LOVE LETTERS: PART ONE
Dear,
I’m sorry to deliver this bad news to you, and maybe you’re not going to want to speak to me again, call me all sorts of an asshole after I write this. That’s my second biggest fear. My real fear though is that you’ll blow it off and keep on denying some shit that’s pretty obvious and not just to me:
You’re gay. I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to put it. Maybe you don’t like that word, but if you’re not gay then what you are is as close to gay as cornflower is to navy or lilac to lavender. So let’s just use the word gay. I’m not being presumptuous or using wishful thinking. I know, I know, you sort of like girls, you find females attractive. You’ve eaten pussy. You’ve even fucked. You’ve had girls in the past. Blah, blah blah. No one has the right to tell you what you are. But when you embark on a massive campaign of denial, then someone should tell you and I’m looking around and the only person who’s going to be the angel of the Apocalypse is me.
You were gay when I found at least twenty gay porn sites on your computer and chose to say nothing. You were gay when you didn’t notice any girls in our philosophy class but got hooked on Kevin. You were gay when Julia at the library asked me how come you never talked to any of the pretty girls who came through. Oh, and when you started dating (yeah, let’s use that euphemism) Her and then you would strut down the street talking about, “I like hot chicks…” yeah, Ben, you were still gay. You were gay when you wrote a letter to Her saying “My Dearest, I want to be hugging and kissing you, but I like men and I’m going to describe how much I like them and how I always have only I’m going to make it sound like a sickness, and then at the end of the letter tack on, “but I’m not gay (though last time I checked, that’s what being gay is). I like girls too, don’t leave me.” You were gay when you made me read it first. You were gay when you’d sit up at nights in the apartment talking about how lonely your relationship with Her was. And you were gay when you met Her and for reasons unknown decided to start fucking her instead of just going out and finding a guy. It would have been just as sleazy, but a little more honest. Every time you have to pretend She’s someone else and She sits around—like a dumbass—saying, “I know my boyfriend talks about how he likes guys, but I can’t figure out why he isn’t in to me”—you’re gay, Love.
You were gay when you found out I’d had a boyfriend in the past and spent the next part of a month flirting with me. You were gay that night at Notre Dame when you stared real hard at that guy’s ass and incidentally, you’re gay whenever you check out men and think I don’t notice. You were gay when we watched lesbians fucking each other and you just yawned through it. You were gay when you slept in my bed. You were gay when we made out. And you were gay when you tried to forget it and act like nothing happened. Every time you make me sleep on your floor or hold yourself off from me and become cold because you don’t trust yourself, you’re gay. You can go through all the Trojans and Trustex’s in the world (which is, by the way, a dumb way to prove something to yourself) and spend five minutes feeling like a real heterosexual man and then leave your condom wrappers on the floor for me to find, and you’ll still be gay. You can get sucked off and pretend she’s a man to make yourself come faster and you know what? You’ll still be gay. You’ll just also be a really fucked up person incapable of being in a happy, sane relationship.
You’re gay. Quit asking me to deny it. Quit acting like its dirty and going on about how you like girls, all these girls you loved in the past. Just stop it. Stop revising stories and changing pronouns. Give me that much respect. It doesn’t have to be dirty. It doesn’t have to be you surfing around looking at fisting websites. It could be beautiful. It could be happy. You could actually start to feel good about yourself. But if you treat it like its dirty, like you’re dirty, then you will be.
Okay, so maybe you don’t like that word. Gay. Maybe you don’t want to be navy. You want to be cornflower. And maybe you don’t want to end up with me. But I think you will. Fine. But end up with someone. You know why you can’t be into her. But ask yourself this, if a girl KNOWS that the guy she’s with wants to be with other people, wants to be with other MEN, then why the hell would she hang onto you—no matter how much you begged—if she loved you?
--Chris
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