Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 23:53:24 -0800 (PST)
From: BC Mac <ithinkitsjustme@yahoo.com>
Subject: Sing Your Life

I haven't read this much since... well ... I guess since never.  This daily
commute between New York and Westchester County has definitely improved my
repertoire of literary conquests.  So much so that I'm starting to write
like the authors I read every day... I mean who's ever heard of someone
saying or even thinking of the phrase "literary conquests ?"  Well I guess
it just goes to show what a boring turn my life has taken on its road to
who knows where.  Just months after graduating from college I am relegated
to the daily grind about which so many middle aged, tired suburbanites- and
now I - ritualistically complain.  I am just now realizing that I'm 22
going on 43.

Each day riding the train into Grand Central a myriad of thoughts and
people walk through my mind.  On Monday morning its apprehension at the
week to come.  Monday evening I think about the workout I will force myself
to complete upon arriving home at 8:00 or so.  Tuesday morning I find
myself engrossed in one book or another, wishing I could be or just meet
one of those characters.  Tuesday night I think about my workout some more
but this time the guy in the seat directly facing me, across the aisle
leading to doors, is also grabbing a bit of my attention.  Of course every
man worth looking at on this suburban express is hopelessly straight.  And
even if they weren't, they probably look at me and think that I am.  Lets
just say that by Thursday night my thoughts bring me to my college days.

"College days" --they seem like they took place ages ago yet I was still a
student just this past May.  I always allow my mind to linger a bit too
long on what I would be doing at this very moment if I was back at Penn.  I
know exactly what I'd be doing.  I would be walking down Locust Walk after
one of my late classes.  I would be following the walk down past the
library and the Food Court to Walnut Street where I would begin my trek
into Center City and back to my apartment.  Perhaps I would run into a
friend and chat idly for a bit or maybe I'd make a detour to the bookstore.
Then I would start my half-mile walk into Center City and my apartment off
Rittenhouse Square.

Throughout my reminiscing a soundtrack plays in my head.  My own personal
soundtrack.  The one I've created for myself over the past 22 years.  For
example, any memory taking place in 1986 would feature The Outfield and
their Play Deep album; 1989 and 1990 would conjure Madonna's "Like a
Prayer" and "Vogue"; 1995 would feature Hum's "Counting Stars" and Sponge's
"16 Candles Down the Drain"; and now, my moments walking down the Ivy
League path would most certainly feature a rousing rendition of Gay Dad's
"Oh Jim" or Splender's " Whatever".  But I've digressed too much.  My
soundtrack can only be understood and truly appreciated by me.

You may think I'm one of those creepy band-obsessed geeks - maybe John
Cussack's character from the film "High Fidelity".  But I'm not at all.  In
fact I couldn't remember the title of most songs, and the names of many
bands, to save my life.  I wasn't in band in high school.  In fact, I don't
have any musical talent whatsoever.  I was always too cool or too lazy to
apply myself to learning any instrument.  Yes, I'm very far from being a
band freak or geek, I am happy to say.  Its just that I think a little
differently than everybody else.  I think like I write.  Digression after
digression.  Ask anyone who knows me.  I will be talking about X one second
and then have something trigger thoughts on Y which will in turn cause me
to ask a random question on Z all so I can figure out what ever happened to
A.  That's how I think.  I don't expect anyone to follow it - just don't
knock it.

