The small Minnesota town I grew up in (pop. 500) was never a great breeding ground for true tolerance. Sure, I was taught to accept everyone no matter how different they are, but it’s easy to talk about tolerance when the whole community is made up of Euro-American Lutherans. The conversations usually revolved around race and religion, sexuality was never really discussed. In fact, the first time I remember having a discussion about gay people was in my church youth group. The conversation was so brief and rehearsed that it wasn’t memorable to me. I basically fell into the same mind set of everyone else, “I’m fine with homosexuality as long as it doesn’t affect me”. I believe this really means “I know that homos exist, but I don’t ever want to know one, they better never hit on me, live next door to me, shop where I shop, be friends with my children. I don’t have to worry about it because NO ONE that lives here is gay.” To this day I don’t know of one openly gay person from my hometown.
I was able to actually practice tolerance after I got my driver’s license and started hanging out in the Nearest Big Town (pop. 9000), it was home to all different kinds of races and religions, but sexual orientation was still never real a player in my life. It was here that I met Alex…a very flamboyant, well dressed man. He worked with one of my best friends; I met him at a house party. I moved away for college, but would drive back some weekends to party with friends and see him from time to time. After going through a 2 year relationship and some college I moved to Nearest Big Town to be closer to my family and continue my college education. I went to a party one night and guess who was there? He and I hit it off and starting hanging out a lot, but looking back we only really hung out when we partied together.
The thought never crossed my mind that he was gay until we went to a small party in the middle of nowhere. When we first arrived Alex wanted to leave, he told me that he had issues with a guy that was there. He didn’t want to explain in detail, so I (being the bitch that I am) made him stay. The night progressed and Alex made it a point to always be in a different room away from the guy. At one point, after a few bottles of liquid courage, I went over to the guy and worked my way into the conversation. He said that he noticed when I came in because I was with Alex. He asked me how much I knew about Alex and his family. I knew that he had a brother that lived in Minneapolis, but had never met his family and if Alex felt I needed to know something about him he would tell me. The hater told me that I should stay far away from Alex because his brother was openly gay and Alex was gay too, but never told anyone (this was the first time I had heard the phrase “in the closet”). I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I became outraged. This wasn’t something that my ignorant mind could handle so I believed the guy. How could Alex be so effeminate and not be gay??? I didn’t confront Alex that night; we didn’t say a word to each other during the ride to my apartment.
A few days went by and I didn’t hear from Alex. I figured it was because he knew what I knew and didn’t want to talk about it. I decided to be the bigger person and asked him out to dinner. After a couple cocktails, an appetizer, and small talk it was as if nothing had happened. I asked Alex why he had such a problem with the guy at the party the week before. He told me that they went to high school together; he was a bully and made Alex’s life hell for a few years. We never talked about what the guy teased him about, we never talked about the conversation me and the guy had, we just left it at that.
A couple weeks later, it was Halloween. It happened to fall on a Sunday, I was scheduled to work, so I spent the Friday and Saturday before boozing it up in full “death angel” attire. At the last minute my boss told me I could have the night of Halloween off. I didn’t have anyone to go out with; all of my friends were nursing hangovers from the previous nights of debauchery. I called Alex, of course he was in, but he didn’t have a costume. Lucky for him I had a box of costumes. He met me at my apartment and we soon realized that I didn’t really have any costume for guys…but I had a sexy little dominatrix costume that he told me I HAD to wear. He decided he would be my “pet”. We drove back to his house where he reveled that he had plaid pants and a mesh shirt. I couldn’t understand why he would have such hideous things in his closet, he was always so well dressed (I also found out that both of his nipples pierced…this doesn’t really have anything to do with the story, but it shocked me none the less). He wore a pair of my clunky boots, we stopped at Wal-Mart and bought a chain link dog collar and off to the bars we went. We ended up winning two costume contests and drank for free all night courtesy of our prize, open bar tabs. After our night on the town as master and pet, I realized that it didn’t matter who Alex slept with, he was my friend and we had a blast every time we were together.
After spending over a year in Nearest Big Town I decided I wanted to live in the big city and moved to Minneapolis. Alex and I lost touch and I haven’t seen or spoken with him in almost 5 years. He never came out to me and I heard he had a girlfriend for a while. I never wonder if he is or isn’t gay, it doesn’t bother me that I never found out. I just hope that where ever he is and whatever he is doing he doesn’t have to worry about people harassing him about who he is.
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