My first real boyfriend way gay so, technically, I started my dating life as a beard. This did not bode well for my future dating life but it was probably the perfect place for it to begin.
Picture a 17 year old, kinda OK looking, girl with really low self esteem. At this point, I was in my "experimental phase" which, sadly, consisted only of a bad haircut (short, shaved on the sides and around the back and poofy on top, it was the 80's after all) and these awful Lee Press-On nails painted blood red. Oh and throw in the one ear that was pierced 4 times while the other one was only pierced 2 times. Yeah, I was hot!
While I had been interested in boys since the 3rd grade, I was terrified of them. By age 17 I could now utter a few words to them without running away to hide so I was doing pretty well. Working in the gift shop at the mall helped with that. I had to work with boys, thus there was some necessity of speaking to them. Since these boys didn't go to my school, popularity pecking order didn't apply, thus making things much easier on me. I got along with Jim better than the rest.
I can credit my best friend Susan with beginning my dating career. She hooked me up with Jim, not because she wanted me to have a boyfriend, but because she didn't want to get stuck going to prom alone with just her boyfriend. She was determined to find me a date. She seized her opportunity when she and Jim got to talking about prom. Jim said how he would probably take his friend Ellen, a fag-hag-in-training, to his prom. Susan was not having any of that. Within 15 minutes, she strong armed him into taking me to his prom. By the end of her shift, she has strong armed me, who had never asked a boy out in her life, into asking him to my prom.
At first, I had assumed that Jim and I were just going to be prom dates for one another but almost as soon as I had agreed to be his date, he started asking me out. We went to movies, out to dinner, and even a couple parties to meet his friends. He was starting to be like a real boyfriend.
He was the perfect starter boyfriend for the shy, awkward 17 year old me. First, although he was a perfectly nice looking guy, he wasn't really my type. I hadn't been pining away for him when we started dating. For me, it was an opportunity engage in the normal act of having a boyfriend but without the high stakes of an emotional relationship. He taught me to smoke, drink, and make out without ever trying to get in my pants. Had I been really into him (and had he been straight), I would have no college degree and would now, at age 44, be blogging about how my 26 year old son never calls me anymore.
For Jim, I served the same purpose in reverse. He had a nice inexperienced girl that he could parade around in front of people and refer to as his girlfriend. My sexual inexperience insured that I probably would perceive him as acting the gentleman rather than the truth that he didn't find me, or any other women for that matter, physically attractive. Perhaps he thought, hoped, that maybe, just maybe he'd be into me, thus proving that he wasn't gay.
So how did a naive girl like me figure out that my boyfriend was gay? Well, the answer is slowly, over a long period of time. But I was never blind to the signs, like how delighted he was when he discovered that he had perfectly matched the royal blue ribbon on my corsage to my royal blue prom dress. Like how he was the one who told me that if I dried my hair while bending forward that my hair would have more body.
His complete homophobia was another clue. Once an openly gay student from my high school came into the store while Jim and I were working. Jim hid under the counter until the guy left. When I asked him what the hell he was hiding from, he whispered, "that guy is gay." I remember wondering what the big deal was. Then at my prom, my openly gay counselor, who was chaperoning the event, called to me as I was leaving the dance floor with Jim. Apparently, Mr. Smith was on the interviewing committee for some scholarship for which Jim had applied. He had wanted to compliment Jim on how well he had done in the interview. When I turned around, Jim had disappeared. After hunting around for several minutes, I found Jim crouched down at our table. When I tried to coax him over to Mr. Smith he refused saying, "I'm not comfortable with him, he's gay." Again I wondered, so what? I also thought, I know these people are gay because they work at or attend my school. How does he, who doesn't go to my school or even live in the same city, know anything about the sexual orientation of these 2 people? While I could chalked up his discomfort around gay people to his Catholic schooling, I was fairly certain that the problem wasn't religion.