So I guess now is as good a time as ever to tell you that this isn't a
story.  Not in the orthodox sense of the word.  Rather this is my train of
thought.  From time to time it may include a short story.  But I can't
promise that they will be in any temporal order or even relevant.  I'll
just promise they'll be interesting.  I like the word interesting.  I use
it a lot in a variety of contexts - always when I can't find the right
word.  The word that may offend, the word that may give me away, the word
that's honest.  So I use interesting.  Also, I can't spell very well.  Four
years of Ivy League education and I still couldn't even win an 8th grade
spelling bee.  Of course I can spell better than 90% of the population, but
not up to the par of my alma mater.  And finally, like I said -- I write
what I'm thinking, and write it like I'm thinking.  That's me.  I could
compose a fantastic essay with perfect grammar and astounding eloquence in
a minute but that's not what this is about.  I'm not writing a story.  I'm
sharing my thoughts.  Consider yourself lucky because you are in my head.
If you stay tuned you will know more about me than anyone else - more than
my family, my friends and my boyfriend.  They all think they know me -- and
they do.  But they only know a piece of me.  I present a different face to
each.  Here these "faces" will all come together.  I won't even change
names for the most part.  So hopefully you'll enjoy this.

I've just finished checking my email here at work for the twentieth time
today and for the twentieth time I've read the message my closest friend
still in Philadelphia has sent me.  I don't know why I do it, but I keep
reading it over an over hoping to find something that I may have missed
before.  What that something is I have a pretty good idea of, but alas I
don't find it.  I even contemplate the tone of the letter hoping for a
glimmer of something I hope will be there.  You see Jake (named changed to
protect the innocent and myself) and I have had something less than a
kosher relationship for the past two years, yet there has been no
impropriety between the two of us at all.  Even when my boyfriend and I
broke up for that short time last year we didn't stray toward one another.
Yet when we're together I feel electrically charged and sometimes I get the
feeling he feels the same way.  We've talked about our "situation" only
once - and that wasn't even in person.  We were chatting online when out of
nowhere he asks me if I ever thought of "fooling around together".  I was
honest and told him that I had but quickly pointed out that I valued our
friendship too much to ever risk ruining it with some stupid transgression
we would both regret.  I then proceeded to lie and tell him I no longer had
those feelings anyway.  He agreed with everything I transmitted back to
him.  But I think he was lying a little too.

I guess I will have to tell you a little about "Jake" and I.  We met online
in the summer of 1998 while I was still at home on my summer break.  It was
quite a random meeting indeed.  We met on one of those general Gay chat
rooms America Online offers. That in itself isn't random.  What is random,
is the fact that he attended my university, held many of the same views as
me, and sounded just like I had a year before when I first began to come
out.  I wasn't looking for a boyfriend as I already had one whom I loved
very much.  In fact we are still together but that is beside the point.
But needless to say, if I had been looking for someone Jake would have been
a great contender.

Of course things didn't start out so well.  Rather than ask me how I was or
how I was doing, Jake just came out and propositioned me.  I told him I was
not interested and closed the window.  But he persisted.  He told me he was
just testing me and that he wasn't a creep.  I didn't know what to think,
but I chatted with him anyway.  It turned out he was a few years older than
me and quite accomplished in his field.  We chatted a few times a week for
the next month or so until I got back to Philly.  It was then that he asked
me to meet him.

The whole time I had mentioned nothing about this correspondence to my
boyfriend.  "Why should I?" I thought to myself.  I knew that if I said
anything my boyfriend, who I will baptize "Mark", would have freaked out
even though I really had no dubious intentions.  I also was sick of Mark in
a few ways.  I was tired of living every second of my life with him ... or
thinking of him ... or talking to him.  I needed a break and I needed my
own space.  I thought that my cyber-friendship with Jake would help me
break free a bit.  I had no other gay friends and the only person who knew
I was gay was my boyfriend.  I needed a confidant and Jake just happened to
be there.

Jake was a lot like I had been coming out.  Just like me, he used the
Internet as his medium to breach the world of gay men.  Just like me, he
hated the gay lifestyle and believed in many of the gay stereotypes.  And
just like me, he was mortally afraid of being exposed to his friends and
family as a homosexual man.  Chatting with him, I sympathized with his
plight but I also tried to broaden his horizons.  I spoke to him with
confidence, and I must have sounded like I truly believed in everything I
said because he really thought I had it together.  What he didn't know was
that I was a mere step or two ahead of him on my journey out of the closet.
By trying to alleviate his fears I in turn began to alleviate my own.  In
time, my relationship with Jake would become the tonic I needed to begin
accepting myself, my situation, and my future.

