A Rant on Love...to be continued

You know I may not be married yet, I may not even be at that point in my life where I am even ready to be married….but I do know this, and that is that one day I hope to be married.

I grew up with many of the same fairy tales and fantasies as many of my friends did, dreams of finding that special someone to grow old with, someone to raise children with, to build a home together, have a dog, a white picket fence, the dream. The dream that each and every American usually has. It is my dream and has been my dream for my entire life.

I also grew up reading stories like Romeo and Juliet, tales about an unaccepted love and how two star struck lovers had to find love in the most desperate circumstances. Where they had to give up everything for each other, because that’s how deep their love ran.

You know as a gay man, I never thought that love would be my greatest calling, growing up in a world that told you, you were a pervert, ugly, strange, and a sinner, I always felt as if I would be cast away to the darkest corners of the earth. It’s why as a youth I felt so alone and so isolated from the world, scared to reveal this hidden truth about who I really was.

What brought me out of the closet wasn’t some class bully or an exposed act of discretion, rather it was the great love I had for a friend. It was the first time in my life I had ever had a best friend, a real friend, a person that would walk with me, stay with me after school and invite me to all the things he was doing. It was the greatest thing I ever had had, because for once I didn’t feel alone. No this was not some gay love affair, my friend is straighter then an arrow, but for me, it was a turning point because this person cared about me as much as I cared about him. I loved him a lot, as a person, as a human being just like anyone else.
And so what brought me out of the closet with him, is that I couldn’t bare lying to him, I couldn’t live with constantly asking myself, what if…..what if I were honest with him, would he still have been the wonderful sweet friend that I thought he was? Would he reject me as I had anticipated from the rest of the world? .....to be continued