Since we started our Blog about 3 months ago I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about being gay and how long it took me to fully accept who I was. Only about 30 years. In an earlier Blog I spoke generally about coming out. This Blog is not so much about coming out but the stupid and hurtful and just plain funny shit I did to myself and other people to hide who I was. In hindsight it seems more pathetic and sad than anything else. The best advice I could give to anyone coming out today is to realize if someone does not accept you for who you are they do not deserve to have you in their life.
After playing with my first guy in college and throwing him to the wayside when we were discovered I found a girlfriend. When I say found I am kind of joking. It wasn’t like I said to myself, “oh, you better get yourself a girlfriend so no one knows your gay.” I believe it was subconscious. Either way I did do just that. She was good looking and had a great body.
In my head at this point I was still telling myself I was unsure I was gay, but I knew. I probably thought I could talk myself out of it. I really envy anyone who just came out and that was it and they were not going to be hindered by anyone.
I remember as a graduation present from college I was given a stay at my favorite hotel in the US. What should have been paradise was really a special kind of hell. I don’t think my girlfriend and I had ever spent 10 days alone together. She was very demanding to say the least. Instead of being in paradise I was in Hell. For anyone who has been reading our Blog you may recall, “Partying in the 70’s,” which talked about drugs. We both loved quaaludes.
So, we are in the dining room at the hotel eating dinner after having our pre dinner cocktail with a few ludes, To be more precise we are eating dinner off our rocker. This is a long long time ago so I cannot remember what precipitated the argument we got into or even what it was about and it really makes no difference to the story. For whatever reason after some words she storms back to the room and leaves me eating alone, to my delight. Well, I decided it was the perfect excuse to have sex with the second man in my life, I was 22 and starting to learn that people liked to look at me. I am sure the only reason I had the nerve to do what I did was because I was high. I cannot believe I even had the idea I did. Sometimes I really do surprise myself. I left the table went to the front desk and asked for another room. After getting back to the table I finished my main course and asked for the waiter who I had noticed eyeing me earlier in the evening. I have no recollection of what I said to him but I essentially told him to take a break and meet me in my new room. I left the table went to the new room and had some fast and furious sex with him. After about fifteen minutes we both went back to the dining room. Me for desert and the waiter to finish his shift. After desert and leaving the waiter a big tip I went back to the room my girlfriend and I were sharing and I presumed we continued to fight.
Despite the fact I was an asshole I look back at this and laugh a bit. Not about what I did, but about my being such a good planner. Over and over I have done this with women when we have had problems, instead of working things out I have to run to a man for escape. What an indication I was gay, yet I continued to see women. The worst part about my daring escapade was that practically everyone at the hotel knew my family or me. For about two years I always looked down at the ground when I was at the hotel not wanting to connect eyes with anyone who knew me.
Sometime after my disastrous relationship with my girlfriend ended I met my first real boyfriend while living in Chicago. It was a good first real relationship. It was difficult for me though as he was openly gay and of course I was in the closet. It would not have been fair for me to ask him to pretend we were just friends, In those day the metrosexual did not exist. If they did he could have passed for straight and I would not have been so concerned if we were seen together. I was constantly on the lookout. We would be on the streets in the city and I felt like a criminal. I would constantly be looking ahead, to my right, to my left and behind me to see if there was anybody that could possibly recognize me. I loved winter it was so cold in Chicago and no one could possibly know who I was underneath my hat, jacket, hat and gloves. Summer was a different story calling for a lot more vigilance on my part. Sunglasses were not enough to disguise me. I would be so relieved when we got home unseen it was exhausting to do all this alone and I didn’t feel it was his job to be on the lookout with me.
I was always scared going to gay bars and clubs with him. The first thing I would do was excuse myself and take a quick look around the place and see if there was anyone I knew. Like big deal if there was, what were they doing there? I was so scared of what would happen that it was probably about 5 years before I gained enough courage to go to a gay bar by myself.
