Falling
in love is sweet and innocent, awkward and unnerving, invigorating and the most
natural feeling in the world. When it happens for the first time, I’m sure that
all the emotions that come flooding into a young person are similar whether that
person is gay or straight, but I think often the context is very different for
sexual minorities. Imagine a young gay teen falling in love 5, 10 or 15 years
ago, or even today. Will this young person, still unsure of why he or she feels
differently from their peers, have had a chance to really understand and accept
their sexuality by the time the first experience of same sex love occurs?
My
first time falling in love was a rollercoaster of friendship and confusion and
disaster. Here is that story.
I was
a very shy kid growing up, a definite introvert. Academics interested me more
than social activities, athletics, or friendships. But at least as early as
junior high school my attraction to males started to be tangible. I took notice
of other guys, and began to feel elements of sexual and emotional attraction. Because
I could usually pass as “straight” at school, I managed to mostly escape the
teasing and bullying that so often befalls gay and transgender youth. I don’t
recall ever being the target of overt homophobia, but at the same time I
definitely absorbed the ever-present message that being gay was equivalent to
social suicide. Growing up it was more or less my highest priority to keep my
same-sex attractions secret.
Until
high school I generally had few close friends. My sophomore year however, I
started to develop some of my first close friendships. A half dozen guys and
girls, we met in a history class where we had an unconventional and inspiring teacher.
I began to hang out with my new group of intellectually-inclined friends and do
things becoming of our newly-discovered teenage omniscience: talk about forming
rock bands and probe the bottomless well of sarcasm.
With the
growth of these new friendships, I started to feel strongly at that point in my
life that I really wanted a best friend. Two guys in this small circle of
friends, it seemed, were already becoming best friends. Except for a close
friend from early elementary school, this was something I lacked. With time I
became close with PJ, a guy who was not part of that original circle that began
in my sophomore year. PJ was one year younger than me, but he was really my
superior in many ways, especially academically. I looked up to him. He was
intelligent, independent, and wildly ambitious.
Over
the course of a few months we became really close friends. We shared interests
in biology, music and school. The summer between my junior and senior years PJ
and I spent time together almost every day. We went swimming, hiking, and
exploring at the beach. We bonded to a degree that I had not experienced in
life before. Whereas I was (and often remain) reflexively shy in larger groups,
I loved the one-on-one interactions. In fact, having a best friend was the most
incredible thing to me up to that point in life.
An
interesting experience with PJ involved an early connection to Mormonism, a
worldview that would later shape many of my decisions over the next decade and
a half and have a significant effect on how I interacted with my sexuality.
Both
PJ and I were interested in two LDS girls at our high school who were in my
graduating class. They came from very devout and conservative Mormon homes.
These young women were athletic, intelligent, and pretty. In fact, MM, the girl
that PJ liked, would go on to become the homecoming queen of my high school during
my senior year. PS, the girl that I liked, was attractive and sweet. PJ’s love
for his Mormon crush, as far as I knew, was genuine and deep. But if there is
any objective way to quantify romantic intensity, I’m sure that my level of
interest in my Mormon “crush” was much more benign. I “liked” PS on and off for
perhaps 6 years growing up, but I doubt there was a whole lot of intensity to
those feelings.
True
to his ambition and intensity, PJ concocted a plan for the ultimate double date
towards the beginning of my senior year: the two non-Mormon boys and the two Mormon
girls would have the perfect dinner together and then see the band U2 in concert.
PJ
took the lead on preparations for the whole night and I was more than thrilled
to be participating in such a once-in-a-lifetime event with my best friend. PJ
selected the restaurant and went out of his way to let the staff know that it
was a special night. The concert part of our date was pretty incredible. For
starters, somehow PJ had secured floor seats in a massive stadium that was
hosting the world’s most popular band at the time. Of course I loved the music,
and during one of the band’s best songs, I recall looking behind me to see some
of the upper tiers of the stadium visibly moving (earthquake shocks it must
have been) as the crowd jumped to the song in unison.
The
most amazing part of the evening, technically, was that we somehow managed to
obtain the good graces of two sets of conservative Mormon parents enough to let
their daughters attend this concert, 45 minutes away from home, with two
non-Mormon teenage boys. The night went without hitch of course, because
despite being non-Mormon heathens, we were still in reality two good boys. I’m
sure also that the threat of the wrath of God hung over us that night. But,
unbeknownst to everyone, that wasn’t really needed for me. I was gay, the
safest date a young Mormon girl could ask for. I was in love with PJ.
