The First Time I Came Out

Time for a stroll down Memory Lane! This time, I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses to see what is good, disguising what was not. If the memories are altered, then so be it! I've grown weary of drama. What I want is a feel-good story.

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[A long battle with Writer's Block took place here at this spot.]

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Now I have the title. Getting the title is nine-tenths of the battle. The rest comes easy.

"The First Time I Came Out."

My brother was the first to tell me that there was a gay bar in town. I was seventeen at the time. I didn't believe him. I lived in a small Southern city in the 1980's, and homosexuality just wasn't discussed by anyone I knew, save in derogatory terms of horror, contempt and curiosity. But my brother saw the exterior of the gay bar in his travels around town. All he knew was that it had a sign out front that stated, in all capital letters (don't worry, reader, I will spare you the caps), "This is a gay bar. Do not enter the premises unless you are a homosexual." He thought the sign was funny, and so did I, but I imagine it was designed to defuse potential conflicts and misunderstandings. When I asked him where it was located, he looked at me with suspicion, and asked why I wanted to know. I looked away, made excuses and resolved never to bring the subject up again. Except I did. More than once or twice. Eventually it transpired that he had forgotten the location, or else he felt it unwise to share such dangerous information with a young and impressionable mind such as mine. Undeterred, I examined the phone book, looking for nightclubs or bars with a gay-sounding name, without success. After that, I made a couple of trips around the city, looking for the sign that my brother had described, but I never found it.

Two years later, I was taken to all of the gay bars in town in one night by an older man that I had met on my own, in the wild, so to speak. Stepping into a gay bar for the first time, as a gay man, is difficult to describe to those who are not gay, but I will try. Imagine that you are an American living in China, and you step into a bar filled with Americans. They greet you, their fellow countryman, with a smile. That is the best analogy that I can make.

I was too young to drink, and so I drank Coca-Cola. My companion had a smile as wide as mine, because he was showing me off, while I was coming to terms with not being the only one, ever again. I shook hands with many men, but remember little of what was said. It was in the line of good humor and advice to the new initiate. I did not remember the names of anyone I was introduced to. I felt happiness as well as sensory overload.

There was a good-looking black man of twenty-five or so standing beside a video game machine, and he said the only words that I remembered from the whole experience. We only looked at each other, and as if in response to the question he read in my eyes, he said, "Yes, you are beautiful." I thanked him and paid him a compliment in return. Emboldened, he asked me what my name was, and I made something up that sounded appropriate. I should have given him my number, but felt loyalty to the one who had brought me and paid my way.