When I returned to Penn, Jake asked me to meet him.  I was apprehensive at
first because I didn't want to do that behind my boyfriend's back, yet I
didn't feel I should have to ask Mark for his permission to meet Jake.  If
I just came out and told Mark what I was going to do it would just cause a
fight, or at least that was my thinking.  I was also apprehensive to meet
Jake because, frankly, some things he later told me about himself made me
think we may not get along after all.  For though he reminded me of myself,
he reminded me of myself in 1997 -- when I was hyper-sensitive to being
around gay people.  Jake asked me 101 questions before he was sure I was
masculine enough to meet him in public.  I don't know why, but I felt I
would disappoint him.  I may not be a flamboyant queen but I am also not a
beer guzzling, football playing, butch guy either.  And that's what Jake
seemed to be looking for in a friend.

Jake was not out to his friends, his family, or even himself.  His mother
was constantly bugging him to get married.  His brother was and is a
fixture in the Republican Party.  He considered being gay a threat to his
career.  Need I go on?  He also dreamed of having a family.  He really felt
someday he could be the father he never had to his own children.  Oh... and
he was also dating a female someone from work.

We decided to meet in a small cafe by Rittenhouse Square in Center City
Philadelphia on a Saturday morning in late September.  I don't remember how
I got there.  I think I may have walked but I probably took a cab from my
dorm.  I do remember exactly what I wore though.  How could I forget,
seeing as I agonized over finding an outfit that wouldn't be too
conspicuous - at least to him.  You see at the time I was in one of my punk
phases.  On campus I would wear large skater pants, numerous silver rings,
and any funky top I could get my hands on.  So I decided to wear simple
gray cords with a white t-shirt and my brown Berks.  I even fashioned my
hair a little less messy than usual.  I didn't want to freak this guy out,
yet I had to maintain my image.  So I slung my black messenger bag over my
soldier and was on my way.  I didn't really need it, but I felt
uncomfortable without it, like a woman without her purse.

When I walked in the shop I had no idea what to expect.  We had never seen
a picture of each other and we hadn't discussed our wardrobes.  Somehow,
looking over toward the counter I caught the eye of a guy in line buying a
bagel.  He nodded to me and I knew it was him.  Looking back I want to
laugh... It really felt like a gay James Bond flick.  I was expecting him
to hand me his bagel bag and run, leaving me to discover a ticking time
bomb.  He came over to me and shook my hand but never smiled.  I didn't
really know what to say, and he certainly wasn't Mr. Congeniality - at
least not at that point.  It took a good 20 minutes before he finally
cracked a smile.  I thought he hated me for sure.  Slowly but surely we
both began to loosen up and finally we decided to leave.  I was headed back
to West Philly and he to his apartment, which was sort of on the way.  So
we decided to walk together.  I don't know exactly what we talked about,
but before I knew it we were all the way to campus.  We just kept walking
and he took me over to his part of campus to show me around. I had never
been there, so I was actually interested in what he was saying.  It all
seemed like a first date but of course it wasn't.  Well it was.  But a
first date between two friends.

We talked and walked, and talked and walked until we really didn't have
much more to say.  So we stopped walking together on Locust Walk, and he
walked his way and I walked my way with the promise that we would meet up
again soon -- maybe even later that night.  I was absolutely ecstatic with
what had happened.  He really seemed to like me and I really liked him.  I
liked him more than I thought I would, actually.  By the time I got back to
my room I was on air.  This guy was really cool and cute and he liked me.
I knew I had developed a crush but vowed that it would go no further than
friendship, no matter how attractive I found him.

