I have known I was different since before puberty. My first crushes were boys my age, I remember asking my neighbor and best friend, at the time, Chris, to marry me when we were 4 or 5, and being so excited when he said yes, and so crushed when my parents firmly said boys don’t marry boys. If only they knew what the world would be like 28 years later. I remember the excitement of watching Real Sex on HBO when I was 11 or 12, waiting to see a scene with a naked guy, wishing there were more of those scenes. I remember our yearly trips to either Nags Head or Myrtle Beach, typically rotating between the two because of the difference in cost between the two, and the difference in the amount of leave my parents had to take off work to go. I remember my first major adolescent crush, although his name slips me all these years later. We were in Myrtle Beach and I was 13. My parents allowed me to rent the beach bikes (the 3 wheel beach cruisers) and I would spend much of the afternoon running up and down the beach, exercising and enjoying my freedom from my family. I would gawk at the other teenage boys, wishing I could be open about my desires. This particular summer I had ran into another kid my age, and his younger brother. My 13 year old self couldn’t get enough of him. We became fast friends. We would ride around the beach all day most days, we would get permission from our parents to ride as far as our little legs could take us. There was nothing physical, but oh, trust me, my mind went there. I remember that Friday we were leaving to head back to Virginia, and he wasn’t leaving until Sunday. I begged my parents to extend our stay a couple more days. I begged for one more day. Then I cried and cried as we drove off, Myrtle Beach fading into the background, and my first crush fading into the depths of time. We kept in touch for a while, he was from somewhere in Canada, and we had exchanged addresses before leaving. But as we started school back up, and the months ticked by, our letters to each other became more and more distant until one day they stopped. I had a pretty good childhood, although my parents were far from accepting of homosexuality. My dad had a white collar job working in a blue collar department with the city. Most of his coworkers were like him, hardworking men with minimal education. Honest, good people, but hardly the bastion of acceptance in the 90’s. I remember when Ellen came out, and I was so excited, yet crushed at the same time. A celebrity, someone famous, had the nerve to come out on national television. It was amazing. The world was slowly changing. Then, my dad flipped the channel, while saying something to the effect of “I can’t believe they allowed that shit on TV.” That was nearly 20 years ago, and I don’t remember the exact words. But they may well have been worse than my memory serves. I graduated high school in 2000. I moved to Tennessee because my older brother suggested it. I looked at it as a way to get away from my parents and to begin to live. But things weren’t meant to be, and I was certainly not ready to be open with myself or others. Ok. I was open with myself. But not with others. I got a girlfriend I met online, I figured it would shield me from suspicions. I moved back to Virginia after at the end of the summer and got a job. I wasn’t happy. I changed jobs, got a job at a local campground and working at a local lake renting boats and selling concessions. I enjoyed this work, but the real reason was to hide. I thought gay men certainly didn’t have these kinds of jobs and no one would suspect a thing. I grew out my beard, I didn’t care how I looked, and I was perfectly happy living as a straight man. I was perfectly happy being perfectly miserable. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t really date women, I just didn’t date. If I didn’t keep myself up, who would want me? And that was what I thought I wanted. I’ll gloss over some details here. There’s no need to go into every single detail. In May 2002 we had a house fire, and the next week my grandma got really sick. She moved into a nursing home and we moved into an apartment while the house was fixed up. I developed a huge crush, one of the first in years, on a neighbor. His name was John Wayne (yes, really). He was into fishing and we bonded right away. That summer we did a lot of fishing, and he inhabited many of my private thoughts. I don’t know if it was love, but it was certainly a crush, and certainly lust. That September, a few days before the house was supposed to be finished, my grandma got really sick and we called my brother to let him know it was the end. He drove through the night from Tennessee and got there in the morning. That night he and I held her hands as she died. That moment I knew I had to come out. Life was too short, and no matter how afraid I was, I had to. A week after she died, we moved back in our house, and I didn’t see John Wayne again for 6 or 7 years. We ran into each other at a bar one time, while I was with my ex (at the time we were together) and my heart just skipped a beat. My then boyfriend knew something was up, and asked me about it later. He of course knew who this guy was from the stories and he thought it was cute and funny. This year John Wayne found me on Facebook. We haven’t talked at all since 2008. But he’s married and has kids. I came out to my family 6 months later. My brother and his wife came home to visit us, and I figured it was a safe