-Selva Saravanan
Being a gay teen who has never stepped out of the closet, who pretends to be straight and at times even a homophobe just to “fit in” with the society around me; the thing which I lack the most is companionship. Not that I am friendless, but I don’t have friends like me.
Now why is it that I want gay friends, why aren’t friends just enough? Well, the reasons are so many. Adolescence is that time of one’s life when the hormones get activated and throw you into the process of looking for a possible mate. When all your close friends are checking out girls and commenting on various assets pertaining to the female anatomy, you feel you don’t fit in. You don’t fit in with that same gang of guys with whom you’ve been hanging around since childhood!
And every time I am asked who my latest crush is, I half wish I could tell them the truth and point the guy out to them but I play by the rules and blurt out the name of some hot chick to escape that situation. At times I am forced to describe the features of the girl that attracts me the most and very dutifully I do it too, only to feel sick of myself later on.
Now imagine when one of your best friends develops a serious affection for a girl, what does he do? He comes and confides in you and nearly bores you to death singing her praises. From then on, for every smile she gives, for every word she utters, for every gesture she makes, for every glance in his direction; you will have to prepare for another session of your friend’s impassioned love-struck monologues. But if I fall for a guy, whom can I possibly tell that I like him, leave alone talking about the developments in your secret love-life. There begins this loneliness.
When a girl ditches one of your close friends, or there is some problem between your friend and his date you are there to give him your shoulder to cry on and soothe him and comfort him. But when the guy whom you’ve been having a crush on for ages takes a girl out and your heart is broken because of that silly thing, who would you go and approach for comfort? There continues this loneliness.
You may have a plethora of online friends, but it is definitely not the same as confiding in your closest friends who’ve seen you through thick and thin.
Belonging to a gang of ten guys of whom nearly eight are committed, the pressure from the gang for you to look for someone too increases. Then your own longing to fall in love with someone also goes up, fuelled by the jealousy that sometimes springs up looking at all those happy couples around you (come on, we’re all human beings and it is normal to feel jealous!) . This is further aggravated when your friends are most of the time pre-occupied with texting or calling up their girl friends. Then you feel you are unwelcome there – forced to spend evenings staring at walls, shouting at god or taking your anger out on unsuspecting people.
Further aggravations get caused when the guys go out for treats together as couples and you-the single guy- gets invariably left out! And I will skip all the other little things that make me feel as if I am living alone on a planet.
Now you may ask me, why don’t I come out then and live in the open! I don’t mind! I don’t mind revealing to the whole world my gay identity. But I am afraid these people I call my friends may mistake me. What if they think I had a crush on them from some small silly gesture? That would definitely shatter my world because since the time I found out I was gay, I’ve never had a crush on even a single friend of mine.
So for now, the closet is where I’ll be, talking pseudo-excitedly about the female anatomy and about the women who set my heart spinning and such holy crap; but always with a longing that my world would one day change.
Before I conclude, let me just take my hat off to all those generations of gay people before me who endured much more suffering and loneliness than me. I at least have a few online friends but they didn’t even have those to confide in. With this, I bid adieu now. Hopefully we meet again soon, discussing brighter things under the Sun.