It was dinner time on a Sunday night, early October 2005. Alone with my roommate in a booth at the back of Thorne, I was determined to keep the conversation as general as possible. Something had been festering inside me all day, and now it was pushing its way up into my throat. Avoiding eye contact with my roommate, I tried to keep my lips clenched. But 20 minutes' time found me powerless over my internal burden, and I slipped: "Shelley, I think I might be gay."
I hardly knew what the word "gay" meant. All I could be sure of was my attraction to women, both romantically and sexually, and an overwhelming compulsion to divulge this information to another person.
It's been three years since that fateful Sunday night, and things have changed. I'm older, I've read a few more books, kissed a couple of girls, boys, and some people who don't identify as either, and I'm a little bit more comfortable with myself now.
Tomorrow begins National Coming Out Week?a seven day celebration of honesty and pride in being yourself. So, to that end, I'd like to convey some of my experience to you in the hopes that my story might prove useful in your own meanderings down the road to sexual discovery.
Now, let's get back to that Sunday evening. Treading the familiar path from Thorne back to Coleman that night, I felt disillusioned in the way that one might feel if, upon waking, he or she found him?or herself on a transatlantic flight to Paris instead of their bedroom at home?I mean, Paris is great and everything, but what the heck am I supposed to do once I get there? I was deeply anxious. For 18 years I'd imagined a white picket fence, married with kids, heteronormative future?and now that comforting fantasy seemed to have vanished without a trace. Five minutes outside the safe confines of heteronormativity and I was already in over my head.
I desperately wanted something to anchor myself to and define myself with. In retrospect, I probably should have dealt with this feeling of instability by honestly coming to terms with the large array of insecurities that I associated with my new sexual identity. Instead, I did what I thought any logical person in my situation would have done?I began a ravenous quest for sexual and romantic experience. Turning to my teammates, and a smattering of "open-minded" friends and acquaintances, I did my utmost to develop a body of sexual experience that might somehow validate me in this new sexual field. To my great chagrin, I found that hooking up with people you live and/or play organized sports with is a highly complicated endeavor which rarely turns out well.
Perhaps my methods were a bit excessive but, for whatever reason, I had convinced myself that sexual experience was all I required in order to build a viable identity for myself and relieve my confusion. As time went on, and complications arose, my bed seemed to lay fallow indefinitely, at which point I decided to expand my focus and take up sexuality as an academic pursuit. This decision would ultimately result in me spending my entire junior year at the Universiteit van Amsterdam...what a trip. But, rather than go into detail about the sexual cornucopia I found in the Dutch discothèques, let's just say I made up for any sexual experience I felt I was lacking at Bowdoin.
Now I'm back at Bowdoin, reflecting on my past for your reading pleasure. I'm sure by now you've gathered that it hasn't always been easy for me to figure out where I belong in the grand scheme of things?I've tried on my fair share of masks in the process. At times it has seemed easier to pretend I'm someone or something else but, more often than not, the outcome has been disappointing and vacant.
If anything has changed for me in the past three years, it's been my commitment to personal honesty. Satisfaction and sincerity have become a package deal. I've learned that if I truly want to understand myself and develop a sexual identity that I feel comfortable with, I need to start from a place of honesty and acceptance?I hope that this Coming Out Week, regardless of your preferences, you're able to do the same.