I'm From Driftwood

by Terry K.

I already knew I was gay but hadn’t accepted it. I had crushes on friends and knew what attracted my attention at school, on the beach, on the street, at my tennis club, etc.

I remember when I was about 19 and had changed tennis clubs. I arrived early one Saturday and Ashley, a pretty blond boy probably a couple of years older than me and a country boy, asked if I would like to go out to a court and hit.

“Sure” I replied. He hit the ball okay, was a nice guy and yeah, very easy on the eyes.

We played on a back court that bordered the neighbouring house. The fence was not particularly high and it was covered in a flowering creeper.

As luck would have it, a ball flew over the fence at Ash’s end so he promptly scaled the fence and retrieved it. Upon his return to the court, he swiftly removed his shirt to shake out the twigs, leaves and flowers that had managed to find their way under it.

OH MY GOD! He had the body of an Adonis (how had I not noticed before?). I had never really noticed much about him, or the physique of guys like him, but on this day, the site of him in just his tennis shorts hit me like a lightning bolt.

Nothing happened between us (he was probably a straight boy anyway) and we were never close or anything. I saw him quite a few more times over the season but soon left the town for work and by the time I returned some years later he had moved on.

Although he was a nice guy and fit beyond belief, it was more the site of his abdominals and his chest that flawed me that day. I had never really been affected in such a way by the site of a semi-clad man. This was the definitive proof that a woman could NEVER flaw me in the same way.

Ashley, if you are reading this and you recognise yourself, thank you. You were the final proof I needed.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Anonymous

I have known that I liked girls for sure since first grade when I had a small crush on a female classmate. I struggled with the idea of being “different” even at this young age. When I was seven, I told my mother that I had a crush on a girl, and my mom convinced me to just stay friends. Looking back on it, since I went to a conservative Catholic school, this was for the best at my young age.

As I grew older, I noticed that I noticed that I liked girls more than boys. I had crushes on boys, but I have since realized that they were probably just to have a crush to share with my best friends. I struggled emotionally and mentally with my sexuality, and I developed depression and a slight bipolar disorder. To this day, I have a feeling that these issues were caused from my suppression of my sexuality.

Then high school came along. I went to a conservative high school as well, and I knew well that if anyone did not fit the “norm” they were immediately shunned and did not exist. I struggled with my sexuality and inner turmoil until I met my first girlfriend in gym class. We were not friends right away, but we soon became best friends. We would go to each other’s houses and we would sit on our beds and just talk for hours. I knew I was in love, when we would just stop talking and stare at each other without feeling awkward. I caught myself wanting to touch her cheek or just hold her close when she was venting about something or feeling upset. Then, the day came when it all came out. We were carpooling with each other for an after school activity, when I asked her who she “liked.” Then she said she wanted to know who I liked. Then almost instantly a corny love song came on the radio that I’m pretty sure was Nickelback, and I told her to listen to the words. Instantly we both knew.

We were together until the senior year of high school, when she started to struggle with her own sexuality. After about six months of soul searching and a horrible, conniving boyfriend, she came back to me. We’ve been together ever since. My mother told me through the whole experience a wise Richard Bach phrase. “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours.”

I think that is a great phrase for any LGBTA or heterosexual person who is searching for someone. This just goes to show that we all have something in common, gay or straight. Also, be true to yourself, don’t fight your sexuality or try to push it away. Trust me, it doesn’t work. You are who you are.

-(Share your story with us!)

by A.J.

I met him when I was 14 years old and a freshman in high school. It sounds silly and made up but I honestly remember the first time our eyes met and for that millisecond time froze. There was something there.

For the first three months of high school he was sweet. We spent a lot of time together talking about life and authenticity and sharing our back stories. I’d apparently come from a ‘rich-kid’ primary school as most people saw it at the time and in spite of having close friends back then, I never ever felt like I could be myself around them. I always needed to keep up appearances. He was the first friend I could tell absolutely everything and be myself around without fear of judgment or abandonment. He was a humble 16-year-old; a quiet soul from a not-so-well-off family. I loved that about him because I also got to see (what I thought was) the real him…no flash, no designer clothes, no famous family names or connections…just him. I never actually acknowledged it at the time but I also found him ridiculously attractive. He was the most extraordinary person I’d ever met.

On the last day of the first term of freshman year we exchanged letters and promised each other not to open them until we got home. That marked the beginning of our secret form of written communication all through the four years that followed. In those letters we expressed how happy we were to have found the other. We shared even more intimate details about our lives and our dreams. I’m sure we both knew that we were at a whole other level of “intense” than our classmates were and we needed to keep each other close. I still sometimes smile at the memory of the subsequent letters over the years in which he constantly expressed his awe at how “real” I was and how grateful he was that I was in his life. I had no idea at the time, but I had officially fallen for him. Hard.

Two things changed everything when we got back to school. First, he turned out to be a genius. He’d outperformed every single student in the entire 200+ sized class by quite a margin. Being in one of the best performing institutions in the country, the school’s student population regarded the best amongst them as rock stars. Overnight, the sweet, thoughtful, insightful, humble boy from the wrong side of the tracks whom I’d developed these unfamiliar feelings for was transformed into a god by students and teachers alike. It started slow, but his transformation into one of the “typical egotistic” characters that walked the halls of that school (and whom we’d made fun of constantly in the past) was evident. The second thing that happened was my introducing him to an old friend from my primary school who came from a wealthier, more politically famous family; most of all, he was much more of a fun-lover and deviant than I was.
Soon after that, except for the occasional notes and letters to me when he needed a listening ear, I ceased to exist to him. And in spite of his genius, he became painfully ordinary. “Ordinary” bores me. For the next 7 or 8 years after our friendship started to fizzle out and die. I hated him. And I loved him. It was a hard place to be. I didn’t know exactly why I hated him because we had never actually been a couple. We hadn’t even admitted to each other that what had been going on between us resembled a little more than just friendship. But for some reason or another, I felt betrayed. I withdrew from everyone out of fear that I’d be rejected and done away with again once the next “fun” person came along. I threw myself into my studies, never went out with friends, never openly expressed my attraction to men. My life turned into this dark empty room with really high walls, no windows and a locked door, keeping everyone out.

In 2007 he came home to visit. He gave me a call and we arranged a meeting to catch up over a meal. I was excited and nervous. It had been 4 years since our last year at high school. Our meal went well. It was awkward at first. We talked about school and our plans. And then it hit me. One thing was missing. My feelings for him were not there. The tightening in my chest, the chill along the back of my neck and the loss of breath every time he looked straight at me with those sad intense eyes. That feeling wasn’t there! For the first time, I actually had a conversation with him as “Who he really was,” not as the guy I had been so madly in love with for almost a decade. For the first time, I saw him as I saw everyone else and that got me thinking. Why had I fallen so in love and almost obsessed with this intellectually gifted gentleman who, unfortunately, thoroughly lacked any other exceptional human qualities and who strived to be like everyone else while I always innately craved the extraordinary?

The answer lies in who I was back then: A confused, closeted gay young man who hadn’t found his place in this world. I was a lonely, frightened boy who needed that ONE person to make him feel like he was relevant; like he was actually needed for something by someone. It was never my friend’s fault. He was just a guy who happened to meet and bond with me…or at least, the person I was back then. He had always been his true self. I just happened to see and fall in love with the part of him he never showed anyone else. I’ve slowly managed to get him out of my life and I must say, I have achieved an amazing sense of peace.

It took years, but I’m glad to say I’m over it. I’m over him.