I’m Gay And Fell In Love With A Straight Guy

I just want to start this off by saying I did not fall for a straight boy. Or a man. He’s a delicate mix of the two, and quite frankly, I did not fall for him, despite what some people may say or think.

I did not fall for a straight man.

Like the phrase deny, deny, deny, I repeat this. I grew up telling myself that I would never be that guy, falling for someone he could never have and would spend his nights crying about screaming into a carton of Ben & Jerry’s about why he does not love me, why can’t I be his man, and why that little slut who is now his girlfriend stole him from me. (Irrational thoughts for 500 please, Alex!) The reality is, his girlfriend did not steal him from me nor is she a slut, I am not screaming into a carton of Ben & Jerry’s (because they cost a ridiculous amount of money at my elite private university), and I can’t be his man because he went through approximately three stages of sexual orientation only to come to the conclusion that he was straight.

I did not fall for a straight man.

If anything, he fell for me. That’s what I tell myself as I walk around campus in my finest sweatpants-and-Sperry’s combination. I tell myself he just is not man enough to handle how open I am in regards to my sexuality. I tell myself he isn’t even Hispanic anyway, so is he really even my type? On the contrary however, I remind myself that it takes two to cause a sticky situation such as this, and that my sexuality is not the reason he is not with me, but with her instead. If he knew I felt this way, he probably would not even want to be my friend, although he is not doing that great a job at it to begin with. Attention future wife: I got with that, too, homegirl.

I definitely did not fall for a straight man.

We were sitting in his car, in an abandoned parking lot of a day time medical building; however, it was approximately one AM, I was drunk, and he was going on and on and on about how he cannot see himself marrying a man, or having kids with one. But with a woman, Ebert & Roper gave him the two thumbs up. It’s like a poorly written episode of Will & Grace, like Grace falling in love with Will back when he had bad hair. Except, this time it’s two dudes, and apparently, only one of us is actually gay at the end of the series. We did not have a happy ending. Sure, we’re friends today. But him beating me over the head with his idea of marriage and what he sees for himself was somewhat… weak.

I definitely fell for a straight man. Crap.

Oh, I fell for him. I wouldn’t say I fell in love with him — I must retain some of my dignity. But I definitely crossed the border of having a playground crush where Becky tells Jamie who tells Marie who finally tells Cassie, and really liking someone. Because for about a month, I was hopeful that the first true, genuine guy I had talked to felt the same about me and would finally allow me to experience that elusive connection that they always talked about on shows like Boy Meets World, or you know… Grey’s Anatomy? I don’t watch a lot of television. The point is, I fell for you, you fucking asshole, and you literally just left me out to hang. You piece of gorgeous, tanned, hilarious shit.

I fell for a straight man. Fuck me, right?

I’m sitting in my kitchen as my mother takes photos of these delicious Peanut Butter Rollo cookies (and then a picture of me for her Facebook friends to see), and I am thinking about you. I am thinking of you and how on a night like this, I should be the one whose there for you while you battle the flu and recover. I should be bringing you a lightly toasted bagel with cream cheese, despite the probability you won’t be able to eat most of it. I should be the one there for you, not this beautiful, charming girl who clearly cares about you. But she does not care about you as much as I do. Few things in my life have been as hard to do as having the conversation with you that night, listening to you talk about the life you see yourself having with a woman. With each sentence, the bright future I once envisioned disappears, as you talk about dating, moving in together, marriage, kids, the whole nine yards. It feels like someone is sitting on my chest with their knee on my throat, suffocating the reality that I once had of the life we could have created.

You fell for a woman.

For some odd reason, this is the part that truly kills me. It hurts that you’re not gay, but it hurts more to physically know and see you with another girl. It upsets me, and god forbid I see you two when I am drunk. I would upset you, piss you off, offend her, and you’d leave my life and have to come up with some kind of cover story so she never finds out. She must never find out about the night we kissed in your car after we said goodbye, the night we hooked up and you consoled me, the nights we spent texting back and forth figuring out who you were and who you would become. Do you know what that is like? To have to live a life first for 18 years suppressing all these feelings and emotions, only to come for three years, and meet someone who manages to put you back in the big ol’ closet?! Newsflash: It is a fucking nightmare. It’s like starting the process of coming out all over again, because I am afraid every guy will shut me down and ‘realize’ their heterosexuality the second we start to bond physically and mentally. And no matter what I say, or no matter what I do, nothing is going to change what happened and where we are now. What’s done is done.