The rule of Chekhov’s gun

There are certain things that are meant to happen when your first love reveals that he’s gay.

TV and movies teach us that, as the ex-girlfriend who is currently single, you’re supposed to freak out. You’re supposed to blame yourself. You’re supposed to go and get falling over drunk and sleep with the first guy you meet to make sure you can still be considered attractive by men who don’t also sleep with men.

I didn’t do any of those things (although I do miss the halcyon days of having sex for the trio of perfect reasons; boredom, revenge, and to raise one’s self-esteem. There’s really nothing quite like it to give you a vague feeling of self-loathing that never quite washes off). Mostly, if we’re all honest here, because I always knew he was as homosexual as the weather is erratic. I don’t think you can know someone as well as he and I once did (and are on the road to achieving now) and not be aware of it. Not because he was like, checking out guys all the time and constantly doing John Inman impressions (those were my designated tasks) but because I always knew there was something about himself that he wasn’t accepting. It never felt like he was entirely comfortable being him.

Not that this mattered a jot to me when we first got together. I wilfully ignored a whole chunk of things which appeared in front of my face with big ‘AWOOGA! AWOOGA! HE AIN’T STRAIGHT!’ horns blasting. Captain Obvious stopped by many-a-time and kept pulling at my coat tails and pointing things out that were… well, frankly obvious, as to why me and the boy would never quite work out. But instead of me allowing my attention to be drawn to these matters I just put both hands over my ears and went ‘LALALALALA’ really really loudly until Captain Obvious and the AWOOGA AWOOGA YOUR BOYFRIEND LIKES MEN AS MUCH AS YOU DO! horn got so annoyed and fed up with my pig-headed refusal to see things their way that they slunk into the shadows muttering cynical sentiments under their breath about how I ‘would get mine soon enough’. I didn’t care though, those bitches could do and say what they wanted. I was in love and quite frankly, that’s all that mattered.

That is until I went loco.

I went loco for many and varied reasons. There’s been a fair few times when I’ve tiptoed up to the edge of the mentalists compound but never before had I actually stepped boldly over the line and gone all out crazy before. Certain things contributed to this; being at art school five days a week 9 till 5 and working all day Saturday and Sunday (giving me precisely seven minutes and fifty-seven seconds a month to chillax) certainly didn’t help. I have to have plenty o’ chillaxing time to feel content and complete. As I’m sure I’ve expressed before, I need a large chunk of the day devoted to NOT TALKING if I’m going to even achieve a level of functionality that half-way approaches normal as, without this, I go a little loco. We can also blame the fact that he went off to Bristol and started living a life without me. I mean, that’s awful and despicable right? Living your own life and enjoying it and moving on. God. People can be so selfish. But again, this act, this act that so many kids (as a 25-year-old I’m allowed to now use the term ‘kids’ when discussing anyone under the age of 21 as part of the statutes laid down in the ‘Patronising Act, 1982’) go through when their beau starts university – it made me loco. I was the clichéd nutso girlfriend from home that your new friends make snide comments about after the thirteenth time of her texting you that night knowing that you’re off drinking with your new buds (although, I’d like to make it clear that I’ve since retaught myself rather effectively where contact is concerned to be as erratic and distant as possible. The trouble is – you start doing that with guys you date and it soon extends to everyone you correspond with. I can’t change back now. The damage has been done). But, in going a little loopy, I was able to start listening to what Captain Obvious and the AWOOGA horn had to say. I started asking questions about the relationship that hadn’t been asked outright before. Niggles turned into doubts which, curiously enough, turned into rage.

So I ended it.

In the space of about a month I went from thinking that this was the guy I would be with forever to thinking that he had never loved me, would never love me, and wishing that I could erase him from my life completely.

