The Problem with Being Gay

The Problem with Being Gay

About a year ago one of my best friends and I bought some glow-in-the-dark stars to paste on my ceiling. After about four hours of neck-straining work, we shut off all the lights in my room, closed the door, jumped onto my bed and looked up to admire the green glowing wonders above us. After a few minutes of quiet talking, my friend said something that totally blew me away. It might have been that he was tired from the day's work, or maybe a little light-headed from all the dust and stucco we inhaled while placing those stars on my ceiling. Or maybe it was the darkness that made him feel as if he had some kind of security. But something about the situation made him say one of the most serious things he ever said to me. He turned to me, almost touching my face, and whispered in my ear, "I think I am homosexual."

I responded almost immediately "Are you sure?" And we talked and cried that night for three hours, he about how his life would be totally ruined and all his hopes and dreams crushed if he really was gay, and I about how it was probably just a phase he was going through. So I decided to see what happened; to let time run its course and see what results it brought. And although the subject did come up a couple more times throughout our senior year, we never discussed it with as much seriousness as that night.

I admit that at that time I was still controlled by the immaturity and superficiality of the high school years and was not as accepting of my friend's revelation as I could have been; as a good friend should have been. Conformity to the adolescent laws of popularity was a must, and it prevented me as well as him from being absolutely clear and aware of our feeling...

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...-in-the-dark stars?" I said, "yeah…" and he said, "I AM, I'M GAY." As this huge burden was lifted off his shoulders, as his secret became mine, I felt a strange mixture of emotions run through me. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. So I cried because I was both happy and sad. I know he was smiling when he told me that, but I soon realized that it was my fault that he never told anyone. He had held it in for an entire year because of my initial reaction and firm belief that it was just a phase. I figure that was my way of avoiding the subject at the time, but now I know that I am okay with my friend's sexuality because of my own feelings. And I am happy for him. But I still cry because I know that, in reality, his discovery and its social complications have changed the path of his lifelong hopes and aspirations, and that there is a rough road ahead of him.