“Perfectly Normal”

When I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot to do in my hometown, which is actually a city but acts like a town (ex. all the girls get pregnant at 16 and sometimes married at 17 and I’m sometimes if not all the time actually jealous considering they’ve already got two things off my “Things to Do Before You’re Not Pretty Anymore & Gay Marriage is Reconsidered Gross, Again” bucket list, but that’s another story. Anyways, there wasn’t a lot to do, especially in the winter time. The summertime had the town hopping with the beach traffic and 6 pitchers of beer for a dollar deals at the local dive bars, the ones filled with greasy men who smelled like fish and the non self-respecting women who were really into that.

But in the winter, we were usually left as kids to come up with our own entertainment. For most, this meant smoking weed in the backseat of a Malibu, driving the length of the town until the soft rock show “Bedtime Magic” started playing on the radio, or everyone got bored, or the fattest cop in town, who I think is named Frank, finally caught up to you and either told you to go home or stole your weed, for himself I’m assuming. Rude!

But for virgins like me who were in the drama club (which I reminded everyone daily was instead known as the VERY prestigious THEATRE PROGRAM), we kinda weren’t into that at the time. In fact, I was so not into that, you could usually find me hanging out with the Christian kids at youth group, bible study, or “men’s fellowship” (YA AND IM THE GAY ONE, AM I RIGHT). Truth be told, I had tons of fun reading about Jesus and playing dodgeball after. It reaffirmed my faith in God, instilled something in me that wasn’t really there before. Sometimes it just made me feel safe and welcome. Plus I was with good people, it kept me out of trouble, and by the time I got to my freshman year in college, I only blacked out from low exposure to alcohol tolerance like 9 times in the first week! Pretty decent.

Of course, being bored in a town isolated by both water, winter boredom, and very hormonal Christian teenagers wasn’t always that great. To be honest, when I was 17, I wasn’t entirely sure WHAT I was, in a lot of ways, as most teenagers don’t. And for a lot of the time, that really, really sucked. Like, REALLY. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, mostly because my education system was telling me to decide my future at 17 but also because I wasn’t sure where I fit in. I was having a great time in my THEATRE PROGRAM as well as hanging out with the Christian kids. The one sector of my life that didn’t really pan out was my sexuality, which I STILL think is a gross word. I like to think I was too obsessed with myself in high school to really notice anything about myself, or my preferences for people, or who I had feelings for. I had only had one girlfriend in high school who was the nicest girl in the world, at least 20 feet taller than me, had a new boyfriend on a 6 month basis, and broke up with me over the phone while I cried into a box of stale Goldfish crackers my Mom never let me eat because they were my brother’s favorite, (more on my parent’s favoritism of my handicapped brother later). But in actuality she’s great now and has a long-term boyfriend (Hi, Melissa!). But that was in the beginning of high school, and by the time my junior year rolled around I just noticed I wasn’t into the whole boobies thing as much as all the other boys were. But then again, all the other boys were really gross and stinky so I wasn’t into them either. Like I said, ALL the men in my town smell like fish. It’s a thing, look it up.

I thought this must’ve been God’s calling. I’ll take a vow of celibacy and join the Church and LOL NO. What happened was BECAUSE everyone in my town was so bored during the winter and BECAUSE we were crazy teenagers and BECAUSE I let that boy at a sleepover put his hands down my high school track sweatpants (a team I never ran for) when no one was looking I guess I sorta realized I was gay. That and the fact that I had this huge, unexplainable crush on Ryan Seacrest. He’s just such a powerful man, what can I say?

It turns out, the boy happened to, well I guess you could say develop a crush on me. Which is weird because I always thought crushes were things only pretty white girls in John Hughes films had, things that only happened to good looking guys who didn’t smell like fish and girls who’d fall for their every stupid move and over-gelled hair. In part, this was my fault, considering I didn’t know what I was doing and let him put his hands down my pants at sleepover after sleepover. It was wrong of me because we were good friends and I didn’t feel the same way. I was experimenting. I was experimenting with someone who already knew the formula, never a good idea. Also, I have to admit that I was very scared and had no idea what was going on at the time, which I think is a good description for “adolescence”. The good thing is, we’re still friends today, he has a successful YouTube career and he dyed his hair blonde. I still think he posts too many dirty pictures on Tumblr, but that’s besides the point.What happened then was nothing to be upset about. We were both two young gay males figuring things out, it happens! It’s natural. I’m not ashamed by it, nor should I be. The unfortunate part to the story is that this crazy chick that happened to be at all these sleepovers told ALL my friends, including my Christian do-gooders about my secret slumber party sexcapades. And she did so when I was not so ready to come out of the closet. Hell, I wasn’t even fiddling for the handle. I didn’t even know where the closet was!

I lost most of my friends during that period of time in really weird ways. It wasn’t that our friendships were severely cut, but they were changed. We were all so young and stupid and willing to listen to anything that we didn’t know what we were doing. In truth, I became so depressed and confused and shameful and felt GUILTY of who I thought I was and how I felt that I didn’t know what to do. It was so bizarre, I was feeling guilty for something that I had no control over, for being simply myself and being young and gay and really, really into Grey’s Anatomy. Not so much anymore, I stopped watching when they killed off George.

I need to say now that for a long time I’ve been really ashamed to talk about my VERY personal life, especially in a public setting. I guess you could say I’m a bit conservative in a way, due to the fact I hate talking about sex, or swearing, and I think a lot of things are really disgusting, especially Valentine’s Day. But I’m done being ashamed of who I am, the weird things I’ve been through, and how I feel about people. Eventually, of course, I learned I was a “perfectly normal”, for lack of a much better phrasing of words, gay male who was just trying to figure it all out. My friends of course, the ones who loved me, supported me, and deserved the same from me, stayed with me throughout my whole self-evaluation of who I was and who I wanted to be.

And that girl who told everyone I was gay before I was ready? Yeah, she’s fucking nuts and gained like a lot of weight, like A LOT. I’m NEVER one to mock someone for that, because all body sizes and shapes are beautiful. But I don’t really care, she was a bitch and really messed up my life at the time and I can’t remember who deleted who off Facebook first and THAT’S what really pisses me off. But her, I’ve forgiven. Not to her face, because I don’t know where she is now (probably an insane asylum), but in my heart I have forgiven her. Partly because I hope she gets mental help soon, but mostly because holding onto anger and bitterness is emotional constipation, and too big of a cross to bear. I’m still coming to terms with myself, but at least along the way I’ve learned that the only judgment we’ve to fear is from the man staring back in the mirror. His perspective is the one that matters most. And I’ve learned he’ll judge you fair, if you play your cards right. Even if you’re from a smelly fish town with a sick sense of humor and even sicker stories of teenage sexual epiphanies.

Oh yeah, and my ex-girlfriend? (lol it just sounds funny for me to say) She gave me a lovely copy of the Holy Bible as a high school graduation present. Which I used as a prop in a marvelous directing project that explored concepts of both God and sexuality.

Go figure.