by Rick Landman

NOTE: This story was originally published on the author’s, Rick Landman’s, website, InfoTrue.com. The story is well beyond the 1500 word limit but it’s an intimate look into the beginning stages of an LGBT movement so we wanted to share it anyway. Get comfy and enjoy.

—

1969 was a pivotal year in most baby boomers’ lives and the same was true for me. I was graduating from high school, Nixon was president, people were rioting all over the place, my friends went to Woodstock, and I was at home thinking about going to Buffalo. Besides, to me, Woodstock was this tiny village down route 28 from where I went to summer camp. Who knew? I imagined that it would be a small folk festival with Peter Paul and Mary, and never would have known that it was going to be the event of the summer. Besides, I wasn’t ready for a free love experience. I was still a virgin for god’s sake.

But that June was very special to me. No, not because of Judy Garland’s death, and not because of the Stonewall Riots, but because I turned seventeen on the 15th and was going away to college in September. My luck, I was a virgin in the class of ’69. I knew this must have been a sexual omen. School ended before my birthday, so technically I was 16 when they graduated me, but I was 17 when I left home. It was more of a passage into adulthood than my Bar Mitzvah at 13. I actually was going to be on my own for the first time in my life. I didn’t think about it much, but I left to go to “sleep-away school” and ended up stepping out into a new world of my own. Besides from being a virgin and only 17, I was also 5’2″ tall and didn’t really look and act like the other kids going away to college. I was a nice Jewish boy who finished high school and had no choice but to go on to college to become either a doctor or a lawyer.

I was good at school stuff, and was accepted at a few places, but for financial and guilt reasons I knew that I wanted to go to a college that was free. My older brother stayed at home and went to Queens College for free, so I figured that I better not cost my folk’s too much money. My parent’s did help out with room and board and that was all that I wanted to burden them with. So the problem was which school to go to?

I wanted something far away enough that my mother wouldn’t be able to come up at the spur of the moment. An eight hour drive seemed long enough to accomplish this. But I didn’t even know where Buffalo really was. All I knew was that it was still in New York State and my Regents Scholarship Award would pay for all the tuition. It was also being touted as the world’s largest construction project and that it would be a huge university where I could find anything that I wanted. I knew that it was near Niagara Falls, because we visited it for sweat shirts on my senior trip in summer camp when we stopped by the Falls. I knew it was also near the Canadian border, which during the Viet Nam era, seemed to be a big plus. A lot of kids in my grade were considering fleeing across the border, and being a son of two Holocaust Survivors, the comment, “Where would you flee to if you had to leave?” was a familiar one to me.

So that July I flew up to Buffalo for a summer orientation program to see if I would be happy there. It was my first plane flight and was my first time ever traveling alone. I put on my new jeans, button down blue shirt, penny loafers and headed into the world of student standby flights. I think American Airlines charged $11.50 each way.

When I landed I asked the taxi driver to bring me to the house at the corner of Main and Merrimac across from the U.B. campus. A neighbor named Judy was going to U.B. at the time, and I was going to stay over for the weekend. She was actually the one whose description of the place sold me on going to Buffalo. She made it sound radical, fun, exciting and totally different than the quiet block that we grew up on in Floral Park, New York. It seemed that that year, all the baby boomers from New York City were going to school in Buffalo. But the cab driver didn’t know where Merrimac was so he dropped me off in the middle of the Main Street Campus in front of what was then called Norton Hall, which was the Student Union. There I stood in my new clothes and a little suitcase wondering what to do. A tall, handsome senior was lying on the lawn in front of the building reading a book. I asked him if he knew where Merrimac Street was and he corrected me that in Buffalo you didn’t have to say Street after the name and that he lived one house up from Judy on the corner of Main and Merrimac. She actually lived one house down on the block. We talked a while and then he escorted me over to Merrimac. I thought he was gorgeous, politically aware, brilliant and friendly, and he thought I was funny, different and a bundle of energy. It ended up that his girlfriend Sandy was one of the freshmen orientation leaders, so I was able to see Greg througout the entire weekend. I went to the program, but the only event that I remember is getting a little crazy from a glass of wine and dancing in the water fountain behind Norton Union. But my fate was settled. I would be attending U.B. for the next four years, and I had a new friend named Greg who knew everybody and was my new close friend.

When I got home I immediately wrote to Greg and couldn’t wait to get back in September. I remember that when my family was sitting on my bed watching the men land on the moon later that month, I was at my desk writing Greg a letter. 1969 was full of everything.

