Back in law school, when I was sexually confused and closeted, I became infatuated with someone. I first saw him in January 1997. He’d joined the Glee Club the previous fall, but I didn’t know him, because as a busy first-year law student, I’d taken a year off from singing. I ran into him in a movie theater lobby while waiting to see the re-release of “Star Wars.” He was there with a few other Glee Club guys whom I knew, and we got introduced. As far as I knew, he was straight, but the moment I saw him, I thought he was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. At this point, though, it was just a crush.
I rejoined the Glee Club in the fall of 1997, still confused and closeted, and there he was again. I got to know him a little bit better as the year continued, and my crush remained steady.
In the spring, we went on a weeklong tour of the South. Fifty Glee Club guys packed on a bus for a week, spending all our time together, singing together, drinking together, touring together. I couldn’t get away from him — he was there all the time. This endless proximity concentrated my feelings, like coal into diamond; it crushed my crush, if you will, into full-blown infatuation. I adored him. And I didn’t even know very much about him.
That week was a revelation for me. After coming out to a few people in college and then recloseting myself, I’d waffled for nearly five years; I’d filled page after page of spiral notebooks, wondering and worrying about my sexual orientation, trying to reason my way to an answer. What am I? Am I gay but just afraid of following through? Am I straight but afraid of women? Am I gay wishing I were straight? Am I straight wishing I were gay? I circled endlessly around and around.
And then I developed feelings for this guy. Sparkly and hollow those feelings might have been, but I finally knew. This felt so good. So real. So natural. I’d never felt this way for a woman. In fact, I hadn’t even felt this way for a guy in ages, but now I remembered that I had before. And it felt wonderful. This was how I was supposed to feel. I knew it. All the reasoning had been futile.
That was my first step toward coming out of the closet a few months later.
Sometimes it just comes down to what you feel.
I am lately coming to care about someone. It’s not something I planned; it has just kind of happened. It’s snuck up on me. My point is not that it’s comparable to infatuation. It’s not; infatuation is shallow. This, on the other hand, feels more sober, more textured, based more on knowledge and less on preconceived notions about a person. Infatuation happens when you project your own ideas onto someone else. Although caring does not require infatuation as a precursor, caring can happen only as your picture of another person grows deeper, as you come to know more about that person. Infatuation, ultimately, is selfish, more about you. Caring about someone, on the other hand, is really more about that other person.
So my point is not that this is similar to infatuation. But neither is my point that this is different from infatuation, even though it is. In fact, although it’s different from infatuation, it’s not yet clear what it is.
My point is this: in some cases, your feelings can teach your more about yourself than endless analysis ever can.
I’d worried that it wasn’t possible for me to care about someone in this particular way. I wanted to, but it just wasn’t happening with anyone. Now I have begun to feel that way, unexpectedly so, and it feels very rich and nuanced. It feels very… human.
This blog isn’t called “The Tin Man” for nothing.
I admire this person’s strengths. And we all have imperfections; that is inescapable if you are a human being. But I do not pity or resent this person for his imperfections, as I would not want to be pitied or resented for mine. Rather, I accept them as part of who he is. All of his qualities contribute to his humanity, as all of our qualities contribute to our own humanity. I like humans.
The outcome is not clear. But whatever the outcome, I have been enriched just by knowing him, and I am thankful that I have met him. Whatever happens, I am thankful for what has already happened. And I am thankful for what I have already learned about myself.
I want him to know that I am thankful.
I want him to know that I am here.
And most importantly, I want him to know that I am rooting for him.
“I think that all of us have from nature a thing called will; I reject the notion of chemical predestination, and I reject the moral loophole it creates. There is a unity that includes who we are and how we strive to be good people and how we go to pieces and how we put ourselves back together again…. We can never escape from choice itself. One’s self lies in the choosing, every choice, every day.”
— Andrew Solomon
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