Saturday finally came. I told my mom that I had to go to Princeton and needed a ride there. She told my brother to drive me. She asked why I was going there and I told her that I had to do a project with a friend that lives there. I told her that his parents divorced and that he stayed with his Dad in Princeton during the weekend. She bought it. I told my brother to drop me off a couple of miles away from the building. I told him that I just wanted to walk around. I was still about 1 hour early for the meeting and decided to go to the library. I sat there and asked myself if Im really going to go to the meeting. Going to the meeting meant a lot of things. It meant that more people are going to know and Im risking getting outed. I finally decided to go.
I walked to the Hitops building. I stood right in front of the door and took a deep breath. I entered the room an there was a circle of chairs. The meeting had started already and I just sat down quietly and looked down. They were all introducing themselves and I finally had to talk. I really didn't want to talk because I was too nervous. Everyone was looking at me and I just told them my name. I didn't want to tell them where I lived or any other information about me. I think they respected and knew that I didn't want to talk that much. As the meeting went on, I became more and more comfortable just sitting there and listening to these people. The meeting was finally over and a couple of people went up to me after and just wanted to talk. There was this one cute guy that hugged me there. I've had a crush on him since (haha).
I was so happy when I left that place. I had a chance to talk to people. Listening to them talk about their experiences and advices gave me hope that everything will turn out alright. I was kind of sad also. Leaving that place meant that I have to hide again. I just wrote about my whole experience in my journal. I went back to Ms Lowinger and told her all about it. The whole thing made me somewhat comfortable of myself and I started to finally think that it was ok to be gay.
Summer came and I went to about 4 meetings already. I met so many great people and started hanging out with some of them. Of course I just told my mom that it was just school friends. It was easier to go to 1st and 3rd. I started taking the bus. I also became really comfortable with the whole gay thing. Im the same as everyone else I just like guys instead of females. I still haven't told anyone yet and I was planning to when school started again. I wasn't as confused about the whole gay thing. School finally started and the first thing on my agenda was to tell my best friend.
My best friend in high school was Tamy. She was this awesome upbeat girl and I felt like I could tell her anything and she would be supportive. It was in French class and we were writing notes back and forth. I guess she was wondering why I haven't had a girlfriend in a while and I decided to write back that the reason was because I don't find girls attractive anymore. She had this confused look on her face. She passed the note back and asked what that meant. I told her I was gay. She was very suprised and told me she wanted to talk after school. We did and it turned out great. She kept on asking why I didn't tell her earlier and I just told her I wasn't ready and that I felt that no one would accept it. She was so supportive after that. It felt great that I can actually talk to one of my friends about this. After that, we'd start checking out guys in the hallways together. We became a lot closer after that.
I told a couple more people after that. I just told a couple girls after that. For some reason I felt that they wouldn't mind so much. After like 3 people, I decided I was going to tell Pradeesh. He was probably the closest guy friend I had back then. It was hard to tell him because he was a guy. I didn't want him to think that I liked him or something; I just wanted to be truthful with him. We were at Menlo Park Mall and he also asked me why I haven't dated any girls yet. I told him and he was also very suprised. He took it very well though. He told me that it was cool with him and that he was always going to be there if I needed anything.
In the midst of all of this, I started going online and talking to people; trying to meet people my age to talk to. I wanted a gay life outside of 1st and 3rd. I met this kid Jeff online. He was this cool guy. He was a year older than me and we started hanging out a lot. I wasn't attracted to him so nothing sexual happened. I was becoming sexually curious. I wanted to know what it was like to be with another guy; someone that I was attracted to. He told me he went out with someone that is in my high school and I wanted to know who it was. I wanted to know that I wasn't the only gay person in my high school. Jeff told me that it was this kid Mark. I didn't know who he was. Mark gave Jeff my screen name and we started talking online. He seemed like a really cool person and I couldn't wait to meet him. Apparently he knew who I was already. Affinty was a club I was doing. We had to talk to freshmans about diversity and stuff. I was facilitating his group and talking about homophobia. He didn't talk the whole time. Anyways, we wanted to meet each other so Jeff invited us both to go see a movie. I was late for the movies and I didn't get a chance to see them until the end. We were outside the movie theater and I saw some of my friends from high school who I wasn't out to. I started talking to them and I saw Jeff talking to someone. I guessed it was Mark. I was so excited to meet him but I didn't want to show my friends that was there because I was still in the closet. We spoke for like a couple minutes and I went back to my friends and he left.
We spoke online again. I wanted to tell him that I thought he was so cute. I was too shy to do it and I was also weirded out by it. This is all really happening. Im actually attracted another guy. He gave me his phone number and I called him the next night. We talked to each other for a while. I got to know him and his situation and about how his parents weren't so supportive about the whole gay thing. I was suprised he came out to his parents already but he didn't come out to his friends yet. I was totally opposite of him, I didn't tell my family yet but I did tell some of my friends. So the whole conversation got pretty personal. I decided to tell him that I liked him. I was scared to because I was scared of getting rejected. He had a previous relationship with Jeff and I was also intimidated by that. I never had a relationship and I was 2 years older than he was. Plus I liked him as a friend and I didn't want to lose that. All these thoughts went through my head but I finally got the balls to tell him. I just told him I really thought he was cool and he was cute as hell. He thought I was cute too to my suprise. I thought I was just going to get shut down and he was never going to talk to me ever again after that.
The next day, I went by his 3rd period class because I had lunch during that time. We walked around the hallways of the school and just talked to each other for the rest of the day. I was starting to like him a lot. He wanted to hang out that night. We both had homework to do so we decided we were just going to go to the library and finish our homework. I picked him up at 7:30. Just met his parents real quick, they were very intimidating people. Mark told them that we were just going to go to the library. We left quickly and we decided we were going to stop by Pierre's and grab a quick dinner. So we did. We then went ot the library and snuck in our food. I helped Mark with his math homework because he didn't understand some of the things on it and I took the class like two years ago. We both finished the homework quite early. We told his parents that we were going to be back by 9. We finished at around 8:15. So we decided to leave. I drove him to the pool hall because I like hanging out there. We ended up just sitting in the my ghetto van and talking. Our conversation got more and more intimate and I just wanted to kiss him right there. I couldn't because there were people parked right next to us and we both feared that those people might kick our asses if they see us. Plus I thought it would be so non-romantic if I kissed him in a pool hall parking lot. I took him to this really special place. There is a park on Blackwellsmills Road that I always go to. Its this parking space with the view of the lake and trees and stuff. View didn't really matter anyways, all I thought about in my head was his face. It was like a 5 minute drive. After we got there, I parked my van and we talked more for like 10 minutes.
I told him that I have never kissed a guy before and that I really wanted to kiss him. I was too shy to do anything though. He told me about his past and everything about his last boyfriend. I was kind of intimidated because he's done this before and this is my first time kissing a guy. My palms were all sweaty but I tried to