I knew that liked boys in a special way, but hadn’t really told everyone except my summer camp counselor when I was 12 and a few select people. At the time, the word gay was something new. The books all called men homosexuals if they liked other guys, and school kids still used the word
faggot. Compared to those terms I was glad when the word gay became popular. But even though Greg had a girlfriend, he was extremely liberal and progressive. He lived with Gene, a 40-year-old gay black man with alcohol problems who worked at a bar, and Gary, another student who was very “sensitive”. So in September, when my parents drove me up to stay in some garden apartment development called Allenhurst which was used as emergency housing for the baby boomers who flooded U.B., I knew that my time would be spent elsewhere.

Allenhurst was actually a new experiment in college living. You could only get to live there by winning a lottery. It was sort of off-campus, co-educational with five same sex people living in a two-bedroom two duplex with a garage beneath. But there could be five women living in an apartment right next door. This was also the first year that some of the other dorms actually became co-educational with men being on one floor and women being on the other. I remember the stories of how the women had urinals in their bathrooms and placed ivy growing in them.

My housemates were also four freshmen. I lucked out and only had one other boy as my roommate, named Paul, and three other guys shared the other bedroom. There was a bunk bed and a regular bed. Nowadays, I wonder how we all shared one bathroom in the morning. But I guess we did. I had five upper class wrestlers living next door. We didn’t have much in common, except for the fact that I could have had a crush on them if they weren’t such idiots. I became the mascot of the entire courtyard. I painted our apartment, and did the cooking and cleaning and was the town yenta. Everybody sort of knew me. It was my way of getting over the loneliness of living alone I guess. I was known as being political and crazy, but it wasn’t until after I left that Thanksgiving that the rumor must have gone around that I was also queer. My poor roommate must have had a lot of explaining to do.

The college ran a bus run up the street to campus, but I used my bicycle, rain or shine, dry or snow, to get to classes, and then after school I would visit Greg. After one month of school, we started having demonstrations against the Viet Nam war and administration policy. I remember protesting against THEMIS, which was some underwater military project, and know that we protested against ROTC, the changed location of the campus from the democratically controlled downtown to the republican swamp called Amherst. We were demonstrating against everything. By the time we reached Halloween, I think the school was closed more than open. Then came the national anti-war demonstrations and I think classes actually stopped. We spent our time having snow ball fights with the campus police and then the City police. That sort of ended after the Kent State massacre, and after the Buffalo City Police started using shotguns to shoot at us. When I left in 1975, you could still see the buckshot holes in front doors of the Student Union.

It was 1970 and I had my first drink, my first smoke, and my first riot before the year was out. I also remember that one of the wrestlers next door broke a chair over my back for allegedly bringing friends into the house who smoked marijuana. So over the 1969 Thanksgiving Break I moved out of Allenhurst and into Greg’s attic at the corner of Main and Merrimac on top of a store for $25 a month. By the second semester I was in love and ready to do anything for the revolution that was coming, the new way of life and the man I loved so dearly.

I was in heaven. I was surrounded by interesting people, including this sort of woman’s collective next door on top of a cleaners. Five U.B. students, Marsha, Barbara, Cindy, Dana, and Margie lived there, and we shared almost everything and spent most nights together. My closest friend next door was Marsha who was the one I would share all of my closest secrets. You have to remember, this was an era of change and free thinking. We all spent hours debating esoteric or political issues way into the wee hours of the morning. Besides, being young and inquisitive, the early 1970′s were geared to reinforcing all the beliefs of the late 1960′s. The women’s movement was becoming stronger and the gay movement was starting in New York City. In 1969, the Gay Liberation Front and a group called the Gay Activist Alliance were forming in New York City. Buffalo already had a Mattachine Society (of which I considered older, more apolitical homosexuals) and had this new group of women who called themselves the Radicalesbians. Marsha, Barbara and Cindy all had feminist friends who would stop by and leave books or have discussions on breaking down sex roles and loving whomever you wanted. This was also the period of “Free Love”, the birth control pill and no AIDS. The worst thing that people got was the crabs, and you would hear occasionally that someone got the clap. But I was still a virgin in love with a man with a girlfriend.

But when I was hanging around the women next door too much, someone told methat no men were allowed and why didn’t I go and start my own group. But there wasn’t any men’s group. There was Women’s Liberation, there were lesbian groups, but no place for feminist men or gay men to go. So I figured I could change that.