What hit me most hard was that he seemed fine. He appeared to be unaffected. We would still talk on the phone, even after the night that I tearfully told him that I couldn’t take this anymore and he tearfully replied that he knew that and couldn’t continue on either, and he was as bright and breezy as ever – if not more so. Every conversation turned into a more elaborate game of cat and mouse as I kept trying to hunt for clues to prove he either had cared for me as I had for him or that he had moved on. All I seemed to get was confirmation of the latter; that he was having the time of his life without me whilst I languished in a prison of self-hate with ‘PROTOTYPE EMO’ tattooed across my forehead (I’ve since learnt to cover this with make-up – you’d be amazed at what you can do with cosmetics nowadays). I was hurting in a way I’d never hurt before. In fact, saying that, in actual fact what struck me as most odd was that there was a complete absence of hurt. All I felt was nothing. There was no point in anything. There was little point in getting out of bed, little point in washing my hair, even less point in going to college and pretending like I was going to be ‘remembered for my art’. I just wanted to hide away from everything. Curl into a ball and bury myself into the earth and never have to deal with anything going on up above the surface again. Although, there was one emotion that I got very well acquainted with – hate. I hated myself and I hated him. I hated that us breaking-up had made his life easier and mine exponentially more difficult. Hate gave me something to cling onto at a time when I was numb to everything else.

So, I did what all good wacky nut jobs do. I used the whispers the Captain Obvious and AWOOGA horn had been feeding me and instead of using the truth as something positive – something to help me move on and understand what it was that he might have been feeling – I turned it into a horrible, twisted, ugly weapon and stabbed him with it. I knew he didn’t want to be gay. I knew calling him out on it would really hurt him and emasculate him and would mean nothing would ever be the same between us again. But that, right there, is EXACTLY what I wanted. If I was hurting and filled with hate then by gum, he sure as hell was gonna be a-hurtin’ and hate-filled too. To the best of my recollection it’s the only time I have ever intentionally used the truth in this way. I mean, sure, I’m the queen of passive-aggression. I do a fine line in cutting people down to size when the occasion calls for it, but using the truth to scald and burn and ruin; that was a new and evil way of doing things and although on the night that lead up to this climax I was falling over drunk, the fact remains that I did go out and find the first guy I could that would sleep with me and then I did text the ex-boy almost immediately afterwards informing him of my adventures that evening and also happen to mention that he needed to face up some home truths about his sexuality (though perhaps not quite as classily as that). He responded back five minutes later saying he didn’t want to see or speak to me ever again. Three or so years of my life had a full stop put on them through the power of a badly-spelled, angry revenge text. I said the one thing that I knew would affect him the most. Regrets? I’ve had a few.

So that’s where we stood. For years and years he was just this guy that I had once dated and had ended up intentionally destroying in a misguided attempt to make myself feel better. But then, time passed. People move on. I picked myself up and made this life for myself that had nothing to do with him. That was a good thing. I divided my time equally between nerdiness, sluttiness, and silliness. I wasn’t always happy, I wasn’t always sad. I would get to a point where I thought I had everything figured out (like, literally, the whole world and myself) and then a few weeks later something would happen and I’d realise I was clueless. My world expanded and got smaller according to how I was feeling and who I was spending time with. I lived life. Sometimes pretty effectively and sometimes not but living life all the same. Y’all know about all of that stuff. I write about it here all the time.

Then, in the summer, we met up again and we went and got drunk and ended up going dancing. It was masses amounts of fun. Slowly but surely we found our selves being part of one another’s lives again. It was great. Another thing that I’d chosen to ignore, that I’d had to ignore for a long time was how much I’d missed my friend. So we became friends again. We hung out. We went bowling. We ate falafel and veggie burgers from a van on the side of a road that advertises itself as the ‘Ultimate Taste’ (it is. It so so is). We did more dancing. We watched films. We spent a LOT of time talking rubbish. We remembered why we’d hung out so much before – we are equal parts awesome and lame in all the right ways and could appreciate both of those aspects in one another. But there was still that thing, that thing that I knew and wasn’t sure he did. That thing that had burned everything to the ground and meant that I’d had to start again from scratch.

As Chekhov’s laws of storytelling go – : if there’s a gun on the wall at the beginning of a drama, it must have gone off by the end.

