"This Is How I Keep A Friend"

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When I turned 18, the first thing I did was sign up for those apps everybody warns you about. Only in my case, nobody had warned me at all. I drove twenty-five minutes, met somebody for fifteen, and left feeling like I lost something. That is the closest I've come to culture shock—the norm within gay culture to meet up with a complete stranger, give him your body, and go home trying to remember if he was twenty-four or thirty-two. Forget trying to remember his name, it's not like you even asked for it. I couldn't fathom being so inconsiderate and cursory. So I, regrettably, remember it all: his name, his face, the slight crookedness of his front tooth, the Cancer sign tattooed on his forearm. I remember his political affiliation that contradicted his sexuality, just like his star sign contradicted my own. I remember the clasp of his hand that retaliated against my resistance, the breathing that drowned out my unwillingness.


What is it that compels gay youth to give themselves freely to whoever will have them? To embark on passion in the backseat of some guy's car, as if you've known him for years? Is it that we might experience what we have historically been forced to conceal? To make up for the fact that we couldn't take a boyfriend to a school dance in middle school? That our brother said he would "beat the fuck" out of us if we were gay? That my church, my peers, would—and did—condemn me should I ever love a man?


Now I wonder, why should we settle for what is accessible just to prove we can have it? Why give ourselves away when we fought so hard to be something we're proud of? I understand for some queer people, "looking for now" is all you ever hoped for. For me, I refuse to settle for less than what I dream about. Hands are the thief of innocence when they're cold and stained. But when they're gentle and kind and true to respect... well, I wouldn't know. 

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