Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 17:51:36 -0800 (PST)
From: h_a_r_v_e_y@yahoo.com
Subject: A Typical Love Story

This is my first time to submit to Nifty.  It doesn't have any sex scenes.
Why in the world did I decide to write a story without sex and then submit
it to an erotic sex archive?  Well, because I love writing stories and I
wanted to write about gay relationships.  No one knows I'm gay so I can't
show this to anyone around me.  But I would love some feedback on my story.
That's why I'm submitting this.  I hope you like it.

I've never done this but I'll include all the usual warnings and disclaimers.
Don't read this if you're not appreciative of gay relationships and if you're
not allowed to read this in your area.  The story is also just a story,
completely fictional.



A Typical Love Story


I hate being stereotypical and predictable.  I hate being ordinary.  I
guess it's ironic, then, that I found myself in a typical love story.

I met a great guy completely by accident.  No, I didn't bump into him in
the corridor and let him pick my scattered stuff from the floor.  That
would be too much!  Instead, I saw him at the pizza place across the
school.  I was eating by myself, out of choice and not circumstance.  He
was sitting quietly, staring off somewhere, while his friends were noisily
joking among themselves.  I watched him for a while until he snapped out of
his reverie.  Then, he made a small, adorable smile and I knew I was
hooked.  He didn't notice me looking at him back then.  Scott told me that
later on.  But he was flattered when I told him of how I had developed a
crush on him.

I really think it was too much of a coincidence that in the next semester,
we ended up in the same Psychology class.  I didn't stalk him and his
friends to find out what section he got.  It just happened.  And it also
just happened that we grouped together for all the projects in the
semester.  I was overjoyed when we first got to talk that first day of
class.  To be frank, he didn't seem interested at the time.  He casually
left the class without even talking to me, his new groupmate.  But I wasn't
disheartened.  I mean, I didn't want him to know yet that I was interested,
so why would he?  But all the way home that day, I just kept on thinking
about our brief conversation and I just somehow knew that the feeling was
mutual.

We had a bitch for a Psych teacher, someone who gave us a group paper to
write every week.  It was the first week of class and we had to write about
Freud's oral, anal, genital, and phallic stages.  The next week we had to
write about gender-typing and gender roles.  The very next week we had to
write about Kohlberg's stages of morality.  I would have thought it was
hell except for two things - Scott, who turned out to be really smart and
perceptive, and my other groupmates, who all turned out to be lazy
free-riders.  I was happy with that arrangement.  That meant that just the
two of us would be meeting in the library every week.

We got to know one another better.  So much so that I decided to take the
first few steps.  After submitting a requirement in the Psychology
Department one day, I asked him if he wanted to come with me and get some
coffee.  He thought about it for a while, then smiled his wonderful smile,
and agreed.  It was the first time we were together without the pretext of
working on a project.  It was perfect timing.  The requirement we submitted
earlier that afternoon was a timeline of the five most important events in
our lives.  Because of that, we had so much to talk about.  He told me
about joining the soccer team and how he was "kicked" out of it.  We
laughed at his stupid pun but I saw some of his pain behind the laugh.
Something bad must have happened between him and his teammates but I didn't
want to pry.  I then told him about my childhood.  I told him how I almost
died twice, once from an allergy to Paracetamol and another from falling
into the pool.  He laughed at that.  We were comfortable with each other,
at that point.  So I decided to tell him about my grandmother who died last
year and how she was the only one in my family who had understood me.  He
responded by telling me that he envied me.  According to him, at least, I
had been close to someone in my family.

It became our routine to go for some coffee after class if we didn't have
to work on a project.  I'd ask him if he was interested in getting coffee
and he'd easily agree.  After a while, I stopped asking Scott and we just
automatically gravitated towards the coffee shop.  We'd order coffee, sit
down, and chat for around half an hour before he had to go back to school
and I had to go home.  I was feeling really happy then.  He had to have
been interested in me to be going out with me that often.  Well, it wasn't
exactly going out.  It was more like hanging out.  But he had to like me.
He just had to.

I waited for him to formally ask me out for two months.  Of course, it
never happened.  I guess this is the part of the love story when the
seemingly smooth road to bliss gets its first bumps.  I grew more and more
frustrated.  Some nights, I'd make an iron resolution to take another first
step to get the relationship moving along.  But I couldn't.  It just wasn't
that easy.  By the next day, that resolve would be nothing but a melted
pool of scrap metal.  But I also couldn't keep on seeing him as just
another platonic friend.  I had to do something.

One fateful day, a Wednesday, I just asked him.  I looked him in the eye
and said, "Do you like me?"

He just stared at me with eyes wide open.  Oh no, I shocked him.  It was
too much.  I scared him away.  I just felt so bad, and something seemed to
be squeezing my chest.  I tried to add "as a groupmate" to my question but
my original meaning was obvious.  I felt shame, foolishness, guilt, and
embarassment in a span of a few seconds.  I had to get out of the shop so I
just said goodbye, got my coffee, and ran out of the store.  I jumped into
my car and just sat there with some tears in my eyes.  I wiped them away,
getting angry at myself.  What was I thinking anyway?  Of course, he'd
react that way.  I buried my face in my hands and just leant my head on the
steering wheel.  All the pain replaced the embarassment and anger.  It
wasn't just squeezing my chest anymore.  It was crushing me.  I never knew
that I could feel like that.  I thought the love stories were exagerrating
the pain.  I sat up and wiped at my eyes again.  I knew this would happen.
There's always rejection in the stories.  Why wasn't I prepared for it?

Then, I heard a knock on the window of the passenger's side.  I looked out
through the tinted window and he was there.  Scott was there with a sad
look on his face, asking to be let in the car.  I unlocked the door and let
him in.

He stared at me some more before finally smiling.  I couldn't help it.  I
had to smile back.  Then, he said the words I've been waiting to hear since
I met him.

"Yes, I'm gay too.  And I do like you."


Love stories usually end there.  Right after the big fight and the big
reconciliation, the guy and the girl have sex and the story just ends with
them expressing undying love for each other.  You never know what happens
next.  Did the guy cheat on the girl?  Did the girl become a nag after they
had kids?  According to my Psych book, chances are that they're divorced or
unhappy.

But sometimes, there's a sweet epilogue that tells how they raised
wonderful kids then grew old together.  We don't know ourselves whether
it's all going to work out for Scott and me so of course, I can't tell you
that.  But we ended up telling each other about our true feelings.  And
that usually is enough to give me a good optimistic feeling at the end of
the love story.


End


When I wrote this, I wanted the ending to be a surprise.  At that point,
the reader should compare and contrast gay love stories with heterosexual
love stories.  But I guess reading this on the Nifty archive totally
destroys that desired effect.  Oh well, write me anyway at
h_a_r_v_e_y@yahoo.com.  Please, I'd love any form of feedback.  Thanks.