I was always starting groups and getting involved in one thing or another, and besides, I knew most of the people in the Student Association due to my other activities. I had helped to start food co-ops, intermural instead of intercollegiate sports, political clubs, etc., so why not start a gay men’s group? I filled out a form, and attended a meeting and asked for $800 to start the Gay Men’s Liberation Front. I got the name from reading something about New York City’s GLF. I think Buffalo was one of the first, if not the first place outside of New York City to have a GLF.

The S.A. meeting was uneventful. When I stood up to explain my proposal for funding a Gay group, the first reaction from my friends was laughter. They thought I was not serious and was putting on a comic routine for them. I had to really shift gears to get them to realize that this was important to me and that I would fight to get it. With giggles on their face, they approved the club and I remember walking across the long lawn down to a bank in a small shopping center across from the dorms with the $800 check, saying to myself, that there is some truth to the expression that I laughed all the way to the bank.

I deposited the $800 and then wondered what I would do with it. I remember speaking with the few gay students that I knew by then, and we decided that we would put on a dance and see if anyone came. I remember flying down to the Oscar Wilde Bookstore on Christopher Street to buy anything gay to bring back for a library at school. I think most of the literature had pictures. We booked the large room at Norton Union and made flyers which I posted on the windshields of the cars in the parking lot in the gay bar downtown, which I think was called the Hibachi Room and hired a group named Rufus to play music for us. I put my name down as the president and Mike Hamilton was the vice president and I think that Benny Wohlman was another officer. To my surprise, over 50 people came to that first dance, and from then on people signed up and joined our group. Before long, a woman wanted to join, so we voted to drop the “Men’s” from our name and become a Gay Liberation Front similar to the movement spreading across the country. I wrote articles for the student newspaper the Spectrum, and spoke in Sociology classes, handed out flyers on Gay Liberation and started Men’s Consciousness Raising Groups, but to tell you the truth, I was still a virgin at the time. And that was how the group got started. We tried to be as political as we knew, and it seemed that everyone else was also trying out the sexual part of the liberation experience, but not me. I was still a bit uneasy and no one ever really approached me in that way. Within a year, we had three Men’s Consciousness Raising groups in progress and were planning to participate in the March 14, 1971 March on Albany for Lesbian and Gay Rights. I know we sent some buses and a carpool to attend the event. I think I went on the bus. It was around that time that I figured I had to explain all of this to my parents. They knew of my politics, dope smoking and feminist views, but the actual sex stuff never came up.

It was on February 26, 1971, at one of our Consciousness Raising sessions that I mentioned to a newly forming group that I was a virgin. You see, I would attend the first meeting of the group, and in similar fashion to the group therapy session that I was attending from U.B.’s clinical program, would ask the group to go around answering some simple questions like when was the first time that you had a gay experience and how it was. When it came to my time, I told the group that I was an 18-year-old virgin and had to go to another meeting. I mean I was only starting the groups, I couldn’t be expected to spill my guts with everyone at the group. So after telling them of my sexual status one of the guys named Sam Goldsmith escorted me into a side room to discuss it more fully. I had my first sexual experience right there in the room next to all that consciousness being raised.

I called home that night to wish my parents a Happy 25th Anniversary, and mentioned that when they asked me over Christmas Break about drugs, sex and politics I told them I had done two out of the three, but that now it was three out of the three. My father asked if we knew the girl and I answered, “there were no girls there.” That is how I sort of came out to my folks. They knew that I was active in sexual politics but thought that it was an academic political rebellion phase up to that point. Now they had to really come to grips with it.

My father joked that my mother and I lost our virginity on the same day, just 25 years apart. Then he asked what Sam did. I told him that he was pre-med. He laughed again, and told my mother on the other extension phone that at least I was going with a Jewish doctor. He then went on to use an analogy of what his life was at the time. He told me how as a young 17-year-old Jewish boy in Germany, he would come home from school and asked his mother why everyone hated him. She told him that the whole world was crazy and that there was nothing wrong with being Jewish, but that his life would be harder because of it. But that he should be proud of himself and his religion. My father then told me that the whole world hated homosexuals, and that my life would be harder because of it, but that I was still his Ricky, and that even though they didn’t know any “gay people” they would not make things harder for me. They suggested that I come home to discuss this all, but I told them about going to Albany the next month for a Gay Rights Rally.

