—
I met a boy not too long ago, and now I have a crush. Again.
It’s exciting, right? You meet someone, and then all of a sudden get those giddy little feelings inside and every time you look at them you start counting the seconds until you have to look away before (God forbid) anyone else notices you’re staring.
Sure, it’s exciting. If by exciting we mean agonizing and horrifying and almost certain to result in nothing but another daydream to keep you holding up traffic at the stoplight.
It can be exciting, if you’re straight. You’ve got options. I could walk up to a girl and start awkwardly flirting and everyone would recognize the act. “Oh, look at that,” people would think, “He likes her.” Cute meet, right? Yes, there are still potential nerves and fears and crushed dreams on the horizon, but as a gay man all that is a prerequisite to simply wanting to talk to another guy. Because of the ten or so different possible outcomes of me going up to a young man and starting a conversation, nearly all of them are enough to push me into weighing the benefits of being the world’s youngest hermit.
I could walk up to him, start talking, find out that he’s batting for the same team, and set up a time to hang out again. That’s the goal. And that’s the rarest outcome. Usually, I have to wait to see if I can pick up cues as to his sexuality, because who knows what would happen if I walked over and he were straight. There’s shame, the overwhelming futility of it all, and my embarrassing tendency to blush so hard I look like I’ve got red paint on my face, which, if I could still speak, I would totally pass off as me coming back from supporting my favorite red football team. (That’s how football works, right?)
The best case scenario if he’s straight? “I’m flattered, but I’m not into men.”
That one almost hurts the worst. It’s perhaps the most obvious reminder that gay men are not as common or as societally dominant as straight men are, and that’s not to say everyone should feel sorry for me (although what a great place for Ted Cruz’s timeless “Why am I persecuted?”). In fact, it brings me to admit what I’m really trying to say here: I’m still trying to integrate myself into a heterosexual world. Talk about futile.
I still watch a man and woman fall in love on screen and think, “Yeah, I get that,” instead of coming to terms with the fact that no, I don’t. I may imagine what it’s like, but I don’t know. I can’t. And I shouldn’t have to. When I see an attractive guy in the same room, I’m still trying to figure out what roles we fit into. “If I approach him, is that emasculating or threatening? But if I wait for him to approach me, what if he’s afraid of the same thing?” I just take the two options that have been laid out for me by the world around me: Am I a man, or am I attracted to one? I forget that it’s my choice, for better or worse, to make a third one for myself: both. There’s not a lot of precedent for what that option looks like, but I’m finally realizing that’s not just okay…
It’s kind of exciting.
I’ve got a crush on a guy. I can’t help it. It’s there, and it’s strong, and it’s blinding. And if I step away from the fear of it all, I remember what it was like being fourteen and dreaming that some day I would feel exactly like this.
So, pep talk’s over. I’m gonna go talk to him.
—
Previously published on Medium.
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