It was not only my family but people I worked with I was scared of, In my own defence I did work in a career where to be gay was like a death sentence, Okay, I am being a bit dramatic but most likely if people knew you were gay you would not make any money,
A little lesson before I go on and I would hope anyone reading takes note. When my boyfriend and I stopped seeing each other we would still see each other occasionally for sex. He still had the keys to my apartment, One evening my old girlfriend was in the city and wanted to go out. She got very drunk and was too drunk to drive home I had her stay over. The easiest thing for me is to sleep in the same bed with someone I don’t care about and don’t want to have sex with. The next morning as we are both in bed sleeping I heard the bedroom door open. I lift my head and to my surprise I am staring in my ex boyfriends eyes, He takes one look at me and storms out. He never believed nothing happened. Lesson learned. Never let anyone you are involved with have keys to both of your locks. Keep the deadbolt key only for yourself. It might be your only safety and sanity!
At this point I was not really thinking of the consequences of my actions to myself or other people. I was simply trying to get through life. I was having fun and still hoping I might be straight enough to marry a women. I now took my horse and pony show to Los Angeles where I tried to ”discover,” myself or delude myself some more.
I was 30 when I moved probably with the mentality of a 20 year old. Right after I moved I had an accident and was laid up in bed for about 4 months. Boring. An aunt of mine who I was very close to decided I should come stay with her so I was not alone. She lived alone in a big house with help, perfect. Computers were not big like they are today. Very few people had them. I am not sure how I discovered them but there were phone sex lines, I was in heaven. In bed all day and all I did was sit on the lines and find guys to beat off with.
I did this for a month and one day my aunt comes to my room in hysterics because she has a phone bill for a couple thousands dollars. She thinks someone has tapped into her phone or something. Somehow I convinced her to let me talk to the phone company and get it taken care of. I can’t remember if I paid it or convinced the phone company some kind of mistake had been made. I don’t know if it was a wakeup call or what but this was the first time I had hurt someone close to me with my antics. I decided I needed some help.
I hightailed it to the best psychiatrist I could find. He told me first off that I needed some anti-depressants. Prozac just came out. The new drug that could help anyone!! I soon was up to 100 mg a day, He said the prozac would make the ideas stop swirling in my head and I would then be able to work on the things that were bothering me and make some decisions about them. The straight -gay problem.
Although I decided in my head I was gay, I still tried to play it straight to the world except with whatever guy I might be sleeping with. For a while it was the perfect combo. My public girlfriend and my private boyfriend. Perfect until my two worlds collided and they two of them became friendly.. Try managing that and keeping it a secret. No wonder I needed medication.
Another time my girlfriend and I were in a store where we shopped and she was in the dressing room trying on clothes when the saleswomen asked her how she knew me. She said I was her boyfriend. The stupid saleswoman replied but I always see him in here with so and so, I thought they were boyfriends.
By this time I was living next door to the hotel I talked about earlier. It was about 7 years after my incident in the dining room. The hotel had a fantastic pool that everyone tried to go for sun, swimming, lunch and to just fuck around. Very few people were let in unless they were lucky enough to be staying at the hotel. Anyway I would sometimes go with my girlfriend and other times with men, who I always said were relatives. I am sure I fooled no one. I was not an outright liar but I considered myself one by omission.
In a previous Blog I wrote about the time I made a guy hide in my dressing closet when an aunt came over to visit unexpectedly and we sat and talked in the bedroom for an hour and a half while he was sitting in my closet.
I could go on these are only some of the dumb, thoughtless, hurtful, insensitive ways I treated other people. I did them to protect myself from facing up to who I was. Looking back I could be ashamed, I am not, I am sorry for whatever hurt or pain I may have caused anyone. For whatever reasons I was not lucky enough to have the coping skills or the tools I needed to be true to myself.
I would like to believe that everything happens for a reason, That being the case every fuckup that I made in my life brought me to where I am today and I really feel like the luckiest person in the world. If things had not happened the way they did Aaron and I would not have been brought together. I do hope it is easier to be yourself today than when I was growing up. One important thing that I finally came to realize is that until you are true to yourself you can never be yourself. Hope that doesn’t sound trite.
Now that I have shared what a mess I was, let me know what disastrous things any of you have done to hide who you are. I hope I am not the only idiot. Please if any of you have questions about us or anything let us know.
