My First Gay Friend
And the things he taught me
His name was Ronny. He was my first gay friend. I only knew he was gay because he told my then-husband. We had been partying, the three of us. The night was still young, but my husband was a light-weight. He was not-quite passed out, but not-quite mobile either. Ronny and I decided to go bar hopping in the town in which he and my husband were stationed. Before we left, Ronny told my husband:
“No worries about me and your wife by the way, my friend, I’m gay.”
I was rather surprised that he was gay. He didn’t match the stereotype of gay people that I had been taught by my very Christian, and very Evangelical upbringing. There was no “militant” gayness about him. Heck, I hadn’t even known until he’d made that statement that seemed aimed at setting my husband’s mind at ease.
In my mind, I compared him to the loud, angry people that I had learned about. The ones that kept insisting we use a new word or abbreviation to describe them, which kept changing. The ones who were trying to “turn kids gay” by having them learn about just how wonderful it could be in school.
But there were a lot of things I had been taught that didn’t line up. My religion contained a lot of rules, most of them seemingly aimed at turning me into such an out-of-touch person that I could not have…
