Images from the seventh grade

I was reminded today of two conversations I had in Costa Rica. One I had already shared with some friends back here in San Francisco; the other might have slipped away from me completely if my friend Lionel hadn't triggered a memory of it today. Both conversations took me back 27 years to junior high. And both gave me new insights into the events that have followed.

The first conversation I shared with John on the beach at our resort. John made a comment about certain events having the ability to shift the arc of our lives, and the image that flashed into my mind was of a certain dance in the 7th grade. Despite it being one of my first, I don't recall anticipating it with any particular anxiety. I do remember having to lie on the ground to zip up what are quite probably the tightest pair of (white) pants I've ever owned (yes, it was '78 or '79 :-).

I was pure geek at that point in my life with glasses and a mess of hair, but I had always gotten along well with girls, even having had to fight them off the summer before at science camp while swimming in the pool one day. Another boy in the showerhouse had asked me my secret... I had no idea. Of course, it was likely that it was simply that I was a young gay man in the making and--with no designs on them--totally unthreatening to those girls.

At the dance I had already asked Terri (name changed to #1 protect the innocent and #2 because I don't really remember!) to dance once, and after the requisite return to the "boys area," I was heading in her direction to ask her a second time. Then it happened: she caught sight of my approaching her, cringed, and tried to hide behind another girl.

That was all it took. I decided in that moment I was a loser when it came to love, romance, dancing... everything that that awkward night now represented. To save face I went up to Terri and blurted out something, trying to leave the impression that I'd only walked over to share some piece of information.

Eight years later I came out, and six years after that I began some serious clubbing. One space in particular, 177 Townsend, the home of Club Universe and Pleasuredome, became my weekend home. From the summer of 1993 until the building was torn down in the summer of 2002, I danced at 177 at least three weekends a month. I gradually developed from the innocent kid wearing Don't Panic t-shirts to a circuit professional. And along the way, I developed a bold confidence in that space that allowed me to approach and proposition just about anyone that I wanted.

John's comment about how an event can alter what comes after gave me this insight: those years at 177 were about more than just having fun. They also were a symbolic, though unconscious, effort to undo the pain and embarassment of that 7th grade dance. I chased all of the "yes's" to chip away at that one big "no" that had followed me after that night.

And writing this I have another insight: I'm lying. Terri never said "no" because I never asked her. I saw something on her face and decided it meant "no," and rather than risk finding out for sure, I took myself out of the game for many years.

The second conversation followed from the "no secrets" discussion that I referred to in my "Communication" post. I had been talking to my friend Dolly about this idea of living without secrets, and one of the reasons I gave was that, looking back, I could see how much pain and suffering had resulted from my keeping secrets. One example was my keeping hidden for so many years that I was gay.

I saw Brian McNaught's "Growing Up Gay and Lesbian" on public television in the mid-90s. In the program McNaught said something that had never occurred to me yet had the ring of truth for my own life. Gay and lesbian kids often grow up, he said, keeping secret the fact that they feel different, that they are finding themselves attracted to others of their own gender. Unlike other minorities, gay and lesbian kids don't normally grow up in households where their parents are members of the same minority. And even though those gay and lesbian kids usually feel loved by their families, they may carry the fear that if their parents and siblings knew their secret, then they would no longer be loved. Years later after having come out, they may still find difficulty in accepting love, having learned as an adolescent to fear that love might disappear if they let themselves be fully known.

I first became aware that I was attracted to boys when I entered the 7th grade and for the first time was eligible to participate in organized sports at school. Football practice began a few days before the school year kicked off, and while no one told me that I had to join the team, I had the sense that it was the thing that boys did and that I ought to go out.

I arrived late that first morning and had to run a lap as punishment. While a pretty decent runner, I wasn't particularly coordinated at that age and suffered through the rest of the session, then headed to the locker room with the rest of the boys. Once there I again had a moment when everything shifted. Everyone else took off their gear, undressed, and headed for the showers, but I found my eyes drifting to some of the eighth graders and their more developed--more manly--bodies.

And just as I did a few months later at that dance, I decided something in an instant that swung the course of my life. I decided that I didn't fit in, that I was different, and that I had to hide those facts. I decided that I couldn't let myself get too close to those boys, and the men that would follow, because I couldn't let them know my secret. Without undressing or showering, I bolted from the locker room and headed home.

When I came out I was at last able to begin to break down that barrier to intimacy with men, but only with those who were gay. Straight men--nearly half the world's population--remained off limits as friends. If I act to friendly, I thought, they'll misunderstand and think that I'm interested in them. In 2003 I participated in Landmark's Transforming Yesterday's Strategies course and distinguished for myself that I had made this all up, that no one had told me I didn't belong, that there was no banner saying so. But still, somehow, I was at fault. Had I been smarter or stronger or something I wouldn't have hidden in the first place.

After sharing this all with Dolly, she said something that gave me a whole new perspective: "What you did, Michael, was a perfectly appropriate thing to have done. Growing up in a small town in the Midwest in the 70s, not hiding that you were gay might have put yourself in danger."

Oh. So maybe there was nothing wrong with what I did. No one had ever said that to me before, and it had never occurred to me. Instead of lacking courage maybe I had simply chosen wisely. And in speaking to Lionel today I realized something else: what I did do, as soon as I could, was get myself to the San Francisco Bay Area where it was safe to take the next step as a gay man. And in doing so I got to come out on my terms. When I stepped off the plane in Kansas for my first visit home after telling my parents I was gay, my mother told me that I was standing taller than she had ever seen me, and she knew in that moment that everything was okay.

And knowing my secret, my family still loves me. As for Terry, I hope she's found as much happiness as I have.

But I bet I'm a better dancer. :-)