Diary of a Young Closeted Gay Man

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I dated girls during my early years. I can remember having a ‘girlfriend’ to some degree throughout most of my late teens and early twenties.

In grade school it was ‘Nicole’.   Throughout my sophomore year of high school it was ‘Sarah’ and starting my junior year of high school it was Gloria. She and I dated from my junior year in 1996-’97 until late 2001.

My parents were going through a divorce and money was always tight with my mom, whom I lived with at the  time.  I wanted to (kinda had to) work in order to buy myself things, which is the reason I’m sure most teens enter the work force.

There were only two fast food restaurants in our town.  McDonald’s and Burger King.  BK was known for hiring the ‘degenerates’ of society.  Of course I chose the McDonald’s over Burger King.  I applied and was immediately hired.

At first I rode my bike to work but it didn’t take me long to save up enough money to buy my first car, a 1989 Ford Tempo which set me back $600.00.   The car would end up being my first lesson in getting what you pay for, but I digress.

I was barley 17 and I had just broken up with the first person I had willingly had sex with and had convinced myself it was her fault that we had broken up, even though the whole time I was with her I would fantasize about her male friends.  I kept the fantasizing under wraps, as I had learned from classmates  that being gay was unacceptable in our neck of the woods.  ( Read this post for more on that)

I worked at McDonald’s until the summer of 2000.  During the course of my employment I would make many life long friends as well as a few notable arch enemies.  One of these enemies came to me as an angel in disguise.  Enter Gloria. I was introduced to her by Amber, a mutual friend of ours.   She would soon get a job working with Amber and me.

Amber was my first ‘Fag Hag’ and I use that term with love.  We hung out all the time and did everything together, platonicly.  Amber would relentlessly try to set me up on dates with Gloria.

If the stigma associated with the gay kids at our school weren’t enough to keep me in the closet,  the next shoe to drop cemented my decision to suppress my attraction to men.

As I disclosed earlier, my parents were going through a divorce during this time.  I was the oldest of three boys and my mom just assumed I’d take the man’s role in the family after my dad left.  She even tried to subliminally convince me to not want to see him.

I did initially refuse to see my dad.  That lasted for a few weeks after the divorce, but my dad had moved down the street within walking distance.  My younger brother and I would walk there to see him from time to time.  He was also the only one with a computer, so I would go there to use the computer if I had a project due at school.

One night my brother Tim and I walked down to my dad’s house.  I had a project due in a week and wanted to use the computer.  My dad wasn’t home at this time.   We had keys so we let ourselves in.  I sat down at the computer and my brother Tim, always the snoop, decided to look around the house.

I worked on my project for about 15 minutes and then I heard my brother say “Eric you have to see this”!

I walked to the room he was in and asked him in an annoyed tone of voice “What do I have to see?”

Before he could reply I saw what it was.  It was a box of sex toys and gay porn videos.  My dad was gay!  I had no clue, my mom had always told us they got divorced over money.  It turned out that may not be the case.

I logged off the computer and ran home to tell my mom the news.  I don’t remember the conversation word for word, but I do remember one line she said to me.  She said “I don’t care what color girl you bring home to me, just make sure it’s a girl”

I was secretly attracted to men, I remember how disgusted she was about my dad so I felt obligated to agree with her that it was disgusting.

Soon after this new twist I let Amber arrange my first date with Gloria.  I’ll talk more about this in future posts.

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