Sunday, March 04, 2007

I Wish I could Go Back to College

Life is strange. In college, I had a wonderful friendship with a guy named Chuck. He had devout -- but unorthodox -- Christian views and I was agnostic. We would spend hours debating religion. I came out to him -- the first person I told. He accepted it, and although he said he was straight as an arrow, slept in my bed with our bodies entwined. We never did more than that, though I wanted to, I was in love with him. He was older than I and his leaving school was devastating to me.

A few years ago, we got back in touch. Turns out he's gay after all and living in LA (super ironic, as he is so NOT LA) with his boyfriend and writing screenplays. I told him I had a crush on him and he was surprised. God, how could he be surprised?! He told me that when he thought of me he thought of the song from Avenue Q: I Wish I Could Go Back to College.

Since then, we've lost touch again. But I haven't forgotten my friend.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

During my junior year of college, I had an international roommate from England named Ed. I thought I got a vibe from him, but he was practically engaged to a girl back home and liked girls very much. We became great friends, even sharing a bed together outside of the Dulles airport in DC when we had car troubles, but nothing more. Within a few months of him returning to London, he broke up with his girlfriend and started dating a dude by the name of Glenn. I didn't find this out until almost a year later. Why is it that some guys know immediately and some guys don't realize it until much later? I had somewhat of an inkling in elementary school. I don't get it.

Scott said...

It's that river in Egypt called de-nial.

Your friend knew, he just didn't know what to do about it. Thank God he figured it out before he married some poor woman. I dated girls and guys while in college, although I knew my interests lay entirely with other guys. I just didn't know what to do about it...I didn't know many gay people and there were no real open role models back then (mid 1980s). I didn't figure it out until a crisis that happened the summer after I graduated from college...but that's a story for another time.