Goodbye 1996!!!

Well, here is the bonus diary entry I promised y'all.

Look at me, I came out of the closet and went straight into hunting out a boyfriend. I never gave myself any fuck around time. Then again, not much has changed, I don't find casual sex that fulfilling.

It is strange putting myself back in my 21 year old self. There was such excitement and such trepidation. That feeling that people could suddenly know the real me... wow! In this entry I intimate that only gay men can truly know me. Over the years I have come to learn that that is complete bollocks. I think it is one of the joys of coming out, truly coming out, that it allows everybody the chance to know you completely. That is extremely liberating, even transforming, and it is a pity that many gay men, possibly even most gay men, don't make it that far.

Thursday 2 January 1997
It is so fucking hot, I am sitting here sweating my balls off and have absolutely no enthusiasm to do anything so it is quite surprising that I sit here now typing, actually I think I will take this outside... At least it is quite a bit cooler out here, not that that is saying much because it is terribly humid and the mosquitoes are ravenously hungry and surely compensate for any drop in temperature.

Ah the New Year, and what a way to bring it in with my first attendance at a party which I am not obliged to go to and which I attend with a whole new freedom to seek out a boyfriend if the occasion arises. Of course it didn’t, well not to that extent, but there were some moments when I truly felt at home and alive, and moments when I became slightly too relaxed and nearly let slip but it was precisely these moments which made the evening so enjoyable. In the beginning there was little to speak of as I sat quietly with a group of engineering students making banal conversation about work and listening to dreary discussions of the engineering honours programme, then I moved over to speak with Donald and though we didn’t speak of my little secret it was liberating to be with him for the first time without constantly wondering if he can tell. The situation of course also made for some desperately ironic conversations as Declan was the only one not privy to the fact that I am gay. I really did feel at ease with Donald the other night, that we shared something, not in any kind of possible relationship but in a kind of acceptance that Melanie or any of my other friends could never really feel, it was incredibly enlightening and heartening at the same time.

Then there were the other moments when I felt that I could be in a situation which could amount to something and despite the knowledge that I was reading into the moment the feelings were just as dramatic. First there was Matt who would often run his fingers through my hair and his conversation with one of the other guys giving him a head job for fifty dollars, which was all in the name of machismo but arousing none the less, and anyway he was decidedly arrogant and not the kind of man I am looking for. On the other hand there was also Sam, who I spent most of the night talking to and who I would happily have gone down on if he had only asked. Sam was quite like me in many ways, quiet and unassuming, and he was also quite cute. Apart from this he is also very analytical and so when Kim, Mel’s sister, began reading the auras of the guys around her he was quite taken and rattled of an interview of questions which bewildered Kim in their scientific demands. On top of this they were both considerably in the grips of alcohol so the whole episode took on a rather bizarre tone.

Kim’s readings of those around her were wondrously strange, especially as she saw me as a being of brilliant creativity and heart which translated into a shining light that surpassed all others at the party with its spiritual brilliance, needless to say I feel I have very little in common with my aura. In fact I feel much more akin to the aura of Sam, so much so that I believe that it is possible that Kim has us confused. Sam you see lives in a state of fear and carries around a great emotional hurt, his father withdrew from him emotionally at a very early stage in his life and his mother wants him to be something that he is not. On top of this he does not know if he is straight or gay or bisexual. All of this, as is evident in my previous musings bears a striking resemblance to my situation, I shall have to get in touch with Kim to sort this all out later.

The mention that he didn’t know if he is straight or gay naturally aroused that part of me that said candidate for a relationship and I spent the rest of the night wistfully imagining all the scenarios which we could share, at one point I even said, “Don’t come...” as the beginning of the sentence- Don’t come on to me I wouldn’t know how to defend myself- before I realised what I was actually in the process of saying and swallowed the rest of the words. Anyway needless to say I enjoyed the experiences, even the people whispering that they thought I was gay, who I thought I heard but could very possibly be mistaken, in fact I didn’t care at all that they thought that- maybe I am really coming to terms with it .

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness

Tags: diary, coming out, gay