Democracy in Action...with a small "d"

As promised, my coming out story.
(updated)

My story may seem like ancient history to some—it almost does to me as I look back now some 39 years.  I was a bit older than most who come out today—certainly of those in college—I was 26.  But the story really begins more than a decade earlier.

Like so many youngsters, as I approached puberty, I began to do some “experimenting” with my peers.  The “show me yours, I’ll show you mine” kind of thing.  Only, I don’t recollect ever being interested in the mysteries of girls’ anatomy—I only “played” with my male friends.  Somewhere around the age of 12 or 13, I began an intimate relationship with my cousin—I’ll call him Sam.  We ultimately experimented with almost every variety of male-male intimacy our young minds could come up with.  In the last year we were together—I must have been 15, going on 16, and he was 9 months younger than I, he became less and less interested in our intimate games, and clearly more interested in girls—his “experimenting” with same-sex sexuality was coming to a close.  Mine did not.  Shortly after my 16^th birthday, his mother relocated to California, and within a few months of moving there, Sam drowned.  I cannot explain the feelings I had.  I didn’t cry, but a great, gaping “hole” opened inside me that would be more than 20 years in closing.  I could not explain my feelings to anyone—I had no words for it, though I knew somehow that I shouldn’t let grown-ups realize the depth of my response.  Instead, I withdrew into myself.  For the next decade, I would only make limited efforts to get close to anyone who wasn’t one of my friends from school.  I dated once in college—a disaster.  I hurt her feelings when I seemed to just quit seeing her or contacting her the summer after we had met in school.  I have carried a sense of shame for that ever since.

Following my graduation from SUNY Oneonta, I went off to the University of Colorado—where I ended up at the end of that first year by “flunking” out.  I was fortunate to land a full-time lab instructor’s position back in the SUNY system.  That was a horrible situation because I was the odd man out in a departmental faculty divided exactly in half—and the two sides hated each other.  Being the swing vote at faculty meetings meant that both sides “played” me for the sucker—just to get a vote.  I felt like a ping-pong ball sometimes—cajoled by one side then the other.  After a year, I was glad to get away from an academic environment.  Ironically, I had slept with a young man next door to me in the apartment I rented—but never connected with being gay.  It amazes me how I could have been physically acting gay—but unable to realize it psychologically.

By a stroke of fortune, my best friend from high-school was living in Albany, N.Y., and a mutual friend of ours was working in a local lumberyard.  He got me a job there, and I moved into a house in downtown Albany with 5 other guys—four of whom I had known from my hometown, and the fifth a friend of my best friend, who lived a short distance away.  Through the first fall and winter, I was miserable.  When the guys would go to parties, I’d go along, but felt out of place.  I never dated (girls OR guys), and usually ended up being a morose drunk.  Then, sometime into the early part of the next year, I happened across a copy of the SUNY-Albany campus newspaper and noticed an advertisement for the meeting of the Gay Activists Alliance.  There was a phone number listed.  In retrospect, I don’t know what drove me to call that number, but I ended up speaking, if I recall correctly, with their advisor—Dr. Joe--who invited me to a meeting. 

The meeting was on campus and the first evening I was terrified—almost shaking.  But Dr. Joe introduced himself and welcomed me.  I took a seat rather quietly near the rear of the room as the meeting progressed.  As I remember it, there was a rather thin young man with long, shoulder-length, light brown hair sitting in the front of the room.  I was instantly infatuated with him—but far, far too shy to ever speak to him.

I went to a couple of meetings—how many precisely I forget—and after one, the group decided to gather at a watering hole north of Albany called “The David.”  It was a bar that occupied the lower half of an old house, and was owned and run by a couple of gay guys.  The atmosphere was very laid-back—the jukebox played mostly 60’s tunes, with some earlier (keep in mind this would have been, perhaps 1971).  It was a good place for conversation.  As I sat at the bar, Dr. Joe came and sat beside me.  He had, I suspect, been noticing me noticing the long-haired lad.  He asked me “would you like to meet him?”  I mumbled something affirmative, and he said “Come, I’ll introduce you.”  Dr. Joe took me to where the young man was seated.  After telling me his name, he left us to get to know one another.  I’ve forgotten his last name now—but his first was Richard.  As I sat across from him, I was totally enchanted by his soft brown eyes--doe-like, I would describe them—and his smooth, androgynous face.  He also had long, straight brown hair (even now, long hair is a strong attractant)  I cannot recall what we first talked about—I know I ran on, almost babbling, so nervous.  After awhile, he smiled and reached across the table and took my hand.  “You want to go to bed with me, don’t you?”  I was stunned.  I must have mumbled something, because he said something like “OK, now let’s get to know each other.”  The conversation changed and we talked until the bar was about to close.  The problem was where could we go?  He lived with his parents—couldn’t go to his house.  I lived with 5 straight guys—couldn’t go there.  But we did.

