Queer boys don’t experience real high school; at least, not the kind the straight boys do. The general roughhousing in the locker room is reserved only for the guys who actually require a jockstrap for athletic purposes, not aesthetic ones. The wild parties, the drinking games, and the shoulder slaps are sacred among those who treat guys like guys, which sadly leaves little Josh in the back row of the choir with nothing to do but nudge the erection under his robe. For some, even the gay college life lacks total fulfillment of the masculine kind. Crushing beer cans against one’s forehead isn’t one of the most logical rites of passage, but it is one, dammit!
I would have given anything to ride around the back roads of my small hometown in the pickup truck of the seventeen and stubbly and straight Jason Tessero. We’d toss empty, generic beer cans into the back and say things like, “Hell yeah!” Instead of this type of manly pursuit, I lounged around the speech and debate room practicing my dramatic interpretation of some long forgotten piece of tragic nonsense that would ultimately leave me with nothing more than third place in the tri-county tournament for the hopelessly geeky.
I was bettering myself, or so I thought. I was convinced that while they were tossing the ball back and forth and hanging each other’s underwear from the flagpole, I would make something of my life, something great.
And I did. Really. But I still felt slighted.
What’s a gay boy to do? Where was I to find all things masculine? When could I get my share of the “dude life”? All I seemed to have were my girlfriends, my sisters, and a whole slew of Marys. Where were my buddies, my amigos, my homies? There didn’t seem to be an answer to this, just another question: Why did I care so badly? But since enlightenment wouldn’t come untilmuch later in life, I unconsciously enrolled in gay high school.
I started gay high school around the tender age of twenty-five, but I’ve seen others begin much later. The lack of halls and books in G.H.S. won’t stop anyone from achieving top marks in all subjects. Course offerings range from Adding Extra Drama to Your Life to the History of Hookups: The Family Tree (and it’s quite a deep and intertwined root system, believe me). But these classes are without teachers and grades. As an added bonus, you can graduate anytime you’d like; you just have to want it badly enough.
See, gay high school isn’t real; I just think we want it to be. We want to experience a time in our lives that was somehow denied to us in one form or another. So, self-destructively, we attend G.H.S. with religious fervor, hopeful anticipation, and very tight jeans.
A typical student (i.e. me) tries to fill in the blanks of the boys-will-be-boys variety. This includes the longing to be popular and desired by many, the need to be irresponsible and inappropriate to the chagrin of others, and just about anything rebellious that would make your mother shake her head and sigh, “I just hope he grows out of it.”
But we did grow out of it. Or rather, we grew so fast, having to bolster our self-confidence past the taunts and laughter that accompany all little wayward fairies, that we grew right on past a stage of life that somehow seems necessary and right for all the wrong reasons. Why does it feel so good to be bad? Is it just something that has to be worked out of our systems so that we can move on with all things spectacular and fabulous?
My friend Devin is an extreme case, but he’s not unusual.
After a few flings with unseemly boyfriends, Devin partnered up with the man of his dreams and remained faithful for nine years. (Well, that part’s unusual, but the next part isn’t.) Devin is smarter and faster than me in almost all areas: he can out-culture, out-wit, and out-dress me. It never bothered me, mind you. It just meant he was the most interesting person I knew. And I say that like our friendship is past tense. But it’s not. He’s just become the least interesting person I know.
He has entered gay high school at 39, single and ready to live a part of his life he skipped over, too busy dealing with house-hunting and pet allergies. But now his existence consists of staying out too late, relishing in his popularity at the local gay bar, discussing the many wonderful rumors others have perpetuated about his behaviors, falling in and out of lust like a hormonal teenager, and generally becoming, in essence, a self-proclaimed bad boy.
And I miss him. Instead of our usual topics of conversation—art, turns-of-phrases, emerging authors, and art-house flicks with bad lighting and grammatically immoral subtitles—I must now sit and listen to the latest real-life soap opera news, namely which person was kissing you-know-who behind the you-know-where. Maybe he was lonely in high school, the boy at the end of the cafeteria table with the acne, the thick glasses, and the lisp. But I can wait it out. He’ll graduate sooner or later. Like I’m one to talk?
My own experience in gay high school was less about being the prom queen and more about being the guy everyone else wanted to be. And this involved the acquisition of Kevin, a true bad boy in every sense. He did everything you weren’t supposed to do—and I loved it. In his presence I felt I had permission from the god of all things wrong and male to dabble in all things wrong and male. If something was deemed sinful by society, he wanted to do it. If something was deemed very sinful, he wanted to do it twice. He was my idol, my buddy.
My buddy. Was that really all I was looking for? A guy friend with whom to share questionable escapades that don’t involve horizontal favors? In a word, yes. I felt complete in a way that a college degree couldn’t ever hope to satisfy. A hole had been filled, and I felt that I could go on with my life.
My friendships with boys in high school always ended with my falling madly in love with them. And no matter how hard I tried to cease my longing stares and wistful sighs, they’d run away screaming for the nearest testosterone-filled chum who liked football and boobies more than sleepovers with someone who still wore handmade pajamas, with feet. Sleepovers at the age of sixteen seemed perfectly reasonable to me. What was the problem?
The problem was me and my lack of ability to “just have fun.” Fun wasn’t something I was especially good at as a closeted little homo. Oh, I had fun in my own way, I guess. But making models of Disneyland attractions with poster board and a glue gun doesn’t have the same joyous impact as a good slap on the ass after a touchdown. Besides, everyone else got to experience the customs of the caveman, why shouldn’t I?
So I did. I just did it a little out of order. Instead of following the usual periods (innocent child, mutinous teenager, fun-loving frat boy, successful single guy in pursuit of sexual conquests, awakened soul, and subsequent “becoming a man” part of life), I skipped from innocent child to awakened soul. Due in part to my upbringing, of course, but also due to the denial of membership into these ages of man by those who didn’t want me there.
In the meantime, I found a wonderful partner, bought and remodeled a home, and enjoyed a worthwhile career. Once these were complete and secure, I entered gay high school. Not the best time to do so, and I don’t recommend it. But many gays seem to follow this course of action as though it were the yellow brick road. Mid-life crisis, you say? At twenty-five? I don’t think so.
Did any of my accomplishments suffer once I entered the hallowed halls of G.H.S? Thankfully, no. Did I always make the right decisions? Certainly not. But once I decided to give up my quest for the ultimate bad-boy life, I graduated with only a few marks on my permanent record. Fortunately, my transcripts are viewed by precious few, and they don’t include my mother.
As I fondly remember my alma mater, I still feel the occasional need to revolt from the ties that bind and find someone who will bind me with ties. It’s not a fantasy I particularly crave, it’s the idea that my fate is in the hands of someone who cares even less about responsibility than I do. And it gives me someone to blame since my mother is no longer geographically available for the daily reminders, such as brush your teeth, wear clean underwear, and grow up!
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