idiot?ā I said āIām gay. Do you have a problem with that?ā She said, āno. Iām a Melissa Etheridge fan.ā It was not a euphemism.
She was dating a hockey player at another school named Mark, a beard she kept up a little too well because it was excruciating watching her basically make out with him on New Yearās Eve. By then, we were together on the down low, even to her closest friends….. because I was out, but she wasnāt. Who would have thought the goalie for the womenās soccer team at my high school was a lesbian? That just doesnāt make sense. š
Prom night was also a mess, because weād sort of gone to Homecoming together- I went with one of her friends so we could be near each other. But by Prom, school was ending and she thought she was ready to be truly seen with me. I bought the perfect dress, and she backed out. She ended up coming over after she was finished at the dance, because I couldnāt just go and watch her. I thought that was crazy. People have asked me many times why I didnāt just break up with her and go out with someone who didnāt have a problem with being out. Listen, itās not like the lesbian dating pool at my high school was huge. In terms of out lesbian, I was the entire club. It was scary walking in the parade all by myself.
But it wasnāt a lost cause. I made it safe for people in younger classes to come out. By the time my younger sister got to high school, people were putting rainbow flags on their backpacks, and Lindsay asked who started it. They said, āI think it was this kid named Leslie.ā
For those who donāt know me in person, the school year was 1995-1996. In that time and place, homosexuality was still considered a mental illness by most of the people around me. It wasnāt that they were hateful, just woefully uneducated. Back then, when I was out and about with my girlfriend, we watched our backs constantly, knowing where and when PDA was appropriate.
Thinking something was wrong with us included her parents. We didnāt tell them- they searched her room and found one of my love letters. We were forbidden to see each other, and like with all teenagers, it didnāt work. We were just even more secretive than we were before….. to the tune of making out in her car near some woods and being caught by the cops, who luckily didnāt do anything except tell us to move along.
In the end, she wasnāt THE ONE, a fact that I ignored for at least ten years. She decided to go back to Canada for college, but before she left, she wanted to get married. Why that didnāt set off alarm bells, Iāll never know…. because how did she think it would work? She couldnāt hide me forever. No way was I going to be her roommate at 30…. even 18 was stretching it. But āroommateā was how it was done in those days, so the fact that same-sex couples can get married and is now so accepted is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.
Like most high school kids, I let the relationship go on too long because I didnāt know how to let go. We were long distance, and I looked into immigrating to Canada, but before I could really start the process, I learned something truly disturbing.
Since I was the internet guru, I looked up all the places gays and lesbians gathered in her city. Well, she went, and she met someone. That wasnāt the problem. If sheād come home that night and said sheād met someone else, it would have been all right. But she didnāt. She dated this person for months, to the point of moving in with her before she was forced to admit what she was doing. I didnāt even find out from her. I found out because her girlfriend e-mailed me, saying that my girlfriend had never told her she was seeing someone when she left Texas and that I should just back out because my girlfriend was hers now. I can still feel that pain as if it was yesterday- not that I live there, itās just present when I think about that time in my life.
Despite that asshole move on both their parts, every trip my ex-girlfriend made to Texas was filled with fun and flirty dates where it felt like we were our old selves, and then a line would get crossed and weād have an old fight over again or I would get torched with jealousy.
Eventually, she settled down, got married, and started having kids. It was only then, a decade later, that she said she was sorry we couldnāt have been partners as adults, because she thought we would have been good at it. Her words were sweet, and I knew thatās how she meant them. A compliment didnāt line up to the way I took it. I was burning with rage. She said something to the effect that sheād thought about getting back together, but she knew sheād treated me so badly that how dare she have the right to ask me to try again? I think all the anger Iād stuffed down so that sheād still want to be my friend surfaced in that moment- not only at the way sheād treated the end of our relationship, but that she took away my choice as to whether Iād have forgiven her or not.
As it was, I was so hurt that I didnāt date anyone from the fall of my freshman year of college until I was a junior. I had major trust issues, and it took me three years to work them out enough to be able to open my heart to someone else.
Apparently, itās a pattern, because I havenāt dated anyone since I broke up with my most recent ex (five years ago, almost six). Probably itās been twice as long because it hurt twice as much, especially since I did a lot of things Iām not proud of in addition to being hurt by her.
I think it might have been different if a couple of years later, my mom hadnāt died. Though I was screaming for a companion in those days, I didnāt want anyone but her- and not because I was stuck in the place of āsheās THE ONE and there shall be no one else.ā It was that I didnāt know anyone as well as I knew her, and the thought of having no history with someone and dragging them into the shitshow of my grief was not appealing in the slightest. I got through by trusting friends, but it wasnāt the same as having someone to hold me at night while I cried.
As I started to come alive again, I realized that going through my grief on my own was a good thing, because I didnāt realize how jealous I was of other people my age who still had their parents. I donāt know how we would have managed that, but my guess is āgood, most of the time, but the bad would have been egregious.ā
I sometimes think it would have been nice to have a mother-in-law as backup, but she wasnāt completely on board with her daughter marrying a woman, either, so I waffle on that point. What I do know is that waiting so long has been helpful, because I feel much freer than I did three years ago. Thereās no lingering emotion from that relationship that would help push a new person away. What I do know, though, is that my next relationship will be completely different, both in my approach and the fact that no one can compare to her- a new person would be in her own class, with her own unique gifts rather than trying to think āsheās better.ā
The last piece of the puzzle is that I havenāt met anyone who has swept off my feet with awe and lust. Of course, that is not how all relationships begin, but in order to want to be romantic with someone, you have to feel something. I did have a conversation with someone about dating, but it was one of those things where my interest was piqued, but I didnāt make any declarations of love or anything. It was just āmaybe dating each other would be fun and we should try it.ā We didnāt, and life quickly moved on because I was never pining.
I really donāt have time for it. My attention is taken up with other things, other people with whom I am not romantic but are such good friends that intimacy happens regardless. A person does not have to be in love with you to see your soul if you make it visible to them. I am lucky to have friends that walk in my inner landscape, and it is surprising how much I value it over finding a partner. Itās not that Iāve given up, itās that Iām perfectly happy to stand back and let them come to me. I donāt have a mad drive that says Iām going to die alone, no matter how many people say that to me because theyāre worried. Trust me, thatās a them problem. I will never die alone because I have friends, constantly undervalued in our society because the fairy tale says I need to find one person that completes me and live happily ever after.
For me, the fairy tale is having friends that truly care what I think and feel, the best lesson Iāve learned in the years that have passed since my first high school romance. I donāt have one person that completes me, I have several who oversee different aspects. I donāt want to live in a world where that is seen as deficiency, but celebrated in its abundance. I know love as deep as an ocean because of them. Our shared history has provided ups and downs that stick in my mind, learning and growing every bit as much as I did when I was partnered- perhaps more as each of them show me who I am. They love me as fallible as I am, which is everything I could hope for in a romance, anyway.
To all the girls, all I can say is āthank you.ā They are such small words, but the depth behind them is huge. Your love is #relationshipgoals enough for me, and I hope I am half the friend that you have been to me. It has certainly been and will continue to be my honor……
Always and forever.