Essay: The Girl I Loved While I Was in the Closet

[+ quoththeraven]

Ran across this essay and thought it might spark a discussion or provide food for thought. Usual disclaimer: no one person's experience is representative of everyone else, etc., but it's also probably not completely unique.

 

https://intomore.com/you/The-Girl-I-Loved-While-In-The-Closet/602f0e52cee74997

[bigvalboy]

Ran across this essay and thought it might spark a discussion or provide food for thought. Usual disclaimer: no one person's experience is representative of everyone else, etc., but it's also probably not completely unique.

 

https://intomore.com/you/The-Girl-I-Loved-While-In-The-Closet/602f0e52cee74997

 

Excellent...

 

This struck me:

"I’ve never been in love with a man who loved me back, though unreciprocated dynamics litter my tragic baby gay years.

I don’t believe that sexuality is static, that its psychic territory can really be completely explored. I believe it can only be crudely mapped, as one might do in a strange, foreign place."

 

And finally this:

"I look instead to what I did have: my time with Rebecca. It was a time when I was deeply confused, when I hadn’t yet made sense of myself and the world had denied me the freedom to find out. But it’s a time I now cherish, despite its flaws, because I spent it with a person whom I genuinely loved."

For my own life, at sixteen, I still think of her to this day, fifty years later, and ponder what might have been. Thoughts of her will come to me when I am most happy, and long to share my life with someone. I see her as if it were yesterday.

 

Thanks for the article @quoththeraven

Edited January 2, 2018 by bigvalboy

[+ quoththeraven]

You're welcome, @bigvalboy, and thanks for posting those excerpts.

[+ GregM]

Excellent...

 

This struck me:

"I’ve never been in love with a man who loved me back, though unreciprocated dynamics litter my tragic baby gay years.

I don’t believe that sexuality is static, that its psychic territory can really be completely explored. I believe it can only be crudely mapped, as one might do in a strange, foreign place."

 

And finally this:

"I look instead to what I did have: my time with Rebecca. It was a time when I was deeply confused, when I hadn’t yet made sense of myself and the world had denied me the freedom to find out. But it’s a time I now cherish, despite its flaws, because I spent it with a person whom I genuinely loved."

For my own life, at sixteen, I still think of her to this day, fifty years later, and ponder what might have been. Thoughts of her will come to me when I am most happy, and long to share my life with someone. I see her as if it were yesterday.

 

Thanks for the article @quoththeraven

 

Maybe she thinks of you as well?

 

Hugs,

Greg

[+ nycman]

He’s got some great phrasing and interesting ideas....

but his writing style is all over the place. He needs a good editor.

 

It’s odd that he’s fixated on a teenage relationship that lasted one year

and that he feels he’s never been in love with a man who loved him back.

 

The kids got some real issues....then again....don’t we all!

 

Thanks for sharing. It was an interesting read.

[bigvalboy]

Maybe she thinks of you as well?

 

Hugs,

Greg

 

Yes yes...I have wondered that also.

Edited January 3, 2018 by bigvalboy

[longtime lurker]

I just noticed that he uses the pronoun "we" a few too many times. Even though he doesn't discuss other people, he is constantly thinking about what others think. It is human nature to need to be accepted into a group. Humans are like ants in this way.

 

Also it is human nature to categorize. Like Carl Linnaeus, we want a Latin name for everything so that we can maintain a sense of control in our immediate environment. We are deathly afraid of the unknown.

 

There is so much fuss about "what I am supposed to do". Yes, if a semi truck is headed your way, you are "supposed to" get off the road or else you will get hit. However, if you want to label yourself gay instead of bisexual, you have to consider female anatomy and affection for females somehow wrong. What about accepting the fact that 75% of the world's population is likely bisexual with an attraction towards both genders? There is a natural curiosity towards one's own body that will prompt curiosity towards other bodies with either similar and radically different body parts. It may not stay consistent your entire life as certain curiosities come and go with both age and experience.

 

Alas... a structured society built on breeding humans to compensate losses through wars and plagues (and many of the most conservative religions that pick and choose what kinds of intimacy is "moral" got rooted in rural rather than urban societies where it was important to have as many children as possible to help tend the goat herds) has forced a huge chunk of the population to think heterosexuality is the only proper way for intimacy. Many aspects of this has also filtered into the craniums of "out" gay men as well. You know you must be part of a group. Either you are with "them" or you are with "us". You even have a national rainbow flag!

