Me & Him

When I was 17, I met this guy. He was a year older than me, a drummer in the school's band. I got good vibes from him, he had a welcoming look in his eyes and a warm smile on his lips. He was funny, tall, and kind of pretty too. I liked singing in the choir for the band when he was playing the drums, he was a virtuoso at that.

After the concert the choir and the band organized for the last school semester that year, I didn't really see the guy around that much. He had his friend groups, he was getting ready for the matriculation exams that were approaching him next autumn. But I was left thinking about him for another year, pondering on one specific thing.

"I'd love to get to know him better."

When I was 18, I met this guy – again. It was the sophomore year dance practice, we had like five weeks until the ball. I had asked one of my friends to dance with me, and I had naturally assumed the role of the guy when dancing. But this one time, my friend couldn't make it to the practice, she was sick. So I had to find another partner to dance with.

"Is your partner also absent? Well then you two can practice for today's class, alright?" the PE teacher said while pointing at– well, this guy. He smiled at me and stepped in front of me. "I think we already know each other, yeah?" I nodded silently. Then, I had to state the obvious obstacle we were facing when it came to the dancing. 

"I'm one of the guys. I only know your steps."

"No problem, bro, I'll lead ya!" he said cheerfully. And that he did. It was a fun PE lesson – for once. He had a witty sense of humor, we joked about the whole situation a lot together. He asked me what my favorite bands were, we talked about music and him being a drummer. After the practice, I felt really happy and like I'd found something I had been missing all this time. 

A few weeks later, I mustered up the courage to ask this guy to have coffee with me some day. He agreed to it and gave me his phone number. We arranged a meeting and went to the local coffee shop. We had a good time, I was nervous as all hell, but he was real chill about it. He chatted with me very freely, told me about a lot of the very traumatic stuff he'd gone through earlier in life. It felt like I could trust him, and it seemed like he felt the same way about me. So we met a couple more times. Again. And again. And again.

We went out for drinks once, sang karaoke together in front of dozens of known local alcoholics and their wives. Based on the applauses, I guess they had a good time listening to us sing too. Another time, he took me out for a road trip. We listened to music together in the car, talked about our lives some more, and I laughed at his jokes. I enjoyed his company a lot. 

mistake part 1.

We spent time with each other like this for two months at least. I met up with him every week at least once, either staying at his place, watching movies together, or driving around the small town we both wanted to get out of – for different reasons. And I remember waking up on one Saturday morning, after staying at his place for the night, and having morning coffee with him while he was reading the local newspaper, and I remember thinking about how comfortable I felt with him, how I could tell him everything, how I could trust him like a brother. He lifted his gaze from the newspaper, looked at me and smiled faintly. And I didn't feel like there should have been anything more than that. That this, what we had right then, was enough, I didn't need anything else. And he looked at me like you would look at an old friend, without that twinkle in his eyes, and I knew.

So tell me, please tell me, why did we force it to be something more than that, when what we had was already enough?

Everything started to crumble when we "switched the terminology" (yes, this was literally what we did when we decided to become an item – who the FUCK says that). Every gesture of romantic affection felt incredibly forced and unnatural, like it was never ever supposed to be there in the first place. Every action of heterosexual attraction felt wrong and disgusting to me, but I couldn't understand why that was because I loved this guy, I really did. So if I loved him, why didn't I want him in that way? And it seemed like he was just as confused as I was. Because there were so many times when we tried to cuddle on the couch, and I just felt this unexplainable uneasiness and pulled away from him, and he said, lost glaze in his eyes, "but this is what couples are supposed to do, right?"

He wasn't too sure about it. And neither was I. But still, we kept going, performing these tasks of what a heterosexual couple is supposed to do and be like, bordering on LARP'ing instead of actually living life. All the way up to getting engaged. It felt like we were following a script that was given to us by a director. And I should know about that, my family is filled with nothing but theater kids. 

And along the way, we lost what we had initially found. The performative and forced heterosexuality on both of our part destroyed the different kind of love we had had for each other all this time. Platonic love. 

mistake part 2.

This guy was my brother from another mother, quite literally. Because I may have always had an actual, real brother, but he has never been close to me, always remaining distant, not wanting to get to know me. But him– this guy – he was a brother for me. But I lost him, too, because of internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality. Because we just could not understand the concept of a girl and a guy feeling strong feelings for each other without it being romantic or sexual. Because we had been taught by various abusive people in our pasts that the only way to go about things is to be straight and be in a heterosexual relationship, and if you feel something for a person of the opposite gender, you want to fuck them and have a family with them. Full-stop. Because every other form of love and attraction we might have felt for each other didn't exist, and any other attraction we might have felt for people of our own gender was deplorable and filthy. So we followed the rules – and destroyed a relationship of brotherhood along with it. 

Because I never wanted to date him. I never wanted to live with him, share my everything with him. I just wanted him in my life, like the brother he was. I wanted to go out for drinks with him, sing karaoke in dirty, slimy suburban bars, play video games with him and his other bros. I wanted to talk about my experiences with my gender identity and gender expression with him, and I wanted to help him become more comfortable with those parts of himself too – by being a supportive brother for him.

But I couldn't see any of that, I couldn't see what my heart truly desired. Because here was this guy, funny, pretty, and amazingly talented, and I felt some type of way about him – which meant that I couldn't be a lesbian, I just couldn't! I didn't have to date girls, who I was so deadly afraid of, because I have this guy right here, he's cool, so I'll just date him! No matter how uncomfortable it makes me to sleep next to him in the same bed, because I feel love for him, I really do, so that will all go away sooner or later anyway! And I would never have to come to terms with the fact that I didn't want physical intimacy with anyone because I was so scared of girls and myself and my own feelings, so if I just smother all of it by taking this guy in my life, it will all be forgotten! Right?

How heartbreaking is it that even after all those years, my Friends still had that much control over me and my feelings toward other girls. That I ended up ruining a beautiful platonic relationship with a guy who I loved very much but not like THAT, but that didn't matter. Because even if it wasn't romantic to begin with, we could at least pretend it was, right?

And we did, that we did. 

It's been three and a half years since this guy broke up with me on the phone – exactly as long as the time we spent together. Since then, I have faced my fears of dating girls and I am no longer afraid. With no LARP'ing in sight. 

And I wish I could still reach out to him, but I know that version of him is long gone, and I have to move on with my life – even if I lost a brother I truly never had. 

With indescribable regret,

ichigonya