Anthology - Part VII:
It was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me. A lot of strange things have been happening to me these days, but this may be the one that left the biggest mark. And it was so simple, so mundane. He just smiled at me, and this was it. It hit me. Like a punch. One I had no idea was coming my way. The best way to describe it, though, wouldn’t be using violence. I would probably compare it to that scene at the end of Ratatouille, where the food critic puts food in his mouth and, suddenly, he is transported back to his childhood. Me, I was transported back to my first kiss with the guy in the red speedos. For a few seconds that felt like hours, I was back at being 20 years old and feeling the shockwaves of that kiss. Just from a smile. It was such a strong feeling that I had to walk very quickly, all the way from the changing room on the lower ground floor, to the street outside my gym. Normally one needs to leave a crowded space because one gets overwhelmed. In my case, it was much simpler than that: I was about to cry.
I don’t normally cry. But right there, in that smile, it all came together. The neanderthals, the crushes, the teenager... They all pushed me together, to a breakthrough. Maybe the biggest breakthrough I had in my life so far. This anthology has been my way of making sense of this breakthrough. It has been the way I found to get myself here. We are almost there, but there is one story left to be told. A story that involves one of my previous girlfriends. Yes, you read it correctly. Girlfriends. Female. Plural. And no, I don’t mean girls who are my friend. I mean romantically involved, often with a sexual element.
All my relationships with girls were short-term. A few months. We had intimacy, but not a lot of sex. The girls I chose were always strong, independent women, who didn’t give many fucks about what others thought, who built stuff without much help from others, and who would not easily fit the girly girl or the damsel in distress stereotype. But then, at some point, I moved on from them. Because they were not what I was looking for, and deep down inside I knew I couldn't sustain the relationship.
Around the time I came out and started dating guys, I had a "will they/won't they" situation with a girl, and she was the last woman I dated. But this time, I didn't lie to her. I told her who I was, what I liked, and she gracefully accepted me. She stood by my side. She is a remarkable woman, who put up with stuff that she didn’t ask for, and frankly, didn’t deserve. Although I will forever be grateful that she was in my life, I will also forever regret the way I dealt with our relationship, for many reasons that are too deep to be treated as a paragraph on a text about something else. Besides, she’s not the one I was referring to.
The one I was referring to was the only one who broke up with me. And she was very honest about the reason: because she was sure I was gay. We might have been what, 17 at the time? About a year before the new years chat in the shower, about 2 before red speedo guy. I denied it, obviously. But I knew, deep inside, that she was right. And I was equally stunned and impressed that she figured it out. I respected her for that. I saw her on the same level as me. But, unlike with the jocks, I was not bothered by her knowing this. And I wasn’t afraid of her. I didn’t care that she knew. I didn’t care if she would tell others. I brushed it off, and moved on to the next short term thing with the next girl.
Her dad was, and still is, one of my dad’s best friends, so I still get to see her from time to time, and we remained friends. She knew she wasn’t the problem. She knew that I had to figure stuff out. And I knew that I didn’t care about it, maybe because I knew that I didn’t desire her. And that she wasn’t a threat.
On a side note, about a year ago I met her again, after not seeing her for years since I left Brazil. She was with her husband, I was with mine. She gave both Yogi and me a hug, and told me with a smile: “Do you remember when I told you, before everyone else, that you were gay? I don't think even you knew it.” She was right. Back when we were teenagers, I might have known that I was gay, but I didn't know a lot about myself. I still don't know everything, but these days, I have a better understanding of the things that made me the person I am now. Now, it all fits together.
It never bothered me if I was accepted by girls. Or if girls liked me. It bothered me to have a feminine side, and for years I fought hard against it. But I have always been a bit girly, and that was ok with other girls. My best friends throughout my childhood and teenage years were girls. I felt comfortable around them, I felt like myself, because I felt a bit like them. I could be soft around them, because they wouldn’t bully me. And they wouldn’t be disgusted by me. I could be me, without the fear or being rejected simply by being who I was. Maybe it’s why I went for the less girly, more strong type of women: because I could be the damsel in distress with them. Maybe this was my true nature, where I didn't need to pretend to be the one in charge. Whilst boys made me uncomfortable, girls made me feel at home. I wrote throughout this anthology about how I always see myself as the girl in romcoms, but that is also true for “boys” movies, like Interstellar or The Martian, where I felt much more like I am the Jessica Chastain and the Anne Hathaway, respectively, than like I am the Matthew McConaughey or the Matt Damon.
I haven’t noticed until recently that my insecurities only happen around men, never women, never non binary people. Because later in life, when I started to be around people who didn't fit the strict masculine or feminine role, I also felt immediately comfortable with them. For example, when I meet some at work who is not a boy, I feel immediately comfortable around them. I am not afraid that once they sees the real me, they might walk away. Because I show them the real me straight away. It is no coincidence that the very first person whom I told that I was gay was a girl. And the interesting thing about this? I desire non-binary people, and I learned to desire girls.
With men, on the other hand, no matter what category I put them in, I always feel insecure. Even with the guys who are my best friends in the world today, it always started the same way. They all went through the same process with me to get there. I always feel like I cannot show them my true colours from the start. I am always afraid that one of my multiple personality traits will be the thing that makes them walk away. And I let them in slowly, one layer at a time, fully prepared for them to say “no, thank you” and leave. If they don’t leave, I am genuinely surprised. So I let them see the next layer. Again, expecting the worst, whilst secretly hoping for the best.
