Probably more weirdness...

Andrew's Interview

I had a girlfriend for a long time in high school, broke up, and came to college. I dated girls at Davidson a little bit but not much and not anything meaningful. There you go; it just wasn’t doing it for me.  That’s a feeling I sort of always felt but had never acted on or thought on or dwelled on.  It was just something I didn’t think about, but not because my family was harsh or super-religious or anything. I just didn’t think about it that much.  So at Davidson, I met more people who were gay. I knew some at home, but they weren’t close friends; they were just people I knew.  I didn’t know many gay people in high school who I was close to, and then here I did. Just talking to them made me feel more comfortable to share, and because I was more comfortable to share, I got myself thinking about it. 

So you still don’t consider yourself gay?

I guess I do consider myself gay, yes.  But who I’m willing to tell is something different. I think it’s more that deep down, I know that it’s true, but I think about what I want my life to be like and what obstacles I want to encounter, and being gay is not part of it.  It’s not a decision I can make. That’s important. But by being gay, I’m setting myself up for a lot more challenge and emotional difficulty, so it’s a rough decision.  And that’s just something that’s scary, and mainly scary because of not knowing. It’s something I don’t know about. 

I don’t want to create more difficulties for me.  If I had a kid, I wouldn’t want to create more difficulties for my kid.  It’s just fear of the unknown.  It’s such an identifier, and that’s just wrong.  I think if I told people, it would overtake a lot of what people thought about me.  I’m not consumed with what people think about me, but it would be weird to suddenly enter that whole world. 

Whom have you talked to about this?

Three close friends. 

Have you talked to your roommate?

No, I haven’t.  He says things that just make me think that he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t be mean or rude, but I just don’t think he understands. I mean we’ve talked about homosexuality randomly. I’ve reacted to what he’s said in a very wrong way a few times, and that just makes me very hesitant to tell him. I wonder what he thinks, but I don’t know. It’s kind of easier to tell people that you’re not incredibly close to.  The people I’ve told I’ve been close to, but it hasn’t been my family.

Do you think you’ll tell your family?

Yeah, yeah.  Well it’s weird because I know they would be fine with it.  My mom has asked me before.  Just straight out, “So are you gay?”  I’ve said no.  She’s said, “Because if you are, it’s okay.” They would be okay with it, and I know that. I don’t know about my whole, distant family.  I don’t know about them.

That’s one obstacle right there that you don’t have to worry about.

Yeah that’s true.

 And that’s a big obstacle.

Yeah, but telling my family makes it so final. 

I know there are other obstacles, but what specifically are you thinking of when you refer to “obstacles?”

Well, I guess there are a lot.  Being identified as gay.  Having it take me over, be so important. I don’t like that at all.  I don’t think it’s important for everyone to know everything about everyone.  So that’s part of it, and then just the fact that it seems to set how your life will be in such a big way, like where you can live, what you can do, who you will tell. I would have to keep track of who knows and who doesn’t know, who’s okay with it and who’s not okay with it, who I tell and whether or not I can trust them.  Will they keep a secret?  How will I meet people, and how will I meet people without being sketchy?  It’s just huge!  That’s all. 

Do you think you’ll always want to stay closeted?

No, I don’t. I see coming out as inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any less scary.

Because if you ever want to have a real relationship…

Eventually people are going to ask, “You’re not just friends are you?  You don’t just hang out a lot do you?”  And I’m going to have to say, “Well not really.”  I don’t think I can comfortably live forever being hesitant.  It’s not healthy.  I wonder when’s the right time to tell, and then who do I tell?  It’ been very organic the way I’ve told people.  It wasn’t ever like, “Let’s sit down and have a talk.”  It just sort of came up, seemed appropriate, and happened.  It was very natural, so I’m kind of trusting that there will be a time when I feel okay with it.  I honesty don’t really know how that is going to work. 

Do you think it’ll have to do with you being in a relationship with another person?

There’s the dilemma because how am I going to find someone if no one knows? But if I don’t want people to know then I’m not going to find someone.  It’s just a cycle. 

What kind of responses would you want people to have if you told them?

The worst response would be something like, “I hate you, go away.” But that’s not very likely. More probable would be some big shock, like I just revealed I have a brain tumor. It’s not something that’s wrong, it is just a part of me.  For me, it wouldn’t be good if the response were like, “I’m here for you, if you need to talk.”  That’s good, but kind of in a you-have-a-problem-and-I’ll-help-you-work-through-it kind of way.  I’m a big boy, if I need help I’ll come to you.  That’s nice, and I understand it, but at the same time I don’t think that’s the best response.  I think the non-response is the best response.  Well, a non-response in an accepting way. Just acceptance and understanding. I’m not asking for commentary or anything, really. The best response for me would be: “Okay. Thanks for telling me. That means a lot. Wanna go grab a shake at the Soda Shop?” Back to normal life.

