When Alex came out to her brother, he welcomed the news with open arms and a loving heart. It wouldn’t be until months later that Alex would share something more shocking – that she dated his ex.
00:05
I’m Alex and I’m from Dubuque, Iowa.
00:09
It was the summer after I had just graduated college with a degree in voice performance.
00:15
I was living at home and studying with my old voice teacher, who was trying to fix all
00:26
of the nonsense that had happened with my voice when I was in college.
00:31
And there was this other girl who was also studying with the same voice teacher and she
00:37
was going into college as a voice performance major.
00:40
We were really kind of the only two who were really serious in the studio.
00:45
So we started hanging out together and talking about music… and then we started hanging
00:51
out a lot and not just talking about music.
00:55
And then we started making out and not talking about music.
01:02
And I had sort of known who she was before I came back from college, because when she
01:12
was in high school, she had kind of dated my younger brother… for like a year.
01:21
And I guess it had been very serious.
01:22
I didn’t really know that at the time.
01:25
So we dated – which is probably the best word for what we were doing because there was no
01:31
label or vocabulary involved – through the summer.
01:37
And she started school nearby.
01:40
So I would go and visit her… a lot.
01:44
It was all very surprising.
01:47
It had somehow never occurred to me ever that I might be into girls.
01:54
And I was living with my very religiously conservative parents and it was not really
02:00
a good time for me to have this particular revelation.
02:05
And it was beautiful and complicated and all of the things that really falling in love
02:10
the first time is, but for a lot of reasons it didn’t last very long.
02:15
Then I moved and decided that this relationship hadn’t worked, so that meant that I wasn’t
02:23
gay after all.
02:24
Good to now.
02:25
Figured that out.
02:26
Except that after I moved, I very quickly realized that yes, no, actually… actually,
02:31
yes, very, very gay.
02:34
And it was another year or so before I came out to anyone in my family.
02:39
But my brother was the first person in my family that I told.
02:44
So we went out for coffee and I said, “I’m a lesbian.”
02:50
And his immediate response was to jump up and give me a hug and tell me, “I love you.
02:57
I support you.
02:58
I’m so proud of you.
03:00
Does this mean we can check out girls together??
03:03
Because that’s awesome!”
03:05
I was like, “Yes.
03:06
Yes, we can.”
03:08
And he was a real ally for me in my family.
03:15
And we did a lot of checking out girls together.
03:18
You know, it seems like this would be the prime opportunity to also tell him about this
03:25
girl we had both dated, but I had just come out to him and it went really well and I was
03:31
still a little worried about that conversation.
03:34
So several years went by and we were on the phone one night getting totally drunk on the
03:43
phone for whatever reason.
03:44
I decided that this was the moment.
03:46
This was the moment I was going to tell him about this girl.
03:51
So I was like, “I just – I just have to tell you this and you’re probably gonna be
03:58
mad at me and you deserve to be mad at me and it’s okay if you hate me forever.
04:01
But I just – I just have this thing that I really need to tell you and it’s really important.”
04:06
And he’s like, “Okay… whatever.”
04:10
“Okay.
04:11
So do you remember that summer that me and your ex-girlfriend were, like, really good
04:21
friends?”
04:22
My brother is a straight dude so he did not connect any dots.
04:26
And he’s just like, “Yeah.
04:28
So?”
04:29
Like, “Well, we might have been more than really good friends.”
04:39
And there’s this silence.
04:42
And I, you know, I do the like, “Hello… are you there?”
04:48
And there’s nothing.
04:49
And then I started to hear this gasping sound because he was laughing so hard that he could
04:57
not make sound even happen for, like, two full minutes.
05:02
When he finally was able to, like, gasp for breath and laughed and we laughed together
05:07
and he was like, “So let me get this straight, so like…
05:11
I lost my virginity to this girl.
05:14
Did you know that?”
05:15
I was like, “I mean, she told me that, like, when we were together.”
05:19
And he’s like, “Okay and you lost your girl-ginity to this girl.
05:25
We both lost our girl-ginity to the same girl.”
05:27
I’m like, “Yeah, that’s – yep, that’s an accurate description of what happened.”
05:33
And he’s like, “I’m going to tell this story to everyone I have ever known in my
05:37
entire life.
05:39
This is the funniest thing that has ever happened.”
05:43
And he does.
05:44
We’ve had mutual friends who’re like, Hey, I heard that you dated… and I was like,
05:48
“You really did tell, like, everybody – everybody – the story.”
05:52
And I’m really lucky to have a brother that found it as hilarious as as I did and who
06:00
has been unfailingly supportive and loving through all of this craziness.
06:09
I have a lot of trouble with the narrative that, like, you should just wait and eventually
06:16
your family will come around because sometimes they don’t.
06:20
And not everyone in my family has or is ever going to.
06:25
But I think it’s important in the midst of the things that are hard, to hold on to the
06:32
things that are funny and that are full of love and hope.
06:39
I think no matter how much all of the other stuff sucks, there will be moments that are
06:47
funny.
06:48
And holding on to that can be a lifeline.
◊♦◊
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
◊♦◊
Talk to you soon.
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