What's Up

       What do those words mean to me? I have been exploring that question almost since I began to realize that I was gay. My life began just as anyone else's; born, baby, child. But, this is where things began to change. By age 6 or 7, I began to realize that I was somehow different. I did not understand in what way I was different, but I knew that I was not the same as the rest of the boys my age. This is also about the time that I began to learn about what society expected of me and the rest of my peers.

       First: boys are supposed to like girls and visa-versa. Second: if you do not fit into this mold, then there is something wrong with you. As I grew older I heard that queers were mentally ill, and that they should be locked up in mental institutions to protect the rest of society from them. I thought that I was something horrible. I hated myself. I became a gay homophobe.

       Well, believe me when I tell you that I certainly did not want to be a queer. I quickly began doing all the things that were expected of me as an adolescent boy. I tried to avoid any situation that might put me in jeopardy of being perceived as being gay. I did not know of any other person like me. I felt that I was, pretty much, alone. My older brother and his friends were always talking about people who they thought were queers and they constantly made fun of them and harassed them when they had the chance. Of course I was thinking that I would secretly like to meet these people, but I never had the courage to talk them.

       As I proceeded through school, I became aware that there were effeminate acting boys there who everyone said were fags, and everyone picked on them all the time. I personally would not associate with any of them for fear of being accused also. As it turned out, they were mostly just effeminate acting straight boys, who went on to be model citizens despite all that they had to endure because they were different. I almost wish that I had been like them, at least to the extent that I might have been perceived as being gay. Then possibly, it would have been easier for me to really be me. But, this was not to be. I was just one of the boys, and did all of the things that they did, fighting, football, smoking, swearing and having affairs with girls.

       So I became societies child, chased girls, fell in love with one, and got married to a very good woman. We were married for 9 years and were divorced for reasons that had nothing to do with sexuality. We are still great friends, and she has remarried and is very happy. I have, since our divorce, told her that I am gay. She has accepted this without any problem, and knows my partner very well, and I also know her husband. I believe that I would still be in that relationship, if we had children, because that is something that I really wanted very much, and would have been whatever I had to be to become a father.

       While I was married, the teenage son of a good friend of mine began hanging out around our house, and soon became the son I never had. My wife and I took him on several vacations with us and he and I went on several camping trips, which would later come back to haunt me. Unfortunately, I eventually told him that I was gay, and before long he was using that fact to manipulate me, even though he was quite straight, and we had never had any type of sexual experience together. He began to taunt me with suggestions of sex, but always acted like it was just a joke whenever I got upset about it.