It was the first time I had been together with my old
high school friends
since we all left for college, and there was palpable tension in the
room.
The occasion was the marriage of my science-class chum Sam to his girlfriend
of three years. Our little knot of friends had fidgeted through the ceremony and
endured substandard catering at the dinner afterwards. We had invited a number
of girls from the reception back to our hotel room for an afterparty. As we
killed time waiting for the hotties to arrive, we drank beer and shot the
shit. At 21, Sam is the first of us to marry, which is perhaps why girls, and
relationships with girls, and fucking girls, were on everyone's mind that night.
Not on mine, though. I'm gay. And this was the source of the tension. I was
out to only two men in the room. Eric, my constant companion throughout high
school, knew it; he'd known it since 12th grade, when I first started figuring
things out. And Evan knew it, because I had fallen in love with him the day I
met him.
It took us all of a week from that day to become the closest of friends. We
thought alike, spoke alike, and worked together almost as one. For three months
I lived in bliss, spending hours every day with him. A match this good
had to work out, I thought to myself. How could it not? If I'd known
what I do now, perhaps I would have walked away from him after that first brief
touch. Because Evan was, is and always will be straight as an arrow. He was
sympathetic to my feelings, but unwilling (some might say unable) to
reciprocate.
Back in the moment: Evan was making some loud, sweeping proclamation
condemning a significant subset of humanity. He is an indignant drunk.
"Fucking stoners!" he bellowed out the window. "I hate stoners!
Don't they realize they are destroying their minds with drugs?"
This is
typical of Evan: completely open-minded about homosexuality, but deathly afraid
of drugs.
"You're making a generalization," I pointed out. "You can't
possibly hate every stoner, because you haven't met them all! It's like
saying 'I hate black people' or 'I hate gays,' and you can't say that!"
This last bit was, I thought, an especially clever barb that wouldn't be
apparent to anyone else in the room.
Evan's face flushed red. It does that when he's truly livid. " You're not
making a valid comparison," he snapped. "Gay people are born gay, but
stoners make a choice to smoke weed. They waste time and energy, they don't
socialize and they don't produce anything!"
Now it was my turn. "It's not genetic, Evan. People are gay
because of nurture, not nature. You may have certain genetic predispositions
toward homosexuality, but being gay is also a decision. Have you heard of
the Kinsey Scale? Aversion therapy?" As a psychologist's son, he was
bound to have heard of both.
We bumped heads for 20 minutes, neither of us swaying the other. We are both
too obstinate and too outspoken--and there is too much history between us. I
know how to press his buttons and dissect his arguments; he knows how to
sabotage mine.
The night ended with Evan storming from the room and sleeping in the car. Such
drama! The boy is a born persuader, and hates to lose an argument when he feels
he is on the side of liberal righteousness. After he'd quietly slammed the door behind him, our friend Sky shook his head in
disbelief. "He really needs to come out of the closet. That's not
healthy."
Eric and I shared a knowing laugh. We sat Sky down and filled him in on the
history between Evan and me.
As a mostly gay bisexual, I have always found it hard to understand how one can
only like or love members of one sex. To me, it's like playing cards with only
half a deck! I realize these people exist. I realize that it is even possible that 97% of the
world's population could be so afflicted, reducing me to a statistical blip. But
I fail to see the attraction of the idea.
I call myself "gay"
because some people say "bisexual" when they really mean "gay, but
not ready to admit it yet." And I want to avoid promoting that kind of
attitude. Also, socially--in terms of the people we congregate with-- openly
bisexual males are considered by most to be a subset of the gay community.
Functionally speaking, however, I consider "gay" and
"straight" to be subsets of "bisexual." I do not claim that
any group is "better" than the others; as in any system,
"better" depends on the metric you choose for comparison. I just think
that most of us can, and some of us will, make choices within our lifetimes that
change our approach to sexuality.