I heard from a friend that had been in and out of contact for a few years. We'll name him Hank. This was one of my old friends from back when we were all in the young adult group. He literally appeared out of nowhere and joined the group. We had a lot of great activities and drew a lot of people from everywhere. Hank dated a couple of girls from the group off and on and he was even engaged to one of them, but the wedding was called off a couple of months before they got married. Shortly after that Hank moved in with another member of the group and they were roommates. Grapevine rumors had it that the guy that let Hank move in with him had fallen in love with him--but they weren't really in a romantic relationship-- and there were apparently a few others in the group who liked/loved him enough too--again, all rumors, never enough to be substantiated. I never gave much thought to any of that. Most of us either moved, married and a couple of them came out of the closet--including the guy who had let Hank move in with him! Hank remained a friend of our family; he went on a couple of trips with us, always nice and very respectfull and friendly. My mother actually wanted one of my sisters to date him : )
Well, back to about 9 years ago Hank came back into our lives, this time as an all-out gay man. He told us he had finally decided to live as a gay man and if there was a problem, then he would be sorry not to be part of our lives or the other way around. I know that his concerns were mainly because of any judgement we may have had for him due to the church, but by then we had been out for a year or two. We told Hank that he was more than welcome in our lives/home and we had no ill feelings for him. He introduced us to his then partner and things were alright. I started talking to him by email and he first shocked me by saying that back in our young adult days in the midst of all the love sharing by some of the guys in the group "people had talked about me". I asked him what he meant by that? He said that some people had talked that was all and things were dropped, the conversation ended.
A couple of months later, all of the sudden Hank emails me again and asks how is life as a married man with children? Seems his 'biological' clock had been ticking and he had actually considered getting married, possibly father a child, but didn't know how it all might roll out with it being gay and all? I suppose I dug deeper and asked why he was asking me all these things? He just assumed that I knew that he knew about me being gay!! To him it was just one of those matter of fact things that he didn't even need to ask if I was, or if I was out. He just knew. I met with him for lunch one day and Hank was probably the first person I was able to admit face to face about it, but asked him to please, please be extremely discreet because my wife/family was not aware of any of this. As far as I can tell, he has kept his end of the bargain.
Why am I writing this now? Well, I wonder if people really knew or at least had enough sense to get the fact that a bunch of the popular, friendly RMs from back then were actually a bunch of gay guys? Granted, this wasn't all of the young adult males but certainly a good number that stood out from the rest! If people talked about me being gay, why on earth did anyone not sit me down and asked me if I had ever considered this before getting married? Maybe it was the inmaturity of it all; I'm certain that having been in the church and active everyone figured either I'd outgrow it, get married and move on? I'm not trying to blame anyone by this--not at all because I ended up making my own decisions. I certainly hope this is still not going on in the present-day in the church.
I haven't talked to Hank in a long time, I really don't know why his name came to my mind all of the sudden. Maybe I just need to email him again...
it's great to see another blog, many disappear for any number of reasons.
ReplyDeleteit is lonely to have things to say that can't be said in public. blogging helps but there are limits.
although i'm active by church definitions (attendance at just one sacrament meeting a month), if i plot my current course, i may not be so active in a few years. but then people have been saying that about me for years. but i'll always be a mormon and never with regrets.
but getting to your post, i think i'd feel relieved if someone came to me with that assumption--that i'm gay. any worry about him spreading the word would be outweighed by one less measure of loneliness.
When I was in junior high and high school I was "outed" by the bullies who seemed to just "know" about my kind, even though I didn't "know". Why was this?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was on my mission, I was labeled as one of the "touchy-feely" elders... just a bit too friendly with the guys. I didn't think twice about it and didn't care what others said, but certain elders just "knew", even though I didn't "know". Why was this? Why did I get signaled out? Why was it so obvious to some?
When I was YM leader for years, I'd be accused of being "too friendly" but was never called out for it... except by one young man of mine (who came out to me after his mission) who "knew" I was gay and felt safe telling me that he was. How did he "know" that I was gay? He said it was obvious and he could just tell.
As time passes, I've established a persona of professional and family life, church-going life that hides my inner self, so I don't hear much said about it... But, like Santorio, I almost wish I was outed more often.
Maybe you need to have lunch with Hank and get caught up?