Before this, I had toyed with telling Sensei for other reasons. For one, the time was coming to renew our lease and I wanted enough openness that I might date someone and not have to hide it. I'd thought about moving out to get that freedom. Even so, I don't think I would have said anything the if he weren't going away for those six weeks. Besides, I was coming to love Taiji.

There are all sorts of taboos about whom it is acceptable for us to love. There are especially strong for men, although women are not completely exempt.

I don't mean taboos about sex.

In fact, compared to the taboos on loving, the taboos on sex are positively benign.

For instance, my best friend is a guy named Charley. We met at college nineteen years ago. When I write or we see each other, I call him CC or Cease (the plural of "Cee"), or "hey guy," or whatever sobriquet comes to mind. For two years, we lived in the same dormitory, on the same floor. We shared an apartment during one summer, and again for three years after he graduated. I taught Charley how to make strawberry and banana crepes; we both timed broiled chicken by waiting for the apartment smoke alarm to go off; and Charley is the bad influence to whom I owe my still held belief that fudge and Coca Cola make a perfectly fine breakfast.

Of course there are more substantial debts I owe to him. One is that in the thirteenth and fourteenth year of our friendship, he took the part of the whole straight world and listened to me bitch about how unfairly it was organized to treat me. There are others.

Since it is taboo to love a friend, we knew each other for nearly twelve years before I hugged Charley for the first time. (Real men don't hug one another.) Still, I am proud that two years before I hugged Charley, I managed to say to him (though only once): "You are one of the people that I love." (Real men don't acknowledge affection.) I am honored that, after we had known each other only fourteen years, Charley could say to me: "I love you."

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