I’m gay, I’m Autistic, and I don’t drink or do drugs. Needless to say, dating has never been easy for me. Being super-literal and thus having trouble with sarcasm, among other qualities of my Autism, can make dating a little more both eventful and, uneventful than I would like it to be.
I had a date in 2018 when a guy said I was “a dork” for knowing as much as I do about music—I can name a musical event from every year from 1909 to today. The fact is that my memory is because of my Autism, which I hadn’t disclosed, and part of me wanted to say, “You are such an ableist bigot, and you have no idea.” Of course, he didn’t know, so it wasn’t his fault, but clearly my knowledge doesn’t impress everybody . . . so it goes. Tragic.
There was a time in 2014 when a guy tried to hit on me by asking if I went to a particular bar in Boystown in Chicago, and I said, “No. It’s because I don’t drink,” and he went, “I’m sorry!” And despite having been tremendously ill at the time, I replied, “You know, actually, it was for the best.” I don’t drink partly by necessity and partly by choice, but I had spent a lot of years feeling sorry for myself for not participating in the partying culture at college. That could be really lonely, but by 2014, I felt better about my life decisions.
And then there’s my long, storied history of falling for the wrong people—people who are unavailable, straight, and/or “out of my league.” This goes to at least as far back as 9th grade in 2003, when I fell for the most popular guy in my private school. Everyone found out about it (through me, I should note), and I got seemingly endless shit for it for the next year-plus.
But in May, 2011, on the day that would end up being my college graduation date (once I finished a course back home a couple weeks later,) one of the most striking events of my life happened when a guy that I had expressed feelings for—who was straight—ended up going out of his way, unknowingly, to save my life. Several months prior, I had written him a letter saying that he was beautiful and that I felt ugly when I saw him around campus, and a couple weeks later, after a student killed himself, I saw this friend at the vigil and thanked him for not beating me up after I wrote him. He laughed.
I’m pretty sure that we’d only had one in depth conversation before that night when I ran into him. That conversation, a few months prior, was partly about how scared I was to go back to my hometown, as I was about to finish my classes at that college, and sure enough, when I came back to campus in May, I was numb from walking the same streets I paced day after miserable day in middle and high school, haunted by memories of bullying and a throbbing sense of loneliness.
Two nights before running into my friend, I arrived on campus in the late afternoon, and after a few hours, I went to a party at a college house and soon after went into the bathroom. With everything going on in my head the previous few months, I didn’t see a future for me. I remember thinking how I didn’t care if this was it. In that bathroom I was going to mix pills with alcohol—keep in mind that I’ve never touched alcohol as an adult—and after I couldn’t open the bottle of alcohol, I put it on the kitchen table and went outside. I walked past a few friends and then intentionally ran across a little road with no stoplight, wearing a boot on my foot from an injury, and almost got hit by a car. I kept running until I came to the house where I was staying and collapsed.
And then on the night of what would be my graduation date, I ran into my friend when he was sitting on the steps of another campus house. As far as I know, he had no knowledge of what had happened two nights before, but he took me aside for a walk and told me how much he cared about me, that I was beautiful, that he loved me lots and lots, and that I had deserved a standing ovation that I had received a year earlier. I was in tears, saying, “You don’t think I’m ugly?” I didn’t know he cared, and for years I had never expected a straight crush of mine to give a rat’s ass about me.
And when he rubbed my back, I could’ve died right there. I kissed him on his shoulder when we were done talking and walked away crying.
That may have been the closest I’ve ever gotten to a truly intimate moment of love with anyone, sexual or not, and while I think of him every time that I hear Adele’s Someone Like You, the truth is, we should all be so lucky to find someone like him, including as a friend. So, at least this time, falling for the “wrong” person and speaking my truth about it, and reaching out to him for support, may have led to my life being saved.
I told him a few years later, “You have probably treated me with more love, dignity, and respect than probably all of the peers I had in the first 18 years of my life put together. I hope that means something to you. It sure as hell means the world to me.” And earlier this year I rewrote the words to a song by Brad Paisley:
Fast forward just a couple years to a constant sense of dread
I was fighting every second with the demons in my head
I ran across a road and almost got hit by a car
Not caring if I died or if I lived to be a star
Two nights later, someone I didn’t know well came up to me
“I’d like to take a walk with you,” he said reassuringly
He told me I was beautiful and he loved me lots and lots
He may have saved my life that night, as I never forgot
And then, all of a sudden, oh, it seems so strange to me
How one moment can change everything and make you feel complete
Looking back, all I can say about all the things he did for me
Is I hope I’m at least half the friend that he didn’t have to be.
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Photo: IStock