I can't tell you how he felt because I'm not him and he never told me.  But
judging from what happened next, I'd say he liked me a little more that he
thought he would too.  In fact, even though he knew I had a boyfriend, I
think he may have thought about propositioning me.  But this is all
speculation.  Leaving me that afternoon it seemed as if he really didn't
want to go.  It was like we were forcing ourselves to separate before
anything "stupid" happened.

Later that night I went to dinner with my roommates - at Bertucci's I
think.  The whole time I was there, however, I thought of nothing and no
one but Jake - hoping against hope I'd see him later that night.  I finally
called my friend back on campus and had her check my email for me. Low and
behold, Jake had emailed me asking me to meet up with him that night for a
drink.  I was elated and all but pulled my roommates out of the restaurant
so I could get home on time - even jumping out of our cab early, at the
bookstore where I told Jake I'd meet him.  Looking back I was acting like a
school girl.

I found Jake and we went over to a campus bar.  Luckily, I had a fake ID.
He looked hotter than he did before.  He had just finished working out and
I could have jumped on him as soon as I saw him.  We sat at a table for a
while and had drink after drink, talking about everything and anything.  It
was like one of those nights when you are on a first date and it just seems
like you can talk forever.  It was well after 1:00 AM when we decided to
call it a night.  But again we ended up walking for a while and talking
some more.  He walked me back up to my dorm before going to grab his bike
to ride back into the city.  We stopped at the corner across from Wawa and
the Quad and just stood there for a good ten seconds.  I think we both felt
something at that point.  He shook my hand and looked at me - or should I
say through me.  I thought I could see lust in his eyes but maybe that was
just wishful thinking.  We both felt awkward while he clumsily thanked me
for listening to him and I clumsily told him, "any time."  We looked at
each other one last time as he backed away, eyes locked on mine, before I
turned and walked to my dorm.

As I strolled down 38th Street and up Locust Walk I knew I was playing with
fire. I had never had my commitment to Mark and our relationship challenged
before.  I thought I would always be hopelessly in love with Mark and
nothing would ever cloud that.  I know now how naive I was.  He was my
first boyfriend and for that he will always be special, but I knew then
that I would eventually have to branch out from Mark and our relationship
and explore the world on my own.  Jake and I have gone on to become great
friends but we never took that one extra irretrievable step - no matter how
close we ever came.  It was Jake who made me question my relationship with
Mark for the first time.  It was also Jake who showed me and continues to
show me that I can actually be friends with another gay man without
sleeping with him.  My experiences with meeting other gay men for purely
platonic social interaction hadn't been and still aren't particularly
fulfilling.  I either find guys attractive and allow myself to coolly
socialize, or I find them ugly and don't want anything to do with them.
Who cares what they have to say.  Of course, looking for platonic friends,
physical features shouldn't even come into play.  Yet time and again they
do with me, because I'm not sure what I'm looking for it seems.

Meeting Jake, if nothing else, has allowed me to see past the initial
animal attraction (or revulsion) I experience when meeting other men.
Though I still find Jake attractive and sometimes find myself fantasizing
over him, I know that my feelings aren't concrete.  They are just a
manifestation of erroneous misconceptions I have unconscientiously held for
years.  These misconceptions, which read something like this: gay men
aren't friends with each other, or if they are, the friendship they have
has arisen out of a prior sexual relationship; straight men are never
friends with gay men, and if they are, they are gay themselves; and gay men
can only be friends with girls, and only girls who fell in love with them
at one point in high school or college - all hindered my ability to form
relationships with most anyone.  Of course if you asked me a year ago if I
believed any of the before-mentioned mumbo jumbo, I would deny it.
However, looking at my track record, I think I believed those things deep
down.  I had to have.  Otherwise who could explain the fact that 90% of my
friends are girls.  That of these girls, 90% have had some sort of crush on
me.  That the 10% of my friends who are men are either gay and have at one
point attempted to seduce me, or are straight, yet seem gay to everyone
else.  This stuff doesn't just happen.  One develops a pattern of behavior
and mine led me to these results.  Where else would my behavior lead me?