Get Out There

A couple of weeks ago I attended this year’s first session of Man to Man, an GBTQ discussion group at the Center. We started off by making a long list of things that we would like to discuss during the course of the year – things like gay PDA, advocacy, body image, but a common theme that almost everyone mentioned was relationships. That is, dating. A lot of people complained that Duke has a hookup culture, which is not new news to any of us, but it begs a question: if so many of us are discontent with the hookup culture, why doesn’t anyone try to change it?

During Sophomore Convocation, Dean Sue urged our class to put ourselves out there and “have the courage to date.” She noted that there is always [and always will be] some risk associated with love. She was right, there are risks associated with love. Love can seem scary and putting yourself out there definitely increases your possibility of getting hurt, but the hope is that all the heartache you may go through will be worth it in the end.  If you want to get to know someone, ask him/her to have coffee or lunch with you.  Sure, there’s a chance that you won’t find ‘the one’ immediately, but there isn’t any harm in going on a few casual dates with someone to get to know him/her better. There isn’t any pressure to ask him/her out again if you decide you aren’t interested, but it’s likely that even if things aren’t going to happen romantically, you will have at least made a new friend. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

Complaining about Duke’s hookup culture without actively trying to change it isn’t constructive. I’m not saying there is anything inherently wrong with hooking up as long as it is mutually consensual, but if you want more, then you owe it to yourself to put yourself out there, cause you never know who might be waiting for you to make the first move. You may get hurt, but “don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.” - Leo Buscaglia

Significance

Dear Guy in my Statistics Class, 


Okay, so this is slightly weird to be writing a public letter to you, but here goes: I like you. I think you're very attractive and, from what I've gathered in class, quite intelligent. Yet, I don't even know you. Frankly, I'm not even sure what your name is. But more importantly, I don't even know if you're attracted to men (which, I suppose is the important thing for me). Honestly, I'd just like to get to know you better; you seem like a really nice person, but given our zero previous interactions, I feel that trying to start up a conversation with you this late in the semester would be very awkward. I don't even know if you know who I am, but if you do, say hi to me, so that socially-awkward me doesn't have to and then further embarrass myself. 


My letter presents the following set of hypotheses.

H0: He is not attracted to men.
Ha: He is attracted to men.

In statistics, we can either accept the null hypothesis or reject it in favor of the alternative hypothesis. The objective is, based on statistically significant evidence, we would be able to arrive at the correct conclusion. However, it is very possible to come to a false positive or a false negative conclusion. In the case above, I risk making a type I error, which is the case where I reject the null (and conclude that he is attracted to men) when the reality is that the null is true (he isn't attracted to men). So let's say I were to act on this. The end result is pretty clear: I would just make a fool of myself. I would hope that this would be the last interaction I have with this guy, and then I would try and get over the trauma of what I did. I can also make a type II error, which is the situation where I fail to reject the null (and say that he is not attracted to men) when the reality is that the null is false (so he is attracted to men). So in this case, I would just go about my daily life and nothing would happen on my end, when there potentially could have been something, but I was too afraid and too cautious to start the conversation. I don't know how people discuss sexuality from a "tabula rasa" standpoint of first meeting a guy, but I am curious, if people want to provide insight for me, please leave a comment. My "gaydar" is and has been dysfunctional for about two years, so I can't use that, and even if I did have good gaydar, I don't know how I would then approach a total stranger in this current context. However, given no current methods to test these hypotheses without building up a lot of courage and engineering a conversation, I resort to extrapolation.

I've been faced with this situation many times before, except for the fact that I've known the people that I'm attracted to, and I've known that they are gay (okay, so it's the exact opposite?). And given this, I've never had the courage to ask somebody out. In terms of subtle flirting and "signs", I'm pretty good at that, but it's never a conscious choice and I never then ask the guy out. I often fear asking guys out because of the underlying context of dating and hypersexualization of gay relationships, but that's another post. I also just lack the self-confidence I need to ask somebody out. I don't know where everybody is getting their confidence from, but I would like some leftovers, if possible. So given these associations I have with dating and asking people out (and lack thereof), I correlate this to the situation above, and risk making a type II error, which seems like a better option to me than making a type I error.

Using prior evidence in order to motivate my future directions on relationships is perhaps not the healthiest option, but using a Bayesian framework, this seems to be the most natural approach. However, this is what I've been doing. I don't seem to understand how people can just make friends/relationships with strangers so quickly; perhaps it's just my introversion, but even in a natural setting for me such as the classroom, I've often met my best friends. I don't want to be shy Cameron who never meets other people, but I feel that is the only option for me to maintain my sanity.

And then there is the matter of what makes a result significant. What outcome would I want for the efforts of my experiment or trial to be worth the cost I put into it? If that is a relationship or just meeting a new person and making a new friend, then perhaps the ends justify the means. But how likely will this be the case?

