The Ouchii Guy

I know I am not the only one who took photos like these. Cringe!

It’s interesting how life works sometimes. I’d say grades 3 through 8, all I really yearned for was a good set of friends. At home, nothing additional was needed. My relationship with my parents, siblings and cousins was amazing.

By the time high school rolled around, I was seeing my cousins less and less as we all became busy and absorbed into school. Now that I had friends, I placed a bigger emphasis on maintaining those friendships.

Junior year and Senior year were interesting in that regard.

During this time, all my girlfriends were dating and I was being introduced to all these new boyfriends. Understandably, a lot of the time they’d want time to themselves… and I also wasn’t interested in being the third wheel. So when one would be “boo’ed up”, I would get closer to the one that wasn’t. Having had a taste of what friendship looked like, the idea of suddenly losing them was a daunting feeling. But even at that age, I figured at some point when we all got older, straight couples would marry and I would inevitably be alone.

So I went on a desperate search for love honestly… and of course failed.

Where things really went south was at home. My uncles, who were living with us at the time, would narc on everything I’d try to do when it came to dating. My mom and I were fighting relentlessly during this time—the kind of fighting where we’d both be screaming at the top of our lungs, eyes watery. She’d look me dead in the eye and ask me, “ARE YOU GAY?” And I don’t know what she expected from me in those moments. If she wanted the truth out of me, that was definitely not the way to go about it.

I was tired. Tired of fighting with my mom. Tired of trying to do well in school while also trying to figure out how to not end up alone.

So I did something I regret to this day: I decided to go back into the closet. Cold turkey.

I did not suddenly decide I was straight. I knew that part of me would never go away. I just made the conscious choice to not date, not talk about my sexuality, and pretend that everything that happened sophomore year simply didn’t happen.

And boy, did I commit.

Not one date. Not one mention of it to anyone—not even my closest friends. They were so confused. This lasted for the remainder of high school.

I reflect on that time and think about how it solved an immediate problem, but also how much time I lost. All the experiences taken away. All the potential happiness that could have been. I wish I had felt safe enough to come to the table and have a conversation, but that just wasn’t in the cards.

My mom is a passionate, hard loving woman. She was then, she is now. As an adult I see that her delivery was not meant to inflict pain or harm. Her anger and frustration was a direct result of her love for me and her concern for my well being.

And honestly, now that I am older, I understand that more than I did back then.

What makes me sad looking back is not that my parents cared. It’s that I felt like I had to disappear a part of myself in order to keep the peace at home.

And for a while, I did.

Quick Notes

• Will & Grace airing on tv weekly was nice escapism. It helped me realize that things would get better.
• Even though I felt safe with my siblings and cousins, I actually wasn’t out to any of them during this time frame.
• “Stripped”, Christina Aguilera’s second album was the definitive album for me during this time. I connected heavily to several songs on the album that described all the teenage angst I was feeling. Her video for “Beautiful” was also huge for me. She was brave to feature two men kissing openly in the video. I still feel that album is her best.