 

Even though it was nearly 1 in the morning, the guys were all up watching television.  My bedroom adjoined the common room and the television was beside the entrance from the great hallway off which the other rooms were entered.  The five of them were sitting so that when Richard and I came up the stairs and entered my bedroom, they could see us clearly.  And Richard was, shall we say, a rather obviously gay individual, somewhat effeminate, and he “swished” when he walked.  It was pretty obvious, since he didn’t come back out that evening, that he spent the night with me.

The next day, being Sunday, Richard and I left before the rest of them were up.  I took him to breakfast and then dropped him off a short distance from his house.  When I got back, I went to each of my roommates and acknowledged that I was gay—all but one, that is.  They all seemed OK with it.  But I was terrified to tell my best friend.  I took me about a month to screw up the courage to tell him.  Then, while we were driving together—I forget the reason—I mentioned it.  His response…”I know.”  I was dumbfounded.  He went on…”that night you brought the kid home—they called me on the phone.  I told them it didn’t matter to me, you were still my friend.  Just don’t put a make on me, or I’ll knock your block off.”

I had fallen head-over heels for Richard—but that lasted about 48 hours—until we next met, when he told me that he didn’t feel the same towards me.  I was crushed—seriously contemplated driving into an abutment on the way home from the David that night.  I obsessed about him—and saw him once or twice a week for the rest of the time I was in Albany.  We never did sleep together again.  Many years later, I saw him in Tucson, and he had become a rather bitter queen of a guy—and I guess, in retrospect, that first failure was a good thing.  Unfortunately, though I’ve fallen in love a few times since, none have ever worked out, most never even starting.  There is hope now for a long-distance relationship—but, as I turn 60—it doesn’t have to succeed. (see the end for an update on this, now that I'm 69)  Yet, I must admit, when I see a sweet-faced, androgynous lad with long hair—I stop and the thoughts drift back to those days in Albany.  The memories of Richard are still there and I hope they always will be.

The rest of the year went along very well.  The tension in the house dissipated, and towards the end, when we ate together in a restaurant, I would point out the good-looking waitresses to the guys, and they’d point out the good-looking guys to me.  One of them said “Dubs (my nickname at the time), you may be queer, but you’re so much easier to live with.”  I guess that meant I was accepted—it certainly felt that way.  At the end of that summer, I went back to graduate school in South Carolina, where I quickly became active as a speaker in college classes, even though the fledgling gay group I had initially joined, folded almost immediately, and no interest seemed to exist to start another one.  For the better part of 5 years, I was the only openly gay student on the campus—but nothing negative ever came of it.

I never did come out to my parents.  I was rather strongly estranged from my Dad, and my Mom was not a person I ever felt that I could bring my problems to.  When my mother died quite a few years later, I came out to my Aunt who indicated that she thought my mother knew, but just didn’t want to deal with it.  I never did bring it up with my Dad, though our relationship became far friendlier after my mother’s passing.  He’s now gone, and my Aunt is the only member of my family that I stay in contact with.  We don’t speak much of it—and I rarely ever see her these days. (She has since passed on also...there are none of my parent's generation of my family left).

I came to Clarion in the Fall of 1983, and went back into the closet…there was hardly any sign of gay folks on campus, let alone the community.  I worked hard to get tenured and promoted, both of which happened in my 5^th year.  Sometime after that, I began coming out here.  I don’t remember the details, though I suspect that it was finding that there was a fledgling gay group trying to get started and I stepped in to be an advisor.  I remember one time, during the National Coming Out Day activities, the group had put notices around campus that it would be a “Jeans” Day…inviting students and faculty to support LGBT issues by wearing blue jeans.  Usually, that will promote the quickest switch to slacks and dresses and anything but blue jeans.  Apparently a faculty member in the business school had worn jeans that day and had been ribbed by colleagues (perhaps students…I don’t know).  He became quite indignant.  Moreover, a secretary in the business school wrote a rather nasty letter to the campus newspaper…again the details escape me…which triggered several retorts, including an impassioned one by me.  This led to a “panel” discussion, and some heated words were exchanged.  But by then, I was not only out, but had established myself as the ONLY fully out faculty on the campus.  Since then, things have been fairly quiet…and I’ve not suffered more than a few incidents that might be related to my openness.

That is where my story ended while I was still a faculty member at Clarion.  Now that I’ve retired and moved to Bellingham, I’ve become partnered with Zar, my Malaysian BF who lives in Vancouver, B.C.  Ours is a complicated relationship, but one I hope will eventually lead to marriage before I pass on.  Zar is significantly younger than I.  We met on line more than a dozen years ago, met face to face the winter before I moved to Bellingham, now more than 5 years ago.