It was hard for them to say anything negative, after teaching me all my life that we must fight discrimination with all our might and make sure that the hatred of the Holocaust never occur again. So in a way I was lucky. I received more support than most. But I think that is why I had the guts at 17 to start a gay group.

But on an eventful night that year, after I was no longer a virgin, while Greg and I were in his bed having one of our platonic all-night discussions, I asked him if he was gay. He said that he thought about such things from time to time, but never had any experiences, but that there was nothing wrong with it. Remember Gene, our other housemate was gay, so obviously I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. But then I mentioned that I was not only gay, but I that I loved him. Whoops…now everything changed.

Greg told me that things have gotten out of hand, and that it would be best if I would move out. So I went to Marsha and cried and complained and told her how upset I was. Well, although everyone was understanding and helped me to pack, I sort of had a difficult time of it.

To make a long story short, I moved out and Greg and Marsha fell in love and are married now for about 20 years and have two children. GLF continued to grow during our first year, in numbers of people and importance. We were an important part of the March on Albany, and did help to set the climate for the formation of College F and other pro-diversity programs. I found some flyers which is all that I have left from those days. Too bad none of us knew that we were creating history. But for 27 years no one ever cared much about it. Now I’ve heard that most of my early friends are dead, and I thought it would be important for people to know how things started.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Thomas Wicker

It was one of those endless, sunny afternoons that disappear when you get older. I was nine years old and on the cusp, not of adolescence, but of being able to play in the ‘Big End’ at primary school. I’d always envied the older children this part of the playground. While us younger kids had to make do with the ‘Little End’, a narrow strip of concrete as dismal as its name, where it was just impossible to zoom around as Superman, they inhabited the Promised Land – a vast expanse where marbles roamed free and you could get out of breath just by running from one side to the other.

In the months before I moved up a class and was allowed into the Big End I’d begun to hover at the edge of it. Standing on the grate that divided the playground in two was an exciting experience for a pretty solemn and sensible little boy; I wasn’t breaking the rules by stepping over the line, but neither was I quite where I should have been. Behind me my classmates were half-heartedly playing hopscotch or squashing insects for fun. In front of me was everything else.

I was doing what I always did: standing on the outskirts and watching. I wasn’t concerned about the older kids saying anything to me because I knew that in their eyes I didn’t exist. In any case, on this particular day, the majority of them were at the far end playing a game of kiss chase. The girls were giggling and the boys looked flustered, as if they were learning the rules as they played. Even then, I somehow understood that the thrill wasn’t in being caught; it was in the possibility that you might be.

There was one boy in particular whose attention the girls kept trying to get. I recognised him as one of the best at sport, which made him about as different to me as was humanly possible. He looked older than the rest, with a lazy confidence that made him stand out. His shirt was un-tucked and he had taken off his tie. I was fascinated by him. And at that moment, I wanted him to chase me more than anything else in the world. Then the bell rang and the thought drifted away like dust in the air.

There have been bigger events since; landmarks such as coming out to my friends and family. But this careless moment, sandwiched between lessons and playing with my Transformers after school, looms large in my memory. Sometimes I yearn for that little boy’s obliviousness, his innocence, as much as he yearned to grow up.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Christopher Oeser

My mother used to tell me to eat my vegetables, go to church and tie my shoes. Now that all seems a distant but unique perspective.

My name is Chris Oeser and I am 30 years old and this is my unique perspective of how my world looks and how it all started for me. Let’s just say I was a very curious young man growing up but was taught to not release my true self because God didn’t like homosexuals. I was stuck in a suit and tie all throughout my young life at church, and even into my senior year in high school. But what others didn’t know was that I really wanted a boyfriend. I would dream every night that he would take me somewhere magical and wonderful and no one would care if you kissed a boy. Having the thought of kissing a girl grossed me out, even though my freshmen year in high school I kissed and made out with a lesbian–this story was told until all the seniors left my Junior year. I wasn’t out in high school and I wish I had been. I joined the Christian club thinking maybe I would meet a girl, but that didn’t happen. I wasn’t a bad looking guy but I also knew that somehow I had to find a way to be myself.

I had my first encounter of kissing a boy when I was a junior in high school. His name was Jay. He was on the track team, played basketball, and was a very fit guy. I remember the first time he invited me over to his house, we ended up doing some things together. The only problem was we couldn’t say anything to anyone at school. I was 18 at the time and I knew I was gay.

