Be You.

Times have changed, but have they really? In the 1980's everybody kept their sexuality private and nobody talked about it, especially if you were gay. If it was discovered, your friends most likely wanted nothing to do with you anymore and it was also a time when you did not talk to your parents about your sexual preference.

It is almost 2021 and if you think about today, we have not moved that far ahead. People still ponder who to tell and talk to if they are gay and hope they will have their support afterwards. Think about that, why do gay people have to seek support from anybody? I walk. I talk and I breathe the same as a straight guy and if you cut me. I bleed red.

I knew in junior high school that I was gay, and it happened one morning when I saw my first boy shirtless and only in his briefs with a beautiful package in the locker room. I had no idea what I was feeling at that moment, but I knew than I wanted to wake up with him. I wish I could have told him back than how I felt about him, but if I had. I would have gotten a beat down from his friends.

I recently started chatting with this guy and after two days it was over, it was over because he was sensitive and he was not comfortable with his sexuality, he was not comfortable with compliments. Why is it that a woman beats you up if you do not give them praise and make them the center of the universe, but if you do that same thing to another guy, they are ready to run back into the closet? Two guys getting close to each other should not make people paranoid.

Even today. I still wonder what others are thinking when they see me having a conversation with another guy alone at a table over drinks. I have never held hands with another guy in public and walk down a public sidewalk or kissed a guy in public because in 2021, things have not changed that much. A man and woman can walk down a street and hold hands and kiss and that is acceptable behavior, they can even have a go in the park under a tree and people would not blink because that is what Adam and Eve did.

If equality has brought us together as people say it has, than why do I still hear I am going to hell? First off. None of us know where were going except to a hole in the ground or a Mason Jar if you are cremated. I look back on those guys I have met because I think I could have had a meaningful relationship with them. The guy I was chatting with, it scared me because of how much we had in common and I really did think he could have been my soul mate, but gay people do not walk around in the 21st century as free as a man and a woman.

I should not have to be concerned about what other people are thinking, if I like you, who cares what they think? And after many years I have reached that point. I do not care what others think if I want to cuddle with another guy and wake up holding him. I do not care if it makes other people see more colors than Puddles the Clowns make up. It is a shame that young people cannot express themselves as freely as they should be able to without persecution from someone else.

It took me a long time to be able to be myself and not give a damn who likes it and who doesn’t and if they think I am going to hell, well at least I will be warm with a lot of guys around me, it took a long time for me to say to myself, be you, just be you. It took a long time for me to look in the mirror and be happy and now when I look in the mirror. I smile and it’s because I’m being me. Be you.