This gun had been sat on the wall for mine and the boy’s entire relationship. It was there when we went to the movies, when we were fooling around in my room, when we were sneaking cigarettes out by the creek (Sazz’s Creek, not Dawson’s), when we were going out and getting wasted and laughing the whole time. It was there when we fought about my petty jealousies (which, ironically enough, were always girl-based), it was there when we made up and made out in the backseat of my car on the hill overlooking Portsmouth. It was there when we didn’t talk for years and years and it has been there since the summer when we began to reconnect again. Although, I had assumed by this point that if he did indeed swing that way then I would have found out about it by now, whenever we went out the air was always heavy with things left unsaid. The conversations that we avoided followed us and pointed accusingly. I again, chose to ignore their denouncing gaze. I’d already screwed up enough once to push my friend away for, what felt like, ever. I didn’t want to risk that again. He would tell me what he needed to tell me in his own good time I reasoned. I knew there was something, I just didn’t know what exactly. He never told me about anyone he fancied. He never mentioned any girls he’d dated throughout our years spent in the friendship wilderness. He’d talk about how hot Rhianna is (but she fucking is – you don’t have to be a straight male to work that one out) but never anything personal that was real. For a time I was able to explain that away as him protecting me given our past history. I certainly didn’t launch into any long soliloquies about my dating past. I’d throw in a name here and there or tell a funny dating story occasionally to see if he would respond in kind but he never did.

Yet, for whatever reason, in a dusty car park, on a chilly Sunday night in March, I’d had enough. I was exasperated with his silence. I needed to knock down this wall that still stood between us and wasn’t allowing us to fully connect. The gun had been on the wall for long enough and now it needed to go off.

So it did.

I‘d just finished reading Generation X. As I said in my last post, when I really like something I think about it a lot. One of the things in that book that I couldn’t stop thinking about was when Andy said ‘we all have that person in our lives that we would run away with if they asked us’. A week before I sat in that car park, I had been at an impromptu house party where I sat outside on some big stone steps talking to a girl I’d never met before and I asked her that question and she gave me an answer that totally bummed me out. She described a boy and a situation that had been one I knew all too well myself (with a different fellow from the one I’ve been talking about up till now);

‘I get it’ I said sagely ‘he only wants you when you don’t want him and you’re left wondering how you manage to keep falling into this ridiculous pattern that’s been going on for years’

‘Yeah’ she replied, her eyes growing wider and her voice more expressive ‘YEAH! How AM I still feeling the same way when it’s three years later and nothing’s changed from when we first met?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did but I really don’t. I’m sort of over mine now. It does get better’

But as I said that I realised something. Fuck. I’m sort of over mine now. I haven’t got that person who I would run away with if they asked me anymore. He’s all too real and fallible now and couldn’t be with me even if he wanted to (which, for the record, he does not). I’m out here on my own. A couple of hours earlier I’d been feeling liberated and empowered by this fact and now, now it struck me that I had to rely on myself. If I want to run away then I’m going to have to be the one doing the asking, and even then, running away won’t solve anything because I’ll still be stuck with me. Shit. Fuck. Bollocks. This innocuous question that only came to me as a way of getting to know a really interesting person better had totally bummed me out. A week later, in a dusty car park, on a chilly Sunday night in March, I was still bummed out (there are no escape routes! All roads lead back to me! I have to start being in charge of myself and not wait for a knight in shining amour to come rescue me on his trusty steed! [especially as I’m allergic to horses]). And I was still thinking about that question.

‘Everyone has that person in their life that they would run away with if asked. Everyone. Except I now don’t but that’s not the point. Why don’t I know who that person is in your life? Why don’t you tell me anything?’

I stared at him as Frank Black wailed on and then looked away shaking my head as I did so. A year, two years went by. He put his hands to his face and looked up to the car roof (looking for answers? Looking for divine intervention?) whilst I tried to stop myself from giggling as I suddenly realised how drunk I was and how awkward the situation was. A filter tip hung louchely out of the side of my mouth as I constructed a cigarette from the contents in my bag. I concentrated resolutely on making that cigarette. I knew if I laughed I’d blow it and he’d hide back in his shell.

Finally he sighed a massive sigh and said; ‘I fell in love with the wrong person’.

Hands down, even in my drunken fug, even being swept up in the moment of confessional tension, I knew that that was the coolest sentence I would ever hear anyone say in real life. There’s a million places you can go with that sentence. A million things you can learn from, and about, someone who utters those words. It’s the most perfect sentence he could have ever possibly have said.

