The Gay Boyfriend

Best friends are something most people have very few of. I am not one of those people. I have about seven people that I consider of the best, the cream of the crop of the ranks of my friends. Some of them are ones that I have known since before school, others I didn’t meet till college. One of those, who is very high up on that list is Anthony.

Anthony and I did not meet until the first semester of my Senior year of high school in 2000. I was a total Studio Art chick, (go ahead and let images of Rachael Leigh Cook from “She’s All That” run through your head). I had an art class every semester my entire time in high school minus the second semester of my Freshman year. That was only because I could not choose my own classes. Because of my love for art class in general it was a no brainer that I would be a student assistant to my teacher, Ms. Crim, my senior year.

First day of the first semester in the first class of the day is when our story began. Here I was an assistant during Art I class. In that room there were huge tables with chairs surrounding them. The very front table, which was right in front of the teacher’s desk is where I decided to sit since I had to stay close to the front anyway. At the end of the table sat a rather cute boy who I had seen around school and knew his name but did not know him.

“Hey, I’m Sarah,” I said to him.

“Hello, I’m Anthony.”

From then on we were pals. We not only had first block together, but lunch and directly after, third block Zoology. We always managed to be close to each other whether it was in class projects or even just standing around at lunch. The entire semester went by as fast as it had come and before I knew it, my feelings were quite different towards my new friend. The hardest part was finding a way of telling him. I couldn’t just walk up and tell him. I was a girl who hadn’t even kissed a boy at the age of 18. I couldn’t get up the nerve to ask a guy out, especially a really cute one like him.

The next semester stunk for the simple fact that not only did I definitely like this guy but I had no classes with him. Frustration at it’s highest. Here we had more than half of the day together to nothing, not even lunch. We passed each other in the halls but that was it. I decided the only way was to give him a note. Totally cheesy I know, but with our lack of time to see each other anymore I didn’t know how else to go about it.

During first period where I was once again a teacher’s assistant, I wrote out the note telling him that I saw him as more than a friend and that I had grown a bit of a crush on him. I didn’t expect him to return the favors but I just wanted to let him know. After second block he tracked me down on his way to his third block as I was heading to lunch and gave me a reply note. To sum up he told me that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone but gave me his number as well as calling me “beautiful.” I gushed at how nice and flattering he was towards me. I called him that night, screw the “wait a few days to call someone” rule. Within a month of hanging out essentially every Saturday night, we were dating.

I didn’t know how to react now that I was a “girlfriend.” I now was one of the pretty girls who had a guy carry books or hold hands with while walking down the halls. Is it sad that I am eight years older and I still want the same thing?

Close to four months went by. I was ever so happy. I was on cloud nine at all times and little things really didn’t bother me anymore. I mean come on, I had a hot boyfriend. I graduated high school around that time and soon went on my classic Senior Trip to Myrtle Beach. I was gone for about a week and half. A week and half without seeing my boyfriend, what is a girl to do? During that trip my girlfriends that I went with were very much sowing their wild oats and having a blast. I am sure I was a bit of a stick in the mud since I was the only girl who wasn’t single. I periodically called Anthony to tell him how things were going and that I missed him but during one of our conversations I brought up a topic that we hadn’t talked too much about sex. We had been together for close to four months and never really made it past making out. I assumed that I was the problem, that I wasn’t thin or sexy enough for him to want to go to that level with me which he completely denied. Right after, he explained that there was something he wanted to talk to me about when I returned from my trip. A cold chill ran over my entire body and considering I was burnt like a lobster it really hit me. I had a gut feeling that when I got back he was going to break up with me.

We were so happy that all of my girlfriends laughed and told me I was overreacting and that there was no way he was going to dump me. I tried to shrug it off and think that maybe he wanted to talk about something positive about our relationship.

After a very stressful, and may I say bitchy trip, we finally made it home. The following day I couldn’t wait to go see Anth. I went to pick him up to go to a Graduation party at another best friend’s house who was also going into the Army. From the moment I walked into his house I knew something was wrong. I ran into his arms and something was missing…the kiss. I thought maybe he was preoccupied with thoughts of something unrelated but I couldn’t have been more wrong. On the way to my friend’s house I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about. He just laughed and told me that he would talk to me about it later. The laugh made me think, “Wow maybe this is something good.”

Later that night we went back to my parent’s house with a couple of friends. Little did I know when I fell asleep against him that things the following day would change us forever.

Sunday came, it was not only Father’s Day, but our four month anniversary. I was so happy to have him there with me when I woke up. Once again I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about and again I got the same laugh and response. Later in the evening I drove him home. We pulled up to his house and just as I went to turn the key, he reached for the volume knob on the stereo. I looked at him through my huge, before Paris Hilton did it, sunglasses. The next words that he said crushed me from the inside out.

“I have been thinking a lot about everything and I really feel as though we should just be friends and not date anymore before we ruin what friendship we do have.”

It took so much for me talk without bursting into tears but I managed to get out, “Well, if that’s what you want.”

“Yes, I think that would be best,” as he was also fighting back tears, “I will talk to you later,” and he exited my car.

I put the car in drive did a huge U-turn in the middle of the road and slammed on the gas pedal as hard as I could. I was alone now, I could bawl, yell and swear as much as I wanted. The tears became so big that I had to pull over at my exit and till I could stop.

