Not trying to win a game of "My Life Sucks Worse Than Yours" or anything, but my adolescence was pretty rough. Glossing over some details because they're irrelevant to the story at hand, I'm surprised I made it out as unscathed as I did. I'm still carrying some baggage over it, and probably will for a long time.
I first came out in 1980, when I was 15 going on 16. After I'd told myself I was gay, I told my best friend. We'd been messing around a little and I felt I could trust him with it. I'm not sure if it was the same night or some time later, I also told him that I was in love with him. It may have just been a simple adolescent crush, but I'd fallen for him and deep and hard. I could go into detail about the physical that I was attracted to (those eyes! That ASS! OMFG, that ass!) but everything else? I...am not so sure. I remember he was a pretty decent guy for a while, but I guess getting my first "but I love you as a friend!" speech immediately after telling him I loved him does that to a person.
About a year after I'd told him, a 3D movie called Comin' At Ya! was released and never having seen a 3D movie, I wanted to go. I also asked D. since you hang out with your best friend at the movies. Somewhere along the way, much to my dismay and horror, my father invited himself along. During this time, I wasn't getting along too well with him, my mother advising me I don't tell him about my being gay, but I really didn't complain about it. He and D. got along okay, though, so it was pretty cool to them. It galled me my father invited himself to the movie with us because I'd felt it was bad manners (probably didn't matter because, after all, he was my father) but I'd wanted to hang out with D. by myself.
Because I wanted to, somehow, treat this as a date.
I wasn't sure how, though. I wasn't sure if I could get away with anything like trying to hold his hand or doing the yawn-and-stretch-my-arms-over-my-head routine to get my arm across his shoulders, but since I was in love with him, I wanted us to do "boyfriend" things. You know? But with my father with us, I had no hope of anything happening like this.
Of course, it was only made worse when my father sat between us.
No, he had absolutely no clue what was going on between D. and I. Honestly. He was just a clueless parent who was hanging out with his son and his son's best friend woo boys' night out. I was absolutely mortified he'd come along but since D. had no idea what I was trying to engineer, did it really matter?
Of course, it did! I wanted to have a "boyfriend" relationship with this guy, so I'd hoped we could do things that I could call "dates" and make myself a bit more happy than I was at the time.
Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I was a deluded little puppy if I thought I could get away with calling us going to watch that incredibly, totally, and very, very execrable piece of shit 3D movie a date, even if we'd gone alone, much less with my dad in tow. I've learned over the years you can't fake being in a relationship, no matter how much you want the other guy.
*headdesk*
It wasn't another two or three years before I officially went out with somebody on a real date, but even that was probably questionable since it was with the guy I wrote about in my previous post, Names have been deleted to preserve my sanity.
So, yeah, I'm a hot little mess.
The trailer for "Comin' At Ya!":
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