‘I Don’t Want To Be Gay’
What do you say to a friend who wishes he were someone else?
“Can I talk to you about something important?”
I’ve always welcomed questions from gay men that fall outside the predictable range — “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “Top or bottom?” — and I’d do anything to help a friend, but I can’t think of eight scarier words in the English language. They’re right up there with “We have to talk.” When has “Can I talk to you about something important?” ever been followed by anything good?
At least I knew my friend wasn’t about to dump me. But after a dramatic brace-yourself-for-a-whopper build-up that had him apologizing in advance over what he was about to say, what he revealed may have been as heartbreaking to hear as “I want to see other people” or “Let’s take a break.”
Actually, the punchline itself was less disturbing than how tortured he looked as he delivered it. I wasn’t sure if he was holding back tears or psyching himself up for inevitable waterworks.
“Jeremy, I don’t want to be gay.”
There, he said it. He wasn’t crying (thank God — I’m no good at soothing tearfulness), but his expression suggested he thought he couldn’t possibly have said anything worse. Had he assumed I would interpret his words as a personal insult…