The following week had the similar theme. I would wake up and think about him and cry…a lot. I was completely heart broken for the first time. The other crushes that weren’t interested didn’t even make a dent compared to this. My Mom was even worried that I might try to do something stupid. Juliet, I am not.

An entire month went by without even a word to him. Finally I decided to call him, because he even said himself that he didn’t want to damage what friendship we had. Well don’t friends talk and see each other? I caught up with him a bit and we decided to go see a movie. It was hard that first time but then as time passed and we did more and more together as friends, that’s when I realized that the only difference from those four months and now was the fact that we didn’t hold hands or kiss. I could live with that, but there was still this urge to want him to be mine.

Later that year I moved to Pittsburgh for college while he was still in the area for his Senior year of high school. We kept in touch and still had the longest phone conversations. I still cared very much for him but knew it wasn’t going to happen unless he wanted it to. As the end of 2002 came around, he expressed to me that he didn’t want to live with his family anymore and that he wanted to get the hell out of town. I talked it over with my two friends who were also high school friends of both of us, and we agreed that he should move to PA with us.

Those familiar feelings began to creep up again but I thought “We’ll be living with each other, if it is ever going to happen this would be the time.”

Months went by and nothing really changed until one night I was home by myself. The three roommates were all at work at Eat N Park, a Pittsburgh based company similar to Denny’s but 10 times better. I was bored and decided to call a friend and cruise the net. I was using Anth’s computer as I talked to my friend. All of a sudden someone IM’ed him through MSN. I didn’t recognize the name but explained that he was at work and that I would leave the window open so he would see the message. The guy then proceeded to ask me who I was and what my relationship to Anthony was. As I’m on the phone I type out that we are roommates, we used to date but now we’re just friends. The next words that appeared in that little window would give me that all too familiar cold chill.

“Oh really, I thought he was gay?”

I put down the phone and typed, “Umm we haven’t discussed that.”

“OMG did I just out him?”

“Yes you sure did.”

*User No Longer Online*

Shock. Disbelief. Sadness. Dismay. Anger. Depression. All of these feelings crept up on me faster than flash of light. I soon informed my friend on the phone of what just happened. I got off of the phone and just sat there, until even that became too much for me to handle. Here I was…finding out that my last boyfriend is gay. I was his last girlfriend. I changed him, oh my God I changed him! I cried thinking that I failed as a girlfriend. I wasn’t there enough, I didn’t talk enough, etc. I thought it was all my fault. After an hour of self abuse I ended up calling another friend to come over. She came over and couldn’t believe what I told her, that my ex-boyfriend/best friend is gay. I told her that I didn’t want him to know that I found out and that I told her. It was our little secret. We only discussed it between ourselves. We talked for hours until the early morning hours when Anthony and the others came home from work. We just smiled and said hello as he walked through the door.

Nearly a year passed. I was back in WV and he was living in SC for college. We still remained the best of friends and kept in contact very often. During that past year I found out that all of our close friends knew about his preference, except me. It really upset me that he hadn’t told me. I thought, “maybe he doesn’t want to hurt me”, but at the same time it hurt that he didn’t tell me. Either way I’m sure I would have been hurt if I hadn’t actually known. Finally I had it. I couldn’t take it that he wasn’t talking to me about his boyfriends or anything like that. I came up with a lame story about how a girlfriend of mine and I had talked about what it would be like to be gay, to be with another woman in a relationship and then I twisted it around and asked if he had ever had thoughts like that?

“Well Sarah, I have something to tell you.”

As my face was two inches away from the monitor, “Oh yeah? What is it?”

“Sarah, I’m gay.”

FINALLY! It was like a roaring crowd in my head but my fingers typed, “Oh really, well that’s cool”

I couldn’t lie to him so I told him when I found out and that my other two friends knew because I had to vent to them. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t said anything to him earlier. I just explained that I wanted to hear it from him, not some perv on MSN who had a pic of his wang as his default image.

The confession was a huge weight off of my chest as I’m sure it was for him as well. He expressed to me that he didn’t want to hurt me. He loves me too much to hurt me again. I just smiled and told him that I love him too and that I always will. He told me that he felt like he led me on when we dated because he knew he was gay before he even met me. With that statement the negative feelings began to creep up until he told me that I was the first and only girl who made him question his sexuality. Even recently he told me one night how bad he felt over the whole situation. I expressed to him that, yes I was hurt but I understand now and have forgiven him.

We were and still are very much in love but it’s a very odd kind of love. It’s beyond friendship love and not quite the love expressed by a boyfriend and girlfriend. Neither of us can explain it but we just know that we love each other and people can take it however they want.

Over the past eight years, Anthony and I have been through a lot, from our dating months, to living together for the first time, to the confession, to relationships, to crying on each other’s shoulders. We have lived together twice and are on number three right now. We just keep working our way back to each other. I think that it really shows how well we have endured, that true love isn’t the physical. True love is something you share with someone no matter where you are. It’s living and learning from experiences that made you weak at the time but overall strengthened who you are together in the here and now.

For everyone who reads this story and has been in that situation, please do not judge, do not hate, do not feel regret. Good friends aren’t easy to come by and do take some work to maintain. Time changes everything and everyone, if you care for someone, you shouldn’t stop for something so trivial, so simple as sexuality. Talking is the key to any good relationship, be it that of an elderly couple who are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary or that of a gay boy and his best girl. True love, I mean real love will and can endure anything.

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