Love, Arguments, and the Chemistry of Bodies

My ex boyfriend had a special place in his heart for intellectual arguments. He was a Philosophy major and took every opportunity he could to flex his debating muscles. If that wasn’t bad enough he was good at it and knew that one wins philosophical arguments with mathematical logic and empirical biological evidence rather than by quoting Foucault at random. I freely admit that I rarely, if ever, won any such arguments with him. Mostly I just tried to challenge and amuse him for as long as possible before he-- inevitably-- disproved my belief.

About a month into our relationship, we were studying together in the link when I accidentally stumbled into one such debate. I was trying to convince him to help me with Physics 53 while he was trying to ignore me long enough to finish a Biology essay. Then, out of nowhere we were arguing over, of all things, the transcendent nature of love. My position was, in essence, that love is an illogical and non-useful impulse that would not have evolved naturally in any species. The fact that love not only existed, but fills a central spot in human minds and culture, means then that love must descend from on high. I was arguing for what I think can fairly safely be called the popular opinion: love is inexplicable, transcendent, and a gift straight from God Himself. My boyfriend, in turn, took the position of a cynical scientist, arguing that love is a combination of our biological, sexual impulse and learned social behavior that together serve as human beings’ primary evolutionary selection mechanism. I was trying to use love as a proof for God; he was trying to use love as a proof that evolutionary selection still exists in the modern world.

Our debate didn’t last long, but not because he “won.” Instead, I asked if we could stop talking about it. He went quiet, assuming he had accidently hit a soft-spot and having no desire to dig a deeper hole for himself. He probably assumed that he accidently offended my religious sensibilities-- I was in the process of entering the Catholic Church at the time, and he often found himself being too verbally critical of the decision. I let him think that was the issue. Though I hadn’t told him yet-- nor would I for two more months-- I already knew I was in love. To me, that meant a lot, and I didn’t like what I thought sounded like that feeling being trivialized. What’s worse, though, is that I was afraid that if he talked longer he might convince me. That was the most terrifying. I liked being able to think of my relationship with my boyfriend as something special and almost holy, and I didn’t want that sanctity taken away. With this fear in me and knowing it might not be long before the topic came up again, I decided to study up and develop a more advanced answer to Haddaway’s immortal question.

My approach to rooting out the nature of love was somewhat convoluted because it pitted two warring parts of my personality against each other. See, anyone who knows me knows I’m a painfully abrasive cynic. Anyone who knows me a little better knows I also am, paradoxically, a shameless romantic who weeps during romantic comedies and thinks that couples who marry before the age of 25 are heartwarming beacons of joy in a disillusioned age rather than kids making bad financial decisions. I am, in turn, already very well versed in all the tropes of love and can quote appropriate Death Cab lyrics about the immortality of true love just as readily as I can cite examples of love at first sight in both reality and fiction. I expect most readers will agree that love is built on a sort of intellectual compatibility: partners are expected to be able to share and compare insights, humor, and good conversation. Yet still there exists the concept of being “struck” by love, repeated again and again in stories and film. There needs to be some sort of intangible impetus that separates compatibility from something more. Additionally, if intellectual compatibility were all it took, it stands to reason that “sexuality” as a concept would be nonexistant.

The natural assumption, then, as to the source of this spark is simple: sex. Or, to use a tamer word, physicality. The addition of a physical connection to an intellectual connection creates what we call romantic love. This means that the unique quality of love is a deeply rooted physical attraction. Now, you might be thinking that sounds a bit odd from a self professed romantic. I think a big part of that comes with the fact that when we think of sexuality, our first mental image involves grunting, squishing, and an abundance of fluids. What I’m talking about is slightly different. I remember how the first time I ever knew I was in love was when I bumped into a friend coming back from a run. She greeted me with a hug, and my arm wrapped around her narrow back as I noticed that the sweat in her hair smelled like smoke and timber. One might hesitate to call such a moment sexual, but there was a physicality and a fluttering. It’s these small characteristics that make any regular relationship something more: the way my ex’s left eye would always crinkle and squint more than the other when he or grinned; the pacing of a partner’s breathing when they’re asleep; the way a friend’s voice might drop when they’re nervous. It’s these sounds, smells, features inherent within a person that draw out our feelings.

After the initial argument, I remember realizing how much this was starting to align with my ex’s perspective. Still, it wasn’t quite enough to prove one way or the other. I remember thinking how years before, shortly after I came out to one of my closest friends, he asked if I thought sexuality was a choice or not. I thought about it only a moment before answering “I don’t really care either way.” My life, I thought, made me happy and fulfilled without harming or upsetting anyone-- it didn’t seem important whether that was carved into my genome or the result of some subconscious decision years ago. This is the same answer I developed for my argument. Even if the fact that my love for him was rooted in some chemical appreciation of his body, it didn’t make the way I felt for my ex any less miraculous. If anything, there is something sexy in the mystery of it.