I finally moved out of my parents house after graduation and moved to Florida. I must have lived in the oldest town in the USA. No young people for miles. Life for me at that time was stressful because I lived with my grandparents, had a job and went to college. I had no time to date or have fun. And I was tired of playing pretend and being scared. I flew back to Anchorage, Alaska at 25 and came out to my whole family.

The funny thing is, I came out with a note to my parents. That I could do. My parents didn’t talk to me for 3 weeks. My mom called me up and told me that she always knew, but since I was the oldest, she had to wait for me to tell her. I was at my breaking point in my life where I had to tell someone no matter the cost. I was ready to lose everything because I had nothing to lose. I did lose half of my family that was religious, but not my parents, sister or brother. It was like being born all over again. But I had one problem…I was dating a girl who had no idea I was gay. She was an okay person but I knew we wouldn’t be together long. She and I had a long talk and now she is my best friend. I do not regret how I came out, only that I waited so long to do so. If I had one thing to tell any young person I would say, “Don’t wait until you’re old to enjoy your youth, come out of your shell, and love life and be gay.”

Now I am 30 and I live with my other half who I love so much. A lot of people I can thank, and should for helping me come out of my shell! I love every one of you! But for now I will forever be me, because being me is easier than being someone I am not! Live true, be proud, love people (even the haters) and don’t let one minute pass you by to tell someone you love them. Love is more powerful than hate! Thank you!

-(Share your story with us!)

by Robyn S. 

When I was small, I practiced kissing with other girls.  But everyone did, and I never thought much of it.  I kind of hated girls.  They picked on me, and I always seemed to be one step behind their styles, their jokes, and their interests.

I was in 10th grade, and I realized one day that a girl I knew was gay.  It just kind of hit me – I knew why she talked that way, why she walked that way, why she was so loud sometimes, and so quiet other times.  She was gay, and she knew it.  Wow.  Being gay was a real thing. Anybody could be gay, I could be gay.  Yup, I could be….and the next day I just was. I tried it on walking down the halls, tried on the gay hat, and it fit. Ellen’s character came out later that year, and I watched her show with interest. By the end of the school year that girl and I were both out, and it turned out we had a couple of fag friends too.  We were the gay kids, and we were a clique just like other cliques, going to parties, pretty normal stuff.  I finally told my parents a few years later, they were cool.  I kept it secret from them because I was 15 and I didn’t really want them to know anything about me.  Such is the life of the teenage girl I guess.

My wife and I were married in 2005; we got engaged in 2003 right when all the legal stuff was going down in Canada.  We were in our early 20′s, apolitical, and not really paying attention.  We got engaged because that was what people did after being together for a while. No big deal.  Our wedding was small, our parents danced all night.  It was really nice.

Now my wife is pregnant, and we are expecting our first baby any day now.  We are in our early 30′s, and it was just time to make babies – we asked a pal who happily carted his porn over to our house, and donated some sperm.  We will be mommies soon and we can’t wait.

I have been so lucky.  To be born in a big city, surrounded by support, growing up at a time when our society was growing up too.  I’ve never really experienced homophobia, and my biggest concern is whether I will be mommy or momma in the years ahead.  For folks reading this who live in smaller closed-minded places, who live in fear or shame, my heart goes out to you. For those a bit older than me, I am grateful that your struggles have made my journey so smooth, and I try my best every day to make the road even more clear for the next generation.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Nathan Gibson

Bags are packed. Rejected by peers and family members. I take a deep breath as I go through the security line at the airport. At first the obvious questions begin to race through my mind. Did I forget anything in my pockets? I hope I don’t get put in that little side room for questioning. But then I start thinking; I have never been on a plane before. What if it crashes? What if I miss my connecting flight? Which leads to even more racing thoughts: Maybe the ex-gay counselor was right? What am I doing? Why am I moving to New Mexico of all places? I know nobody there. The farthest west I have ever been before is St. Louis, Missouri.

Preoccupied with my racing and anxious thoughts, before I knew it I had made my way through the security line and had already made my connecting flight, with only minutes to spare before I would land in New Mexico. I couldn’t help but think that there is no going back now. This is my chance to begin figuring out what being a young gay man is all about without any outside influences. I could only be so lucky to have a clean slate to work with. If worse comes to worse absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? The plane lands in New Mexico and I take another deep breath and make my way off the plane.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Thomas Boettner

Somewhere down the line the idea gets passed along that everyone’s life is unique, down to the tiniest minutia, and at the same time we are all connected due to our similar life experiences.