What follows is a conversation that’s too personal for this public forum. I’ve only revealed this much fairly safe in the knowledge that neither he, nor anyone too connected to either of us, will read this but there are still some things that are best left private. The upshot is that he’s come out. He’s accepted himself for who he is. He’s finally ‘there’ (wherever that is – I just know that I think it’s some place that everyone has to try and get to eventually. It’s not a place that has anything to do with who you fancy. It’s a place you can only get to if you understand yourself and accept yourself in a way that makes the lurve bus a less dangerous thing to board). The best part is; if he can get there then I think I can too. It flipped this switch in me that just flooded my situation with light. For one thing, I know that, even in the times when I’m not ok - I’m going to be ok. So I don’t have ‘that person’ anymore. So the fuck what? IT’S A GOOD THING. It leaves me free to play this game, this life game, exactly as I want to. I can date people and not worry about where it’s going to lead or if it has a future again. Sweet sweet un-pressured joy. I got all caught up worrying that all the guys I’d been with since this perfect gay one didn’t mean a lot me. I desperately wanted to fall in love – so much so that I got caught up in this drama with this other boy without ever stopping to ask if I did actually love him or just wanted to love him. It all seems pretty silly now. (I’m still a bit sad I don’t have the drama anymore though. I get off on drama so bad. It’s mildly addictive). The other amazing thing is being able to be completely honest with someone that’s been closed off to you for a number of years. Being able to sit down and talk frankly about sex and love with a person who was never capable of frankness before – it’s the best feeling in the world (that wall that we hold up around ourselves for protection so very rarely gets let down but every now and then a chink is found by the right person at the right time and makes everything else worth it). We are able to unconditionally adore one another without any other agenda clouding that fact. I can’t tell you what a relief that is.

From my crowd of pals, my favourite reaction was from my mate Kes who is mildly devastated that her one last hope of good looking, well-dressed straight men that can dance actually existing in the world has been shattered (not that I want to stereotype but… well, the sooner all of us girls can accept this fact the better I guess). She’s also quite upset that it’s dashed her dreams of me and him ever ending up married. Which is another good thing – I no longer have to hem and haw in explaining to people why the two of us aren’t a couple, “well, you know, we’ve tried that before and it went a little bit like Hindenberg’ just doesn’t cut the mustard for some ‘but you two are so good together!” “Well, yeah but… it’s just… We’re not…” “See! You have no reasons! Get it together get it together!”. Justifying something like that isn’t particularly fun. You get accused of being in denial or being scared and it made me feel confused and start questioning if we should be together. I’m awfully easily manipulated. You know you see infomercials for things like ‘JML Dryer Balls’ and you think ‘who the hell sees this advert and then buys this shit?’. Me. I’m that person. I lap it up. But anyway, now I can just go “because he’s gay” and I’m off the hook. No further explanations required. No more exposition needed. ‘Oh. Oh I see” [awkward silence] “Well, you know, good for him” (side note: ‘good for him/her’ is my favourite response that someone can give to someone else owning up to a sexuality that deviates from the norm. It demonstrates everything about the middle-class mind-set in just three words – a desire to appear liberal yet unable to hide one’s uncomfortableness. Respeck).

So him being gay? Not a surprise. His telling me? Only leading to good places.

Getting my head round of all this has been no problem. In fact, it’s helped me get my head round some other things as well.

But of course, there’s an addenendum. There’s a part of the story that I haven’t yet revealed that has thrown me for a loop. Has made me freak out and wonder if this world we inhabit makes any sense at all.

You see, you know how he came to terms with all this initially? You know what made him face up to those truths that I’d used to wound and he’d been hiding from for so many years?

Hollyoaks.

Muthafucking Hollyoaks.

Apparently a character on that show went through a similar thing that he did and that’s what made him FINALLY realise everything. I have no way of understanding how I’m supposed to process the fact that Hollyoaks does good in the world instead of acts of unparalleled evil. Hollyoaks has always stood as a beaming example of everything I hate, in one half hour show it presents everything wrong about us and our society. And now I have to accept that maybe it can be used as a force for good. That it HAS been used as a force for good. This is going to take a lot of getting used to.