One of
the things I have learned over the last few years since coming out is how my
emotional attractions are an integral component of my sexuality. I have had many
healthy platonic friendships with men, but a few times in life I have developed
very strong emotional connections to other guys. This friend, PJ, was an early
and profound example to me that the feelings of love we are capable of having
for another person really constitute a broad spectrum of attractions. At the
age of 17, I believed (or at least told myself) that I just wanted a best
friend; now I know that I naturally wanted emotional intimacy with another
human being. Without self or societal acceptance, how can the closeted young
person properly interpret those blossoming romantic feelings?
When I
try to think back on what endeared me to PJ, it was not really his physical
looks. He wasn’t unattractive, but his looks were secondary to other feelings I
had for him. He was incredibly intelligent and ambitious. He expanded my
horizons intellectually and challenged me to come out of my introverted shell. Though
we lost contact after high school, I learned that he went to college at one of
most prestigious universities in the US
I
don’t know exactly why PJ was interested in my friendship. I think it started,
in part, because he himself had few close friends. To him, I may have been the
kind of malleable friend who is perfect for ambitious people in need of an
audience. His interests were easily my interests and I was willing to go along
on any adventure if it involved his company. If he gained a disciple of sorts
and rides in my car from time to time, I in turn, benefited from the emotional
comfort of a strong new friendship.
 |
| Sunset at one of our beach spots. |
Like
most first loves, this one ended, but it ended pretty badly for me. Because my
attractions for PJ clearly ran deeper than a close friendship, over time I
found myself wanting more from the relationship. I wanted to be around him more
often, even when we already spent hours together, and I wanted to have a deeper
emotional connection. I was jealous, for example, of his interest in his Mormon
crush, even though she didn’t seem to reciprocate his feelings. Soon I began to
smother the friendship we had formed. PJ, confused and frustrated, began to
withdraw from me. In turn, I struggled immensely with feelings of insecurity,
sadness and loss. I simply couldn’t tell PJ what was going on. I just wasn’t
ready to be honest with anyone, even myself, about my sexuality. There was
nothing in my limited universe to indicate that my feelings for a guy were
normal and healthy, and I had no one I was comfortable turning to.
After
a few months struggling through a friendship, PJ determined that we could no
longer be friends. He suspected I was gay, I found out, when I secretly read
some of his journal. He had confided with a counselor at school who suggested
as much. I was crushed and terrified when I learned this. Understandably, the
invasion of his privacy only exacerbated the difficulties between us. Whether
homophobia had any role in driving him away, I do not know, but it was clear
that we wanted different things out of the relationship and I was an emotional
mess.
It has
been two decades since PJ and I last had a conversation. For years after high
school he would appear in my dreams. Most of those dreams revolved around the
same theme – we would to one degree or another become reconciled. We would be
friends again. He would accept and forgive me. Though our new friendship in
those dreams was always more constrained than what we experienced in high
school, I took comfort in them because of the reconciliation. These dreams
pretty much ended a few years ago, but it amazes me that I had them for such a
long period of time.
In
large measure this really difficult emotional experience during high school
probably pushed me into the next chapter in my life, an affiliation with
Mormonism. In the wake of a disaster mostly of my own creation, I needed
something to guide me and support my struggling self. This came from
well-intentioned Mormon high school friends who invited me to their activities
and befriended me. They were attractive, kind, intelligent and successful. Ever
interested in the “truth”, I was intrigued by an ideology that talked so much
about truth and striving for excellence. After several months learning about
the religion, I joined the Church after high school. Mormonism would turn out
to have a profound negative effect on my journey as a gay person, but it also
brought many positive things into my life during the years I was an active
member.
What
have I learned from falling in love years ago to my straight best friend and
from experiences since? First, I gained an important reference point for
understanding the depth and scope of my attractions. Homosexuality is not just
about sex, but like any manifestation of sexuality, it is about the range of
connections that two individuals can share. Though the nature and magnitude of
feelings were unreciprocated, I felt for a time that PJ was my partner. And I
think that consciously or subconsciously, I have desired to have that depth of
connection with another person for many years.
Second,
I’ve learned a little that falling in love can bring out some of the best and
worst tendencies we possess as individuals. In our better moments, love serves
as a motivation to put off our own interests in order to meet the needs and
expectations of others. We sacrifice and adapt working together. We learn and
we teach each other in relationships. We grow the small single-occupancy universes
we inhabit a little more to encompass two souls.
Yet, in
rendering us vulnerable to another person, love can also summon our
insecurities like few other events. In the process of becoming vulnerable, we
hand someone else our heart and expect that they will know what to do in order
to treat it right. Sometimes, our feelings of self worth can get a little too tied
up in how our romantic partner views and treats us. We might struggle with
feelings of rejection when the intensity of feelings is not reciprocated. In
the case of my high school love, I wanted the approval of an old friend for
many years during dreams I had while deep in the closet. Perhaps it is a coincidence
that the dreams more or less ended – the real reconciliation occurred - when
that approval eventually came from within after coming out and accepting myself
as gay. Perhaps not.
