Okay, so maybe it’s not the worst thing I ever did, but it ranks right up there.
I was in the tenth grade. I knew I was gay. Every single day of my life, though, I had to hide that fact from everyone: my parents, my brother, my friends … even (and especially) the other guys I had those painful teenage crushes on.
I hope my straight readers will take a moment to think about what it feels like to live in that situation, especially as a teenager. How much of your high school life revolved around dating, flirting, wanting to be attractive, and enjoying being attracted to the opposite sex?
For a gay kid, though — at least, for this gay kid, growing up in the fundamentalist South in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s — surviving high school involves not being able to ask that special person out, not being able to flirt, and having to hide your attraction to the people you find attractive. Meanwhile, in order to blend in, you have to go on dates with, flirt with, or act attracted to people you don’t really feel attracted to at all.
You have to lie, every day of your life. Believe me: that’ll warp you.
So there I was, in the tenth grade, relatively happy … but also feeling a very real desperation, deep inside. I had lots of friends — several close friends — but I was always forced to wonder how many of them would still love me if they knew the real me.
That year, I had an amazing friend we’ll call “Josh” (not his real name). We were virtually inseparable. Josh and I didn’t have to be doing anything, really — we just enjoyed being with each other. In a way, the casual comfort we felt with each other very much foreshadowed the sort of comfort I would eventually find again in my relationship with Clyde.
Anyway: the summer after our 10th grade year, Josh and I spent a lot of time together. Late one night, after an exhausting day at Six Flags over Georgia, during one of those long, lazy, all-night conversations that only teenagers have, I finally told him the truth: “I’m gay.”
Josh was not taken aback at all. “Okay, so … you’re pretty sure you’re gay. You know, maybe you’re not — maybe you just feel gay now. I know people who thought they were gay, and didn’t turn out to be. But even if you are gay, you’re still my best friend. Nothing’s changed.”
Josh was understanding and supportive. I couldn’t have asked for a better “first time to tell anyone” experience.
And then — I panicked. I had visions of Josh telling everyone — including my parents — that I was gay, even though I knew, in my heart, that he wasn’t the kind of person who would do such a thing.
“Ah ha!’ I screamed. “It’s a joke! I sure had you going, didn’t I? Me? Gay? Oh, come on! I’m as straight as they come! Always have been, always will be! But I sure put one over on you, didn’t I?”
Josh blinked. “So you’re not gay.”
“No, no, no!” I insisted. “I was joking, dude. Totally joking! Just to freak you out. Me? Gay? Not a chance! But you should have seen the look on your face! Ha ha ha haaa!”
Josh was crushed. “I believed you. I was honest with you. I told you how I really felt, and was willing to accept you for you you really are … and you were lying to me? Making a fool out of me? What kind of friend are you?”
My backtracking — my decision to lie again instead of sticking with the truth — cost me Josh’s friendship. We never spoke again.
The experience taught me a valuable lesson at a high price.
To this day — thirty years later — I wish I could take that moment back.
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