Sadly, by college, Jim was in full denial of his sexual orientation. He joined a very macho fraternity and took his role as a pledge very seriously. He relished his pledge nickname "Batman" given to him because the old woody station wagon he drove resembled the Bat Mobile. By December when I came home for Christmas, his grades were falling and his scholarship was in jeopardy. He took me to a frat party hay ride and made a point of making out with me right in front of all his fraternity brothers while they chanted "Batman, Batman!" He had never kissed me that passionately in private.
By February, he was on academic probation. His scholarship adviser was desperately trying to help him save his academic career. His fraternity pledge duties were interfering with his ability to attend classes. He shared this with me in one of our weekly phone calls while I was out of state at school. When I suggested that maybe it was time to take a break from the fraternity stuff, I was met with a chilly silence followed by something about how I didn't understand what he was going through. And that, was the last time I ever spoke to him. We had had plans to attend his fraternity formal the following weekend. I had gotten a ride home from school for the event and had borrowed a dress from my roommate. He never returned my calls.
Years later I was getting my hair done at a salon in the mall. As the stylist was cutting my hair, in the mirror I saw a man enter the salon, stow his coat behind the counter, and begin answering the phone that had just begun to ring. Although, the usually dark brown hair was different, accented by blonde and red highlights, the face was unmistakable. And, any nagging questions I might have had about his sexual orientation were answered the moment he stepped behind that counter.
Sadly, our reunion wasn't a warm or happy one. My greeting, "hello stranger" was met with a terse "hi" from him. Then he ran my credit card, handed me my slip to sign, and said "thank you" and "good bye." I felt sad that this man who had been my friend for 2 years, who had been my first boyfriend couldn't even make small talk with me.
Looking back I am very grateful for my first gay boyfriend. He offered me a safe place to try out relationships. He was my training wheels. After him, the training wheels came off and I was left suffer the bumps, scrapes, and headlong crashes of the relationships ahead of me. Even now, married with kids, I am still somewhat of a disaster in the relationship department. I can only hope that he is now comfortable in his own skin and has fared at least a little better than me in finding love.
Epilogue: Recently I came across a picture of me and Jim at his prom. There we were 2 clueless kids in the midst of identity crises smiling for the camera. I laughed out loud at the sight of it. I instantly wanted to send it to Jim. Surely by now, a man in his forties, he could appreciate and have a good laugh over this photo. I searched Facebook, nothing, Twitter, nothing. This was curious since he seemed like someone who would love social media. I then tried Linkedin, his dad was on there but no Jim. Then I tried searching his sister Amy. Amy had been his best friend. They had been inseparable in high school. Amy's name popped right up. She was a lawyer in Florida and coincidentally, also gay. Guess my gaydar isn't so great 'cause I did not see that one coming. Anyway, a quick search of her friend list revealed no trace of Jim, really weird. Did they have a falling out? I just couldn't picture that. I could have messaged Amy to ask but I had a feeling I shouldn't. A few days later I did a Google search as I still had this burning curiosity about him. This time an obituary popped up. It was clearly for an older woman judging by the name but the last name matched Jim's. when I opened it, I realized it was for his grandma on his dad's side. It stated that she was survived by her sons, one being Jim's dad. Then the shocking part, it said that she was preceded in death by her grandson, with Jim's full name listed. Yes, the reason I couldn't find him was that he had died back in 1997, only 28 years old. To add to the sad story, his mother died the next year. She'd have been somewhere in her fifties, young too. I felt sad for Amy and her dad, half the family lost over 2 years. I thought of Amy losing her best friend at a time when both were dealing with whatever challenges they faced as homosexuals in the late eighties and early nineties growing up in a Catholic family.
Not being satisfied with knowing the poor guy is dead, I tried to find out what happened to him. There was no obituary as this was before everything was uploaded onto the internet. The Internet was in it's infancy back then. I eventually got a death record with the date of death but nothing about why. I suppose it doesn't matter, I would guess that it was unexpected and sad.
So I have no one to send that horrid picture to. I can only hope that in whatever afterlife there is, that Jim is having a chuckle over it.
