More About Coming Out in School and Feeling Like an Outsider

I was not helped in my process by most of the other gay guy sin school. There was a pressure from them to behave in a certain way and to like certain things. I was trying to get into an international dorm, and I had to go to an interview in order to do that. Usually this was done by the dorm counselor and four dorm residents, but I was interviewed by the counselor and eight residents. The person who was supposed to be interviewed before me did not show up, so the people who were set to interview that person were there for my interview. This made me a bit nervous. One of the guys did not like me for some reason that I never knew. He asked me if I liked to boogie, and I answered "some." He said, "That's too bad." I do not know if it was because I was doing better in language classes than he was or if it was because I did not act like the gay men at school. I think that he probably tried to keep me from getting in the dorm, but I got it anyway. There were some other gay guys in the dorm. I was coming to terms with being gay. Instead of helping me they seemed to try to force me out of the closet. I did not yet know about the diversity in the LGBTQ community. (It would be more accurate to speak of communities.) They did not seem to accept me as I was. I did not wear the right clothes, and I did not listen to the right music. This was the time of disco. I only enjoyed disco music if I was dancing to it. I did not really like just listening to most of it. I could not afford to go to the gay bars. There was a dance bar called Wham and a small bar called The Palms. I did not fit in at Wham. I enjoyed dancing to the music the few times I went, but no one would speak to me. I might have been more comfortable eventually at The Palms, but I did not want to go by myself. The only people I found who were willing to help me to discover who I was as a gay man were heterosexuals. The other gay guys probably went to the same thing that I did, but they did know how to deal with someone who was different from them. I am not saying they were wrong in being who they were. I am only saying that I needed to find my own path.

There still seems to be a division among gay men. I like to blend things. I still like to dance to disco and techno and other dance music. I like to blend masculine and feminine. I like some country music, the rowdy music like Hank Williams III. I would like to dress in leather sometimes. There are some things that I like about BDSM. I definitely like punk. I do not want to limit myself to any one of these. I am submissive, but only with men with whom I want to be submissive. I do not put up with that shit from anybody else. I know that there are other guys who feel the same way that I do, and gradually I am meeting more of us.