Dave Orders a Pizza

Monday, January 15, 2001

When I came home from work tonight I had a million things on my mind. Dinner was the last thing I wanted to waste any time thinking about, so while downloading my email I ordered a pizza online. Click click and my dinner was on its way. Isn't this new millennium cool?

About forty minutes later there was a knock at my door. The cliché never even entered my mind until I saw him standing there - the pizza boy. He had broad shoulders and careless hair, he had muscular arms and strong legs, he had about two days worth of stubble and a smile that illuminated his whole face. He was gorgeous. He was friendly. He liked my dog.

And of course he was straight. Even with my virtually useless gaydar I was sure.

I invited him inside. It was cold outside so he graciously accepted. I started to make small talk, but then I stopped when I thought about how pathetic I was - hoping that he might stay for a while. So I signed the credit card receipt and he left.

And I ate my dinner alone, sulking and pondering this eternal question: just what is it about straight guys that drives me to lust for them while simultaneously feeling jealously inferior of them?

I've got it all pretty well rationalized I think. If I could afford the therapist that I so desperately need I could probably explain it to him pretty well. And I could word it in such a way that the only plausible diagnosis would make someone other than myself responsible. I'm slick that way.

Straight guys were the only guys I knew when I started to discover my sexuality, so naturally they became the objects of my desires. Of course some of them turned out to be gay eventually, but who has a clue in a junior high locker room? Well, I did but that's beside the point.

Then, on the brink of adulthood when I just might have had a chance to get over all of this, I joined the army. And again, the only guys in my daily life were straight guys. No women, no gay guys, just straight guys - kind of like prison I would guess. Okay, some of my army buddies were gay too but that’s another story entirely. Factor in the testosterone driven military mentality and the steamy group showers and the way that even the straightest guys eventually let their guard down with each other when there are no women around to impress and it was pretty much hopeless for me. I was hooked.

So there it is, the root of my problem - all of my formative years spent with straight guys. Just like my Jewish friend who likes to eat raw salmon on a bagel - not because it's good, but rather because he started liking it when he didn't know any better and because raw salmon is now somehow personally nostalgic to him.  Then again I never liked fish much myself.

My coming of age was pretty typical from what I understand now, so I guess this is a common problem for gay men. Somehow, though, having this answer doesn't seem to bring me any closer to a solution. And that's probably because it goes deeper than that.

Even before the self-discovery of adolescence began, I never felt included. I always felt like the outsider with the other boys in the neighborhood and on my little league baseball teams and at summer camps. It could be that the self-discovery started earlier than I realized, and I knew even then that I was different and they knew on some level too.

Then I came out at the tender young age of fifteen, and any hope I had of being invited into the club was gone. The ridicule had started long before I came out, and it only intensified after. I was already having my boyish daydreams about guys at school and then when I was subjected to their constant insults, the inferiority complex began.

I envied them too. Their lives had such simplicity. It was okay for them to be open about their sexuality. They could share it with their friends. The confident ones were free to pursue the girls they were attracted to. The insecure ones were free to emotionally abuse me. And none of what they did was ever questioned.

I guess I'm still looking for acceptance. If I could get one straight guy, one member of that club I could never get into, to cross that blurry line of male sexuality and try it my way with me just once then it might somehow negate all the things they used to say and think about me. It's almost as if one could exonerate all the others from the stupid brutality they inflicted on me. And I could forgive that individual straight guy on behalf of all the rest if he would just try it once so I could show him that's it's not as bad as they all say it is and that I'm not as strange as they all think I am.

Of course I couldn't let it go at just that. That one straight guy who would try it would be the most attractive to me by far, just for opening up. And once would only make me want it more because I know I would like it and I fantasize that he would like it too.

It's a paradox, though. For him to really like it would make him gay, and that defeats the purpose of a straight guy fantasy. And I really wouldn't want it just once; I would want him to stay.

That makes me think that it's not so much a sexual fantasy but rather a self-esteem issue. I think the underlying meaning is that if I could find one straight guy to make such a drastic change in his life to love me just the way I am, penis and all, then I might actually believe that he did love me. I've never felt that with any gay guy that I've been with.

So am I looking for vindication? Am I looking in the wrong place for a healthy relationship? Am I even more confused than when I started writing this? Possibly, probably, and absolutely.

Would I confess all this to the therapist? Not a chance. He could probably find some deeper meaning to this yet, and this is about as far as I want to go.

Anyway, I had a coupon for the pizza. It was a much better bargain than therapy if you ask me.

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