1. Something’s amiss.
2. Oh crap, I like guys.
3. Okay, I’ll wait until college.
4. Awesome, residential arts-based high school!
5. First kiss
6.“It made you gay.”
7. Ex-gay Therapy
8. COLLEGE.
9. It’s hard when you hate dance music.
10. I don’t know your name, but at least I finally got laid.
11. Guys older than you are just as bad as guys your age.

There we go. “Coming out and” in eleven steps, mine, maybe yours, but mine primarily.

I like Spartanburg, though. It isn’t that there’s a lot to do here. Most people know Spartanburg because of its proximity to Asheville / Charlotte / Atlanta / Athens / Columbia. We’re down to -2 gay bars and we don’t even have a viable record store worth mentioning. BUT:  this is where I grew up. Eighteen out of twenty-three years is a stretch worthy enough to deem Spartanburg “hometown.”

The sort of town that can produce a singularity (prove me wrong, please). You’re primarily either in the closet or a stereotype, but one person manages to play every instrument he picks up, fall in love with the avant-garde and postmodern, Bataille, noise music, Black Metal, old cameras, The Smiths, and still never date a single person in his hometown.

Breeders think I’m amazing.

It’s funny, actually. A North American tour, a year in Alaska, a month in Ireland, a tour in Ontario, criss-crossing the nation and I still manage to confuse and confound everyone I meet. I suppose it’s not entirely expected to meet a self-proclaimed faggot from the South who enjoys his liquor and beer, smokes like a chimney, wins fights, and then shreds a guitar (or microphone, or synth-pad, or…) rather than go to the club every weekend.

That’s what hometown gave me. Despite the nightmare of high school, the shrinking social circle, the desire to leave, I’m still a product of “here.”

Really though, it’s all just details.

-(Share your story with us!)

by Peter Daire

I knew I was gay. When I was alone. In the dark, in the safe cocoon of my bed. When my own hands touched myself, and those images and thoughts went toward the movie star, the guy I had seen on the street, or my best friend.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I used to be in a band, I was the bass player – I still am! But at that time, there was no way you could come out, it just wasn’t done. I had wonderful friends in the band, it was like a different family – we stuck together and worked really hard. My best friend was the drummer – Shane – we were best mates. For those who don’t know, the bass and the drums have to really work hard together to make the music work – it’s the heartbeat of any band.

Anyway, although Shane was a very attractive guy, he wasn’t my thing sexually, he was just a good friend. In fact, my best. One night, after band practice, he and I took a drive to a playground not far from his house. I was at the point where I really wanted to tell him I was gay – he was my best friend, after all.

As we swung on the swings, I just couldn’t say it. I tried and tried to just get those three words out of my mouth – I AM GAY. But I couldn’t.

So, in my sad panic, I left the band and completely cut all my friends off. I never spoke to any of them again. I decided to go out and be gay, instead.

I had a wonderful time, once I accepted myself as a gay man – I danced, I made love the way I wanted to, I got screwed over by guys and I slowly became the strong, confident and successful person I am today.

Then along came Facebook, and I was asked to be a “friend” to “Stretchy”. I was intrigued. But in my total happiness now, I said, Sure, I can accept the “friend” thing. It turned out to be Shane, twenty years later.

The first thing I said was, “I’m really sorry I never told you I am gay, I know I should have, since you were my best friend.”

His response?

“LOL – I knew you were gay, and it never mattered to me – you were my best friend!”

He’s had three kids, been married and divorced and in and out of work ever since I knew him.

Life is a journey that only you can travel.

“Each of us, a cell of awareness, imperfect and incomplete.”

-(Share your story with us!)

by Layne Box

I came out when I was twenty and that was to some friends and my mother. I had a conversation with my mom, about how I wanted to tell friends and family in my own time. I think we all know that there is a time to tell everyone and each one is different.

In doing so I really never dated openly with my family knowing. When I was asked who I was dating, if they got real intense with the questions I would say “she” and in my head laugh, but most of the time if I discussed who I was dating, I just said, “the person I am dating.” Dating really didn’t happen too much, because I seemed to find every guy that “liked” me, but along the way found someone else that he “liked” for the moment. And for me, I just don’t like to be the other guy or second best. So I have been single for most of my “out” life and I had never found a guy that I could say the words “I love you” to. But on Oct. 4 (year doesn’t really matter) I was out with my best friend Scott, who was not having the best time dating, so we made a pact, no hitting on guys, no getting numbers and no hooking up. Hey, you will do anything for a friend, right? And honestly, how hard can that be, one night of not hitting on a guy or any of those laid out rules? So, I quickly shook on the deal.