time. They’re much more liberal than my parents. I had a plan worked out, I would tell my dad, then my brother, sister in law, and my mom last. My dad took it so badly that I lost my nerve and didn’t tell anyone else. That night my mom cried all night long. The next day when we took my brother and sister in law back to the airport to fly out, I was depressed and stayed in bed. My brother called me before the flight took off, told me mom had told him and that he loved me and was there for me. Over the next weeks my parents came to terms with the fact that I am gay, and things went from horrible to less horrible. I had worked at a local park for nearly 5 years after high school. After coming out to my parents, I came out at work. I worked with a mix of younger college students, those that didn’t go to college, and a variety of people up to about 70 years of age. I told a couple of my closer friends and work associates, then to some of the others I thought would take it well, before telling the few people I knew would spread the word fast. I didn’t want to have to tell everyone, I was afraid of the reactions. So I used the few gossipers to my advantage once I had told those I wanted to tell personally. Most didn’t care either way, a few took it great and were a huge support during that time. 2 didn’t take it well. One told me I was betraying god and was going to hell. She and I stopped talking, not that we were close friends before that, but what little friendship we had disappeared. The other was a park ranger, he was about 60, and he told me I was disgusting and was not at all pleasant. A couple weeks later he came back to me and apologized, explained it wasn’t something people of his generation dealt with, but also explained that he’s been married 4 times. And that while he doesn’t believe it’s god’s plan, he also believes that is between me and god, and it wasn’t his place to judge. He and I are still friends to this day. That spring I started college. I was 23 and life was getting better. I joined a fraternity in college, was open with everyone, dated a little, but didn’t find the right guy. Then one day, while adding friends on Facebook, I noticed an old friend of mine from Boy Scouts had a hot guy that had posted on his wall. A hot guy named John. I knew John since he was 11 and I was 15. But I hadn’t seen him since he was 15 and I was 19. In the nearly 4 years that had passed he had turned into a very handsome man. I was taken right away. I added him on Facebook and we started talking. At that point he said he was straight. I remember telling friends in the frat that I found the one. I didn’t care that he was straight, I wanted him to be my boyfriend. A few months later we went camping and I fell head over heels in love. When that summer came around I saw him nearly every day. Every day I fell deeper in love. We had a playful flirting going on, but he was straight. It took almost a year, but he admitted to me one day that he was bi, and that he had feelings for me. I dropped out of college and moved 3 hours away, to be near where he was going to school. He wasn’t out to his friends, but they all knew I was gay. And they knew we saw each other, and spent the night together, 6 nights a week. Most of our friends figured out that we were not simply friends. But I was ok with him being in the closet. I wasn’t, and I was dating the guy I loved. I worked in Charlottesville, where he was going to college. I was out to all of our friends, a select few knew about us, the rest figured it out. I was out at work, the second workplace I had been out in. Life was good. I know this is a coming out story, but John was a huge part of my life so I will continue on a little longer. He graduated in 2008, and moved back to where we were from. I moved at the same time. He got a job in the financial field, I got a job at a hotel, and within a month I was promoted to management. We took a year off from dating, as he wanted to date women, as he’s bi, and he thought it would be easier socially. We were still best friends, and we fooled around occasionally. I dated another guy for 6 months, and after we had broken up, John told me that he still loved me and wanted to get back together. We dated for another 4 years, him still being in the closet all of that time. More of our friends knew he’s bi. More friends knew we were dating. We broke up in March 2014 and he now has a girlfriend, soon to be fiancée. I still see him from time to time, we’re still good friends. It’s obvious that time marches on and life continues. But he was a huge part of my life for years and I wouldn’t trade a minute of any of it for anything else. I am no longer the lonely, sad guy I was before my grandma died. Sometimes I wish I had come out earlier. But life is what it is, and there is little use in pondering too much on what is already done. Stephen lives in Eastern Virginia by himself. He is still good friends with John, although he would no longer consider John his best friend. They still get together once a month or so, get dinner together, catch a movie, catch up on the news. Stephen manages 3 hotels and while he initially took the breakup very badly, he is moving on. He’s trying to get out and date some, he’s joined some social groups and is enjoying life. He is considering writing fiction, although this work is nonfiction. He is also considering moving to Washington DC or Nashville as the reason he moved back here was because of John.
