I was 16, I had come back from Florida where I spent the 10th grade year living with my uncle and my cousins. I found myself returning back home to NY and I was excited to be back HOME where my friends I've known all my life but had not seen in the year I was away. A lot can change in a year especially on a social level when in high school.
This was the year I met someone who would shape and influence a very particular part of my life. His name will not be mentioned but the story must be told.
He was a senior and I was entering my junior year. We both sang and admired each others voices. We began to spend so much time together laughing, completing each others sentences in perfect synchronicity. We got each other on a level I never had with other heterosexual males and I was refreshed to have someone so close that I could have this with.
He, in the beginning of our friendship was dating this church girl who was a fiery Puerto Rican. She quick became annoyed at our close proximity and eventually started giving him ultimatums of spending more time and attention with her as I was taking too much of his time and energy for her liking. That didn't work as he relatively ignored her. She then decided to approach me and inform me of how much I needed to "know my place" and understand she was his girlfriend. I told her the only truth I knew, "I know him better than you. I know what he likes, how he thinks, what he feels. THe stuff you should know but probably never will. So while you are his girl, girls can come and go. A best friend will most likely outlast you."
I was from then on not her favorite person. I was however, quite right.
I had another close girl friend at the time, this was the friend in other essays I described being intimate with. She was the girl who held a safe space for me to explore my sexuality through and with her and in essence taught me the beauty of being with a woman in such a manner. I having brought my good Boy friend around more often, things opened up to us engaging in sexual activities together. Us three intimate and together. It was the best of my two worlds coming together and I was so elated to be part of the threesome with two people I genuinely and deeply cared for. TO look over and see my best friend aiding me in pleasing my other best friend and us being able to lock eyes while we engaged in this and to see her obvious pleasure, it was magic.
Nothing about this became weird for us, we maintained that platonic bond and would mention it with out any fear of it being a funky issue. There was never discomfort between us we always held space for each other. That was the beauty of our friendship.
This was until he started dating the Troglodyte. She was a friend of a friends friend. A college girl who was the awkward frumpy yet funny girl. I took to her immediately and naturally by extension so did he. Me being of a certain age and mindset would never have guessed the two would or even could become an item of any kind. People like him didn't date girls that look like him, and vise versa. I've seen the pretty girls he made swoon, she was not on the list of candidates. Sad thing in retrospect is I boxed her in this same box I feared and resented people placed me in. Pot kettle anyone?!
Well imagine me and other peers of mine surprise when the two started getting touchy touchy and eventually closer. Close enough to maybe even be an item... we were all in shock. No one more than me who denied such allegations until I laid eyes upon it. Naturally I was flabbergasted.
I quickly understood the dynamic of someone with feelings for someone else and the depths of such. None of which I was prepared for as I realized I was now a third wheel in the mix of things. I never had to fear such a thing, others were the third wheel not I. That had all changed. I was watching as I had less and less time with him and I would hear third hand of him traveling and hanging out with other mutual friends we had and I got zero of an invite. Being invited was not a party either as anytime I hung out with them it was them cuddled on a couch kissing and touching while I sat across the way trying not to notice. I then realized how possessive I had become of him and paranoid of our friendship of which now seemed to have been changing drastically. To watch him hold an actual space for this person and be so close... to kiss them and look in their eyes. It infuriated me, I was seething. I was surface of the sun heated and eyes squinted to high heaven. I even tried dating other dudes to distract myself and it did nothing to feel the want to have my friend in the mix.
I had to confront him.
"Whats with her? How does this even work? She came in and took over you and I'm out here left in the cold. I don't appreciate it. You know how much I love you, like you are my dude. I got to share you with her of all people. Leaving me out of things? And when you do invite me I have to watch you all locked up with her on that couch?! I cant do this, this is too much."
He responded in kind, "You know I love you. This just happened and I actually like her and we are just seeing where this is going. Just don't be so mean with her and so distant."
Call it self preservation based on fear and paranoia. I could not be in too present with them it brought out such an ugly in me. I could not deal with the sight of them together and so close, not while I was no where in that mix. No place for me anymore.
This new dynamic wound up pushing me out into the world where I met new friends. Gay friends. I have never had gay friends, I feared having them and acted hostile to a degree. There was only room for on gay and that was me, and no I didn't want to be identified as a gay. I expected my sexuality not be mentioned or discussed with anyone or for any ones entertainment. I, however did not want to openly associate with gay friends who would bring more attention to me and what I thought was my in place façade of assumed heterosexuality. Well here I was with a new set of friends who took me in and began showing me the lifestyle of gay males. I got hipped to the cruising in the seedy and public spots, I got hipped to wardrobe and clubs. People like me were out and about having great sex and great times in safe environments with people who identified with my sexual orientation. This space allowed me some time to get to know other males in ways I never would. This was a "sisterhood" of men... or so I thought.
Guess who came back into the mix once the troglodyte love interest suddenly didn't work? That's right, my bestie, my boy, my boo... And what did I do? I opened up these arms and I let him back into the space I carved out for him by my side and in my heart. Come home boo come on through and welcome back into my fold.
This was until I realized what bringing in a straight an open minded hetero into the mix can be or would be... Like chum in shark filled waters. I had no idea.
