Reflection

If you were given a chance to do life over would you? On impulse I probably would say yes, but the fact is every bit of my life has made me who I am today.

The reason why I was able to endure all the mental abuse I went through as a kid was because I knew that after high school graduation I could start a new life for myself. The only blurb in my high school yearbook read, "Thank you to those who have hurt me. I am stronger because of you."

My bags were packed for College weeks in advance. I had never been so excited about anything in my life. I could not wait to start over and hopefully be myself.  A lot of people always ask me why I chose to go to a state college in Massachusetts when I lived in NY, but most of those people had money and could attend private schools or others didn't have the high school experience I had and I just couldn't bare to stay in my neighborhood feeling afraid anymore. I remember my mom asking me to pick some groceries at the corner store and on my way there an older teenager who lived in my apartment building tried to light me on fire. He grabbed me and literally tried to light my shirt up with his lighter. You see I didn't go to College because of my career path (I didn't have one) or to further my education, I went to have fun. To experience all the things I felt like I had missed out on all my years of high school. I had heard that Salem State was nicknamed seldom straight, so clearly I thought I have to go here. I wanted to be with people I could relate to. I had never heard of a GSA before. Plus I was intrigued by Salem's history and was always a big fan of the movie The Craft because they were outsiders as well. I even went through the whole goth phase for awhile.

What a surreal experience it was to be in an environment where I could be gay and be accepted. To have straight male friends that were ok with living with a gay guy was so weird and foreign to me. One of my friends had even said to me that he had a warped opinion about gay guys until he met me because he grew up in a very small town and I was able to open his eyes. Those four years of college were everything I dreamed they would be and although many of those friends live far away or have very busy lives of their own, we all manage to keep in touch and visit each other when we can. One of the greatest moments of my life that I will never forget is when I was at a college party and I had made a comment about some guy I thought was cute to my friend. Some jerk over heard my conversation and started making jokes about a fag being at the party. He was put in his place real quick and it was the first time I had ever seen people have my back in such a way that I felt like I belonged somewhere. I didn't want that feeling to ever go away. It was so comforting to begin to break out of my shell. To be able to express my opinions about things in a classroom, to attend parties, to have a bf on-campus...

Sophomore year I went to Montreal for Spring Break with three of my college girl friends. While they were off picking up guys at some bar I did something I never thought I could do being a shy young gay 20 year old. I went back to my hotel room, changed my clothes, and went to the first gay bar I could find...Sky Bar. I sat at the bar and had a few drinks cruising everyone around me enjoying the stares from guys probably much older than me, but it helped my confidence. I wasn't out to pick up anyone...until this point I had dated two guys and my first sexual experience was with a high school senior in an empty parking lot....I was just out to let my guard down and let myself go. Back then I didn't have much confidence, still don't, and this was my way of building it up. After that good ole liquid courage set in, I walked upstairs to the dance floor and just danced and danced until someone caught my eye. This beautiful shirtless sweaty french Canadian guy started to dance with me. He leaned in and kissed me as I just ran my hands over his muscular chest. My heart felt like it was going to explode. I must have looked really pathetic, I was so nervous. We ended up leaving the bar and grabbing coffee. We chatted til about 3 am, kissed each other goodbye, and parted ways. It felt liberating.

I have never been close to my family, immediate or extended. I'm always jealous of my friends who have large families who are really close to one another, but truly and my mom hates when I say this, but my friends are my real family. They are who I have always been able to rely on and who I always put first in my life. The ones who are genuinely good to me will always get my respect and I will always be there for them. We may not share blood but we shares our lives. They are who I will put first before myself in many instances. Despite this, many friends have come and gone for one reason or another and I try not to ever take it personally, but how can you not when you get close to someone, open up to them, and then you just stop hearing from them. It is a shitty thing to feel that you would always be there for someone, but when you needed them they were never around. I have had that happen to me on several occasions but as I get older the only person I am beginning to rely on is myself and I'm ok with that.

A lot of times I hear from gay men that I meet who either come to Boston for school or move here for work or whatever that they can't seem to make friends. "No one is friendly," they say to me. You can't go up to a group of guys and introduce yourself without them treating you as if you speak a foreign language unless you have something they can gain from you or they are interested in you. I never really understood that and I'm not trying to speak for everyone but I've heard this time and time again. Are we just all so insecure that we have to treat each other like we are back in high school? As if, unless you're a "cool kid" we can't associate with you? It's like being at a lunch table in the movie Mean Girls. I'm not saying we should all hold hands and sing a happy tune, I just don't understand why we have to be so disrespectful to one another. I used to want to be every one's friend, never understanding why someone would not want to be my friend, a bit arrogant I know, but in terms of what a friend should be I fit the bill. Now I just want to be every one's friend because I never want anyone to feel out of place or invisible.

I think due to the fact I had such a lonely childhood (and when I mean lonely it's not that I didn't have friends. I didn't sit in my room and play video games all day long. I had some incredible friends who I still speak to and who I love, but being in the environment I was in I couldn't be myself and I always felt like an outsider) I'm always needing and wanting to be apart of everything. Always so afraid of missing out on something. I'd like to say as I'm getting older that has changed but it hasn't, it has just manifested itself in a different way. I don't feel like I need to have a dozen friends to feel good about myself, but what I think is happening and the reason why I put so much emphasis on wanting to find love is because I want someone to be mine and mine alone which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is when in order to feel good about yourself you need to have validation from someone else. Someone to tell you they love you and so on.

My closest friends know that I am a sensitive guy and that I take a lot of things to heart and I'm ok with being that way. I wish more people I knew were like that. Despite the fact that I am that sensitive, I also don't put up with much bullshit either and am always the first to call someone out when they are acting like a D bag, which in turn makes me look like a D bag, but I'm ok with that too.  I told my friends the other day that if I ever act in a way that is offensive or inappropriate I want you to call me out on it. Sometimes we need to be put in our place. Sometimes it takes an outsider to show us that our behavior is unacceptable.

I wouldn't do anything in my life over because then I may not have met some of the incredible people in my life or I may not have made the choices I made or have experienced some of the things I have experienced. I would not have learned from the mistakes that I have made or been there for those who needed me. I hope that whoever reads this will reflect on the way they may have treated someone last week, a month ago, or sometime in their past and have the courage to say I was wrong and have even more courage to say I'm sorry.