Since coming out and fully embracing my attraction to men, I’ve only been able to wonder what kind of reaction it would illicit from the devout Mormon friends I had as a kid. We’re all adults now. Most of my childhood friends are married with children, so says Facebook. In the year since coming out, I caught up rapidly on adulthood, going on upwards of twenty dates, sleeping with a few men, and now on the verge of a full fledged relationship.
Sex and romance are delicately intertwined with adulthood and maturity, as I have observed over the past year. Experiencing it distances us from our parents and mentors, allowing us to see them as human and not unlike ourselves.
I’d always thought I needed the acceptance and embrace of my childhood friends to feel whole. The hateful, exclusive attitudes toward same sex partnership embedded in my friends’ minds by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to life in day to day conversations and constant homophobic aphorisms. Although they were never directed at me personally, as I didn’t come out until the age of 25, they had a long lasting, tragic impact on my psyche. It made me feel like I could not become a respected and enjoyable man without a female partner.
Through close analysis of my deep anxieties, I’ve managed to repair much of the damage I helplessly let occur. Now, as I have done for many years past, I sit and wonder what it would be like to be in the same room as my childhood friends, with all the cards left out on the table. Would I need their acceptance and embrace anymore?
Probably not as much as I needed it in the past. But in these times of rapidly changing social norms and attitudes toward same sex partnership (we were friends during both the Reagan and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ eras), perhaps I would be surprised by their current response. There’s nothing quite like the catharsis provided by forgiveness, whether or not it is preceded by an apology.
I Can See Better Through The Fog 