5 Year Anniversa-gay

Sometimes I get sentimental and on the 5th anniversary of me coming out... this it totes approp.

Names have been changed to protect... oh who am I kidding. It's Steve Kirsch.

Name of Date: The First
Date #: 1
Looks Like: Your first love
Age: 18
Occupation: College Freshmen
Where We Met: In the theatre hallway at my college waiting to audition for our fall musical; The Civil War. We spent two months being "best friends" which included sleep overs and snuggling (I'll take deep denial for $800, Alex.) until we finally kissed and become boyfriends.
What Happened: So it was the evening of my school's christmas tradition... which is this dance or something. I never went in all the 4 years I attended. In fact I only went to one school dance my whole time there... which was with a boy, actually. (see And Isn't it Ironic?)

However at this point The First and I were so afraid of getting hate crimed we'd have never done anything as bold as that. For serious. I spent a lot of time imagining graphic beatings and homophobic slurs. Coming out be hard, yo. So INSTEAD we decided we would go on our first real date. School spirit (and rules against boy to boy touching/rubbing) be damned!

I started the evening much like my male floormates did. I went and bought flowers and made sure they were pretty. I picked out a cute outfit. It was a blue stripped sweater from express that was really uncomfortable to wear... but I looked really hot in. Because I had already graduated from the university of good looking. (location: pretty town, better than everyone else, USA) And then I took a shower.

Here is the thing about communal showers in college. You see a lot of penis. I could go into much detail about this... about the homo eroticism of 6 men lathering next to each other. About how this visual haunted my closeted dreams. About the lingering looks and such. But I feel thats pretty well worn territory. And if you really want that... theres like soooo much communal shower gay porn... BELIEVE ME.

So while my heterosexual friends were shaving and spraying on axe. (judged) I was right there with them listening to them talk about the girls they were taking to the dance while they heterocentrically assumed I was doing the same thing. Little did they know that there would be no lady lips (face or otherwise) involved in my evening.

So I placed the flowers in the car and picked him up from his dorm room. See I am a gentelman. Or I used to be. I think being classy and considerate are skills that were once prominent and now only re-surface when I meet husband potential. The 2 dollar trick from the gay club ain't gettin the door opened for him. And we went off to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Ok I know its not fancy, but I'm a poor college student and we lived in bumble fuck... and we were in love. As long as we got to be together it didn't really matter where we went.

He loved the flowers and we spent the meal looking into each other's eyes. Our waitress totes knew what was up and loved us for it. Old waitresses really like young gay couples, I've learned. I think it has to do with some old lady math equation dealing with sass and cute. I don't know the specifics.

After dinner we drove back to the empty campus. He had to throw the flowers away, which I find this really sad and symbolic moment when I think about it now. He was too scared that one of his roommates would ask about them, so it was easier to let them go than face questions. I completely understood at the time and its shocking to me that we were so afraid of being found out. We were living our lives in secret and things that should have been celebrated we had to keep quiet. It was a lot to handle.

SAD DEPRESSING MOMENT OVER.

We made it back to my dorm room and watched Saved! That movie always makes me cry. Christian boy accepting himself as gay? I can probably recite that monologue from memory. No. Not probably. I can. Of course there were plenty of make outs, because when you've spent 18 years of your life NOT kissing boys... it is something you tend to like to do when you finally get the chance.

I loved Steve a lot. He was my first. This post is definitely more sentimental that I like to get, but I want to honor him and what we had. Plus my first real gay date was a significant moment. Thanks for letting me share it :)