 

I am always tickled reading threads about clients falling in "love" with escorts and masseurs because everybody chimes in with the same opinions. "Oh NO, you can't do that!" Well... it depends on how you define "love". Also it depends on whether "falling in love" means you want to move into the same dwellings as this hard working guy, discover that he may not always be as hunky and sexy during non-working hours and decide if you can handle him being "intimate" with strangers you don't know, regardless if it just involves slapping lotion on a bare body in a more intimate fashion than a family doctor. Also, speaking of doctors, you can just as easily "fall in love" with them just as you would lawyers, psychiatrists and anybody else who is giving your service work. Who says "deli" and "spa" must be any different?

 

Some subjects are just hard to measure with a yardstick or in accordance to all of the human experts who tell you "how it is". This includes anything involving the emotions.

 

I guess... to get to the point (if I really have one), everybody analyzes and over analyzes. That is a good thing except that too much of the analysis is influenced by other peoples' opinions rather than objective reasoning.

 

At least this author is aware of himself and is questioning "why" he has these feelings. He also questions "why" his relationships with men are not measuring up with this one woman. Perhaps his approach with men is different than his approach with women, whom he has told himself he is less attracted sexually to? Perhaps what he is trying to learn for himself is how to get beyond just physical attraction and find an emotional connection? That is clearly what he had with her.

Edited January 3, 2018 by longtime lurker

[bigvalboy]

I just noticed that he uses the pronoun "we" a few too many times. Even though he doesn't discuss other people, he is constantly thinking about what others think. It is human nature to need to be accepted into a group. Humans are like ants in this way.

 

Also it is human nature to categorize. Like Carl Linnaeus, we want a Latin name for everything so that we can maintain a sense of control in our immediate environment. We are deathly afraid of the unknown.

 

There is so much fuss about "what I am supposed to do". Yes, if a semi truck is headed your way, you are "supposed to" get off the road or else you will get hit. However, if you want to label yourself gay instead of bisexual, you have to consider female anatomy and affection for females somehow wrong. What about accepting the fact that 75% of the world's population is likely bisexual with an attraction towards both genders? There is a natural curiosity towards one's own body that will prompt curiosity towards other bodies with either similar and radically different body parts. It may not stay consistent your entire life as certain curiosities come and go with both age and experience.

 

Alas... a structured society built on breeding humans to compensate losses through wars and plagues (and many of the most conservative religions that pick and choose what kinds of intimacy is "moral" got rooted in rural rather than urban societies where it was important to have as many children as possible to help tend the goat herds) has forced a huge chunk of the population to think heterosexuality is the only proper way for intimacy. Many aspects of this has also filtered into the craniums of "out" gay men as well. You know you must be part of a group. Either you are with "them" or you are with "us". You even have a national rainbow flag!

 

I am always tickled reading threads about clients falling in "love" with escorts and masseurs because everybody chimes in with the same opinions. "Oh NO, you can't do that!" Well... it depends on how you define "love". Also it depends on whether "falling in love" means you want to move into the same dwellings as this hard working guy, discover that he may not always be as hunky and sexy during non-working hours and decide if you can handle him being "intimate" with strangers you don't know, regardless if it just involves slapping lotion on a bare body in a more intimate fashion than a family doctor. Also, speaking of doctors, you can just as easily "fall in love" with them just as you would lawyers, psychiatrists and anybody else who is giving your service work. Who says "deli" and "spa" must be any different?

 

Some subjects are just hard to measure with a yardstick or in accordance to all of the human experts who tell you "how it is". This includes anything involving the emotions.

 

I guess... to get to the point (if I really have one), everybody analyzes and over analyzes. That is a good thing except that too much of the analysis is influenced by other peoples' opinions rather than objective reasoning.

 

At least this author is aware of himself and is questioning "why" he has these feelings. He also questions "why" his relationships with men are not measuring up with this one woman. Perhaps his approach with men is different than his approach with women, whom he has told himself he is less attracted sexually to? Perhaps what he is trying to learn for himself is how to get beyond just physical attraction and find an emotional connection? That is clearly what he had with her.

 

Excellent...

[+ WilliamM]

It’s odd that he’s fixated on a teenage relationship that lasted one year

 

He’s got some great phrasing and interesting ideas....

but his writing style is all over the place. He needs a good editor.

 

I disagree. The relationship was important. When you are young a year, or just a summer, sometimes seems endless.

 

The writing did not bother me at all because I was reading for content

[longtime lurker]

Excellent...

Awww thanks. I do get too "windy" though and lose track of thread conversations at times.