“How did you discover your sexuality?” is really not a question you should drop on people in casual conversation, work conversation, or pretty much ask anyone except if you are a therapist. I kind of wish I could ask though, just to compare notes. Yes, I know, it’s w-aaay too much information, but it’s something that connects us all together. Me, I scold myself at how hard I worked to not figure out I was gay. The approach I took was both logical and insane: I was told on very good authority – sex-ed videos – that at some age you would suddenly be interested in women. So, obviously, I needed to wait for that to happen. Most people would have figured things out by 18. Me, I went on my first gay date when I was 24.
In my defense, I think by college I had an idea that I was gay, but that wasn’t something I couldn’t handle with sheer will power! I also took on two degrees – computer science and film – which guaranteed that I always had some studying to do and couldn’t go out. Add that I purposefully never took up drinking in college out of fear I might get wasted and kiss a guy. If you do the math, that’s five and a half years of all studying and not partying; which as you know makes Homer go crazy. There was so much fun I didn’t have in college. When I started my first job in Dallas, I suddenly found myself with this crazy concept known as free time. To those not familiar with the concept (shout out to the med students!) free time is time to yourself. No other responsibilities. Nothing to distract you from your raging hormones. Through school, I could always combat free time by spending it coding computer programs, but all those years working to get a job in computers now meant I no longer felt like using a computer after work. Also, I only had dial up.
Being an engineer, I decided to do a little research before entering the gay world. Being an engineer, I decided to do that research on the internet. I started looking on gay.com and other small gay personal sites for people to date. Oh, it was so exciting! One personal had a guy who was a model looking for that special someone – I could date a model! Or that hot guy! Somehow I believed that I could shift the car from reverse to fifth even though I’d never worked a stick before. The gay.com chat rooms were very exciting for me. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, gay.com was probably the biggest LGBT site in the early aughts. They had a personals profile and a free web chat service you could use to chat with people in your area. It was broken up by state, and each state was broken up by city, and the popular cities like Dallas would create a new room whenever a room had more than 100 people. The popular people could get into the Dallas1 room, the VIP room of online gay chat. The group conversations were lively and boisterous:
the_sexxxy_stud: OMG did you see last nights queer as folk
[ hott_lixx signed in ]
hardware_1: Anyone seen Ben on here lately?
hott_lixx: HEEEEYYY BOOOOIIISS!!!!!1!!
fabbbbulous: I did sexxy! OMG so good!
sdfsdsdf: CHECK OUT MY WEBCAM http://www.hottguyz.com
rock_hard: stupid bots
the_sexxxy_stud: LIXX!! How are ya!
Those of us not able to get in were relegated to the ghetto of Dallas4.
[ mr. big signed in]
mr. big: Anyone here?
[ mr. big signed out]
My handle was javaboy24. I thought this was incredibly clever because I was a Java programmer and obviously all the other computer nerds would be drawn to me and want to talk to me, but instead it just meant people asked if I liked Starbucks. I was also the one guy on there who was not looking to hook up because I was looking to date and you only have sex after you find someone special! Just writing that now, I want to go back in time and smack the abstinence club Barbie that was my younger self. Scratch that, you have to learn these things the hard way.
My first date wasn’t as much legendarily bad as it was a smack to the head. The guy was a Plano resident who did computer work for the city library system. Another nerd! We’ll talk about how great Babylon 5 was! Well, he wasn’t really a nerd; he’d never gone to college and just kept doing the job he had in high school. Had never gone to college, had no desire to. Plus, he was fabulous. Loved to shop at the mall! This really limited our dinner conversation.
Guy: So I just love my Solara!
Me: What is that?
Guy: It’s my car.
Me: Oh really?
Guy: Yeah.
Me: Oh. (pregnant pause) Ever watch Babylon 5?
Oh, and the kicker – he looked heavier than he did in his photo. This would obviously never do.
In retrospect I regret my behavior that evening, which mostly consisted of trying to escape at my first possible convenience. The second guy I dated I went on two dates on, at which point he told me flat out that he was a very sexual person and my ‘not doing it with him’ just wouldn’t do. From there it was something of a procession of dates that usually ended with ‘check please!’
I guess I had hoped that when I started dating I would finally fit. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I didn’t belong. I was a gay nerd pretending to be straight who didn’t fit in with any crowd in high school. I was a film geek of the computer science program, and the computer geek of the film program. Back then, I had hope that when I finally accepted that I was gay that there would be some sort of “coming out” party. I’d walk in as everyone cheered me on. Some random stranger would put a party hat on me as I walked past him in slow motion. There would be a big pink banner that read “WELCOME NICK” in silver sparkles. Instead, it was more like someone snarked “look who thinks he’s a diva” as I walked through the door. It was just something I would have to get used to.
Leave a Reply