Confessions of A Mormon Boy

Last night, I went to see the play Confessions of a Mormon Boy. It is a one man show and the performer is also the author of the play; it is autobiographical. He describes his agonizing attempts for him to turn himself straight, the 'help' that he got from the Mormon Church, their referral to ex-gay therapists and help paying for them. He got married, having told his fiancee that he was struggling with homosexuality. Eventually his ability to 'remain straight' failed, he was excommunicated from the church, moved to NYC, became an escort (ie., prostitute), got involved with drugs, and eventually got clean of it all. The performance was phenomenal. Riveting the entire time. I think I can say that it was one of the best performances I've seen this year (I love student rush, when I have the time, I see as many plays as I can.)

I kept thinking the entire time about how much individual pain the Mormon Church and other conservative churches have caused. The amount of individual anguish that the belief that "homosexual acts are an abomination" has caused is overwhelming. When you are connected and have grown up within your church, synagogue, mosque, meeting, place of worship, and it is your entire life, having to reject it is heartbreaking. Thank God I grew up Quaker.

I'm out, fully out

As Process pointed out, once you miss the chance to out yourself early in a relationship (platonic or romantic) with someone, it becomes more and more difficult to come out again. So with that in mind, I recently outed myself to M. We were talking about experiences having friends that we've had sexual chemistry with. I may lie by ommision, I won't lie by commision. So in my response, I acknowledged that the person I was talking about was a woman.

It was nice and we talked a bit about it. Later in the week we were out walking and I ended up mentioning the ADD (which I normally don't share with people who are or are potential work peers) and he asked me if I take meds for it, which I acknowledged I do. It's hard for me to be out to someone w/o ADD as an adult with it. Most of my friends have it; we do attract each other. But for those who don't, there is a serious lack of understanding. When I acknowledge that I take medication for it, I still feel some transient shame.

We keep spending large chunks of time together. I'm a little nervous because it is beginning to get the flavor of a potential relationship and I'm finding my feelings changing from brotherly/friendship to friendship/potential partner.

This isn't good for a couple different reasons. Reason #1: he's acknowledged having a pattern of sleeping with his female friends and having that mess up their friendship and of having a lot of unprotected sex in the past. To remedy this, he's cut back on his drinking a lot, started therapy (for reasons broader than this), and explicitly told me about this because he doesn't want to mess up our friendship.

Reason #2: He's two months post a breakup from a year long relationship. That one stands by itself.

Reason #3: He says that he has a habit of supporting a close friend or significant other emotionally for a long time and not getting his needs met and then he disappears suddenly and hurts them.

So he is not a good dating partner right now. But when there is that connection, I am so hesitant to let it go. There are so few guys who I really like and who are emotionally open. I am still averse to dating women right now (baggage) and now that I am becoming interested in him, I hate to lose it. All my friends are in relationships right now and it is really hard to be the only one that is not. Plus, we'd have really cute red headed children.

I closeted myself tonight.

I've become friends with someone in my grad program who is a year ahead of me in the program. We actually met in church, he started attending a few weeks after me and we saw each other across the aisle. He has very similar hair and skin coloring and when I looked at him initially, he reminded me of my father when he was younger. Walking past us on the street, I think many people might think that we were related, brother and sister because of our coloring. A lot of what he says, reminds me of myself. He talks about not being able to be alone and do activities by himself; I used to frequently wish that I were more independent. He is very easy to get along with (I love male nurses; I love men who talk about emotional intimacy and palliative care) and we've been getting to know each other.

Earlier this week in class I was talking about a friend and her girlfriend, and he asked me if I had any straight friends. It was half in jest, but half real. Most of my friends are queer. Tonight we were talking about college and he asked me why I made the decision to attend an all-women's college. This would have been the perfect time for me to say that I chose it because I felt so comfortable there and the reason I felt so comfortable there was that they had a very visible queer group on campus. Then I could have launched into the explanation about how I date both women and men yadda yadda yadda...

But I didn't. I talked about all the other reasons I chose it. I talked about being a feminist and how wonderful it is to be in an arena where strong smart intellectual women are the norm and how you don't need to compete in class to be called on, to be listened to. How wonderful it was to be able to do the experiments in science class without having to force my lab partner to let me do some of it. All of it true, but not why I chose it. I chose it because I wanted to date women, to surround myself with women, and to explore this part of myself. But I didn't want him to know that. I wanted him to keep me in the "normal" category because I admire him. While I'm not particularly attracted to him, part of me wishes that I were.

Because I've felt out of sync with the rest of the world for a long time, part of me wants to be closeted and just step with everybody else. That, and lately I have been only minimally attracted to woman, I've been wanting to get away from my queerness. Or, to have it not be an issue at all. I enjoy the dynamic I have with him. I like the friendly flirtation we do. I don't want to change it. I also don't want an additional person in my life to try to define who I am attracted to. I've had too many friends tell me, "You can't be bi, you're even gayer than me." Or from people I don't know well, "I could never imagine you with a boy. You're so clearly oriented to women." And, occasionally from random people, "but you don't look gay."

But guess what, I am bi. I am attracted to men. I am attracted to women. At different times, I may be attracted to them with different intensity, but that does not preclude the fact that I have been intensely attracted to both men and women. So why didn't I tell him? I didn't want to open the conversation, I didn't want to be different, and I didn't want another person scrutinizing me for evidence of which way I "truly" lean. But, I'm still uncomfortable with my reticence and now, as I get to know him better and better, it will only be harder for me to open up that conversation.