Have people come out to me?  Yeah, and I think I’ve pretty much done the non-response.  I’m not really a person to be like, “I’m here for you.” Not because I’m not, but because with the few people who’ve told me, it’s been understood that they’re comfortable enough to tell me something like that. I’m comfortable to hear it and be fine with it, be normal around them. 

 In general when you first questioned, what was your initial reaction to that question?

 I don’t think I ever thought that it was wrong because I’d never been fed that.  My parents would never have told me that.  I probably thought that it would be better if that weren’t true.  Not feeling bad about it, though.  Probably a lot of not knowing, too.  A lot of, “What does that mean?”  Because I didn’t know many gay people or family or friends. It was just very unfamiliar to me.  Probably more weirdness… not wrong, but weird. 

How did you grapple with it?  You’re emotional response was confusion and that’s weird, but what was your intellectual response?

Honestly, my initial response was, “I don’t want to think about it.”  At first. For a long time I was a-romantic, a-sexual.  I was just done with it for a while.  I never wondered why that would be so, but I guess I don’t understand it either.  What makes someone gay?  You got me.  But who cares? I mean no one in my family is gay that I know of, or out about it at least.  I guess I just didn’t want to think about it initially. 

In general do you think that Davidson is a safe place to be out?

Yeah, I do think it’s a safe place to be out. I don’t feel like anyone would be overtly prejudiced. I think people have misconceptions and stereotypes, but I don’t think that anyone is going to beat me up or call me names to my face. Some of that may go on underneath the radar, but I don’t know about it.  But yeah, I think it’s a safe place, and there are people who are out and are fine.  I mean people who are out who get bids to join fraternities and are on sports teams, so it’s fine.  

What is one thing you wish heterosexual people knew about gay people?

 That it’s normal.  That it’s just across the board the most normal people you could ever meet: smart people and dumb people, athletic people and not athletic people, people who are into sciences and arts, and like dancing and don’t like dancing, and like interior design and don’t like interior design.  Just everyone. I think one thing that makes it hard is that people get their impression of homosexuality from where they are raised … you know, I come from a small town and no one there is gay so then I come to a big city and there are thousands of gay people, so it could be just big city people.  But I think it’s just the environment you’re comfortable in.  If I’m from a town of a thousand people; I wouldn’t feel comfortable being out either.  I just think people get the idea of what gay people are like from that environment, and it’s not necessarily true.  This is especially true at a place like Davidson where we come from all different parts of the country or the world. We come to Davidson, and we’re all put together in a small, southern town.  Talk about messing up everything you could possibly think.  So there are people here from San Francisco, Boston, and Birmingham, and we all have to somehow form a consensus on how we’re going to react.  I just think realizing that it’s across the board, but a construction worker might not feel as comfortable coming out as a college student.  It doesn’t mean there aren’t gay construction workers or baseball players, it just means it’s probably not as easy.  If there aren’t football players out at Davidson, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.  It just means that it’s probably not as easy to come out if you’re around football players all the time.  I’m not saying anything bad about football players. 

No, but in intimate situations with other guys were you’re showering together and touching each other’s butts…

 Right, that wouldn’t be as comfortable.  So I think there’s that that confuses the issue for people. 

What’s a thing that you think is unique to men coming out?

 Stigma is a big issue.  It seems like being gay comes with a lot more baggage, like being young the perception of being flamboyant, being a partier.  Then there is always the perception in guys that homosexuality is dangerous. Young guys getting AIDS.  With older gay guys, it’s perceived as creepy or like pedophilia or something. I don’t know, but it just seems like there’s a stereotype of every age.  I haven’t imagined an 80-year-old gay person probably because people aren’t comfortable enough to be out that long.  I’m sure there will be a stereotype for that when that happens.  It just seems like you encounter a lot of stereotypes at each age, and it seems like there is more hostility towards it for guys, especially from other guys.  I don’t know why that’s true.  People don’t feel like they can be normal around another guy.  But that sucks. 

Do you have anything, other than what we covered that you think is important to have on the website too?

 I didn’t talk with anyone for a long time, and I think that makes it 100 times harder.  I think talking with just one other person, just talking about it makes it a lot more manageable and less scary of a thing.  So that’s my advice: talk.

Since you didn’t talk to anybody did you look online for stuff or order books?

 What did I do?  I guess I just thought about it a lot.  I didn’t do much like try to find other people.  I didn’t really do anything.  I thought about what it meant as far as how that would change things, but that’s it. 

When you graduate do you think that where you go or what you do will be affected by your sexuality?

Yeah probably.  I won’t feel as comfortable living in a small town or certain areas of the country or the world as I would somewhere else.  I will probably want to be in a place that’s very comfortable, and I won’t feel different.  Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying in Davidson forever.