As we are out being single and loving it, we decide the night is just not much fun and we were ready to go home. So Scott led the way out of the bar, when I spotted a friend Corey, talking with a large group of people I didn’t know. I ran over to say hi, thinking I am just going to say hi and leave, so I will catch up with Scott outside. As I am saying hi, I see a guy within the group that I just can not take my eyes off of, and he was the center of attention amongst his friends. I have never been the one to make the first move with any guy, but when I saw him, the conversation with Corey stopped and turned straight to him. I wanted to know him. Corey waved him over and introduced us. “Matt this is my friend Layne, Layne this is Matt.” We hit it off right away and I got lost in conversation, and totally forgot Scott was waiting outside. He came back in with a vengeance, and it was time for me to leave. So, keeping to my pact I was unable to give my number or get his. Thanking God for networking sites, I wrote my name down and told him if he has Facebook or Myspace, he will find me, as I am the only Layne Box on there. And alas, I had to leave.

The next twenty four hours were long. I was checking my pages every chance I got. And finally, there it was–a message from Matt. We began emailing, texting and calling pretty much every minute of the day. I drove to Houston for our first date and then after that, pretty much every day I had off I was in Houston with him. One night after being out with friends, we climbed into bed and were talking while cuddling. As I was laying there thinking he was asleep, I heard him say, “I love you.” My heart began to race. Did he say that in a drunken moment or was he already asleep and talking in his sleep? I fell asleep without returning it, but in a later conversation found out that he meant it and worried I didn’t feel the same. I explained what happened and why I didn’t return the I love you, but now I couldn’t just say it because it would seem like I was just saying it, but that the time would be right and he would know. I am such a hopeless romantic when it comes to that.

Being in Houston so much, meant that I was close to my family and I was going to see them more often. My aunt and grandmother got to see me a lot because they tended to be off work while Matt was at work so we always went shopping and to lunch, which made me happy as they are amazing women. My Aunt Terry is the second person in our family I came out to and she knew who Matt was, but agreed to just not tell the rest of the family. While visiting one day, my grandmother asked where I was staying while I was in Houston and I told her my friend Matt’s house. “You seem to be staying at Matt’s all the time,” she replied and I explained we were close friends. We continued on in conversation and like an A.D.D. child, my grandmother in the middle of a different topic, looked at me and said, “what kind of friend is Matthew?” BAM!! 18-wheeler and brick wall, not what I was expecting to come out of her mouth. “What do you mean, Mamaw?” I replied. She wanted to know if Matt was my friend or my frieeeennnndd, yes, she said it nice and slow. I thought about it for a second and then realized I just had to tell her, “Well, if you are asking if he is my boyfriend, then yes. He is, and he makes me really happy.” She looked at me, then at my aunt Terry, and said, “Well thank God, because I thought I was just making this up.”

Later that day, we were going to shop and we got a call from my other aunt, saying Grandpa wasn’t feeling well. Now I couldn’t hear this but when my grandmother told them to have him lay down and we would be there as soon as possible, I knew something was wrong. Being in the medical field I wanted to know what was going on. We got there and found my grandfather pale, clammy and sweaty. At 79, he had never had any problems and this was something big I could tell. I got an ambulance there and wow, it seems as though they take forever when you are waiting. So I called Matt as I needed that support. He was amazing, calmed me down and made sure I was level-headed. We got everything in order before heading to the hospital. My grandparents were there with nothing, since my grandmother just jumped in the ambulance and left with them. Matt had only met them once, but was the first one at the hospital and was able to make sure they were fine and gave us a report as we were trying to get to downtown Houston (not an easy thing when stressed). After all was said and done my grandfather had surgery and is fine but that is when I realized for the first time, I was in love.

This was the moment and the perfect man was the one I got to say “I love you” to for the first time. It was amazing. That is when I knew for sure, not all guys were horrible and I was going to be happy. I didn’t know until then what love felt like, but I was glad he was the one I learned it from. Matt and I later went our separate ways, but there is nothing like your first love.

-(Share your story with us!)