For years I thought I needed to be comfortable with my femininity, but the truth is that I have always been comfortable with it. Being feminine is my default. The thing I struggle to cope with is masculinity, mine or someone else's. The pressure I put on myself is to be butch, to pretend I don’t like to be camp, that I don’t care about glitter. Is the fear that I still have to wear makeup in front of a guy I have a crush on, because this might be the thing which makes him not be into me. The fear of being fem in a gay world where this is still frowned up.
Which brings us back to the neanderthals. During one of the many trips my mind takes, I looked at one of my best friends, standing in front of the balcony door of my flat. The sun shone upon him, giving him that golden glow that blond-ish guys have. And I saw myself as a sapiens, arriving in Europe for the first time thousands of years ago, and encountering that beautiful piece of white sculpted man. Clever, hairless, blond. And with a bunch of things I didn't have. That day I got it. I am not a paleobiologist, but I got it. I got how we interbred, how sapiens wanted some of that neanderthal DNA inside them so much that they are still part us to this day. I got why I want some of that for me. It’s biological. We yearn for what is different.
And my breakthrough? It goes back to acceptance. When red speedo guy kissed me and told me that he liked me, and he wanted to get to know me better, instead of coming into my place and fucking all night long, the wall was suddenly destroyed. That one I built during the previous months, where I decided to become popular and thin, he tore it apart - by not tearing me apart with his dick. I felt, probably for the first time with a man, that he wanted to know the real me, the person behind the image I was trying to pass to him, and to an extent, to the world. He didn't want me for my body only. He didn't want something I added to myself to become interesting. I felt like he wanted me. Just me. I could finally let go, finally allow myself to be me, to be comfortable, to be like I was around girls. In my head and in my heart, someone who I wanted saw me, the real me, deep down, beneath all the wrapping, and still wanted to hang out with me. The loser. The fat. The fem. The embodiment of all the things I hated about myself. I felt, for the first time, that a boy looked at these things with kind eyes.
I don’t know if he actually did, but I chose to believe this. at the time. And then, a few months later, when it didn’t work out with him, I blamed myself for being naive, for believing something that was not reality. I told myself that I should have never let him break through my wall. That it was obvious that I was wrong. It was obvious that nobody would be interested in the things I hated about myself. That I should have not let my guard down and I should have known better, because it had always been the same. Why would have this been different? My first relationship was, undoubtedly, a defining moment for me, and I guess it’s fair to say that I am still stuck there. I haven’t gotten over it. It’s still pretty much unresolved, and one of the many ways this manifests itself is through my crushes on guys whom I’m normally not into - like the new gym crush, like the previous gym crush, and like many others who came before them both. Making the new gym crush smile showed me that, years later, I am still trying to capture that moment of acceptance by my first love. My jock crushes are a way of me trying to bring that feeling back. The feeling of finally being loved and accepted for who I am. That's why a simple smile at the gym made me cry. Making that guy smile brought me back to getting it right, and making something improbable happen for just being me. I am still trying to relive that very first relationship, in the hopes that this time it will work out. What I fail to see is that it has worked out. Just not in the way I expected it to.
Bceause I did meet the love of my life, and we have an amazing relationship. I had my dream job and left it by choice. I have a good job now, I have a family who accepts me and loves me the way I am, and I have amazing friends. And I usually get what I want. It’s just that, when I get it, that is not enough anymore. I want more. I see achievement as no more than what is expected, whilst defeats are tragic and have the power to destroy my life. Despite being proven wrong time and time again, I still cling to the bad outcomes, and I brush off the good ones. I still expect that people will reject me. That the world will bully me. That, given the chance, things will go wrong. That me being me will be the source of all my problems, and that I need to be someone else to succeed. That people giving up on me is the rule, whilst investing in me is the exception. I default to expecting that people will not be interested in me, because that one boy wasn't.
This is my mechanism of defence. It goes back to something I wrote before, about how I am a conservative gambler, how I make safe bets based on calculated risks. How I prefer lower payouts if that means making less mistakes. This spills over to many aspects of my life today. I still meet a guy and I default to thinking they will not be interested in the real me. That I need some kind of gimmick to make them interested. That only me, just the way that I am, will never be enough. That they will be better off meeting Bear Hinksch, instead of Bernardo. Ultimately, I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t think many people want it, to be fair. But pain, hurt, sadness, that is also part of this experience. It is something necessary in life for many reasons, including to avoid overconfidence, and to make achievements feel worth it. That's the whole point of Inside Out.
This feeling of being myself, comfortable in my own skin, of doing what I feel like without fear of being rejected, bullied or humiliated, this is the thing I have searched for my whole life with other men. Slowly, I found it in my friends. I found it in my dad and my brother. I found it on bears. I found it on Yogi. And I also found it with some of the jocks. At the end of the day, jocks haven’t been the problem, for a long time. They have merely been the ones I blamed for my inability to love myself. Even though I preach self love to anyone who wants to hear.
I don’t know if I will ever be able to love myself the way I should. Maybe my cuts are too deep to be healed entirely. And maybe that’s not so bad. Maybe I need to learn to see the positive side of this. Maybe, instead of trying to solve the problem, I need to learn to live with it. Maybe this is what will keep me grounded. And maybe, one day, I will be able to live in peace with it. Without blaming anyone. And without getting validation from and allowing someone else other than myself to dictate my value and, ultimately, my happiness.
Beautiful things (Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix) - Adain + Tiesto
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