Just Because

Disclaimer: I’m writing about “romantic” relationships, not necessarily sexual ones. Also, I’ve overused parentheses… again.

Ryan’s post inspired me… well, I guess “inspire” isn’t really the word I’m looking for, because I’m definitely taking my post a different direction, but his made me think about my past choices and my thoughts began to focus on one of two things about dating/relationships that have the ability to make me bitter. (So, I guess you can call this post "Bitter, part 3" ...which means we need just 20 more installments to beat R. Kelly's record.) What is it about my romantic life that makes it different from the romantic life of my heterosexual counterparts?

This isn’t a post about probability and statistics of me finding a relationship. The world is too nuanced for any of those simple models to apply to my equally nuanced life. But, there is one thing that I’ve noticed and think a lot of LGBTQ individuals have experienced, possibly (probably?) more than heterosexual individuals have.

It’s something I like to call the Just Because relationship.

You know, when you date someone Just Because he/she has the same sexual orientation as you do.

Now, again, I’m not saying heterosexuals don’t do this too. Most of the relationships I saw people in middle school and the early part of high school partake in were Just Because relationships. He asks Her out and She says “yes” because, well, “why not? She’s never dated anyone before.” But, I haven’t really seen my heterosexual friends do that a lot, lately. Maturity and responsibility kicked in (omg, finally), and suddenly, I usually see them building meaningful relationships: She finds out He’s really into the same music as she is. And then He finds out that She’s actually an avid Dr. Who fan and would LOVE to watch B movies with him for the laughs. And then they move from friends to “something more” and it’s endearing, and magical, and romantic.

While I’m not saying this doesn’t happen in LGBTQ relationships, (and this is where Ryan’s post comes in) I see that the process is much different, more cautious and experimental, and at times less “magical” in a romantic way. It sort of has to be that way, unfortunately.

What often comes first isn’t the building of the relationship, it’s the “Is he or she gay or not?” And after that’s found out, sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves, and a little impatient. “FINALLY, I’VE FOUND ANOTHER GAY! FINALLY, I CAN DATE SOMEONE! NO MORE FOREVER ALONE FOR ME!” I’ve done that before, multiple times; like, Her identification as a queer woman is all that matters. Well, it’s not—and it’s discouraging and wearing. How tiresome it is to yet again break up with someone because you realize your similar sexual orientation is actually ALL you have in common, despite your hopes for more. It gets you down, makes you pessimistic, or (dare I say) bitter.

And what of the online dating method many LGBTQ individuals have to utilize to increase our choices and avoid having that whole Ask-someone-who’s-not-queer-out-only-to-get-turned-down-and-feel-awkward-about-it-forever situation. Again, the process is different, something we have to LEARN, not something that just happens. And I think there are so many facets to online dating that (since I could make a completely different post about it) I won’t elaborate on. But, my point is, online dating could be the biggest/most popular way to get into Just Because relationships merely because of how the “search” process is set up.

I’m not proud to say that I’ve been in multiple Just Because relationships, but I have, with men and women alike. And I realized what I was doing, and I stopped for a while… two or three years, to be semi-exact. And I figured it was odd to, at my age, not be in any sort of relationship for that long (insert lolz about me not realizing how CLEARLY “indifferent” I was and how ignorant a thought like that is in general, because there’s nothing wrong with not dating for long, extended, periods of time). But after the coming and going of strong feelings for a female classmate/acquaintance over the summer of 2010, and a few months of getting accustomed to life here at Duke/being out of the closet, guess what I did? Jumped right into a Just Because (I liked his beard/good hair and I wanted to try dating again because I was in college and clearly that made EVERYTHING different) relationship. (Oh, and if you wanted to see, this is me being ashamed of that decision) Like all Just Because relationships, it was brief and dissatisfying.

So, it isn’t simply the “statistics” that Ryan (and I guess, Kory) spoke about. I think it also comes down to the process/method, your level of comfort, and your patience. There are bumps along the way, and our pathway to happiness and successful relationships is more experimental and uncertain than that of our heterosexual counterparts, but that doesn’t mean it should get us down and we should just feel around blindly, scrambling for whatever we can find that fits. There’s (almost) nothing more “bittering” than dating someone you didn’t really have feelings for or connect with in the first place.

Why You So Bitter?

Let's all just face the truth here. We live in a bubble. This is college everyone. 99% of us are in our late teens/early twenties. Let me show you what this means in concrete mathematical terms. *Disclaimer* I’m an English major so bear with me here!

Horny teenagers/young adults in their sexual prime + confined, homogenous (in terms of age) environment = shit show = college = Duke

Okay, so I used loaded abstract terms thrown in with some mathematical notation; big deal I already said I’m in Trinity, give me a break. My liberal arts ignorance aside, you get the point.

There are so many wonderful people here to look at/drool over/wonder if they're straight or not/get upset at when nobody approaches us.

Many people BECOME sexually active in college, and many of us here have only known the "market" that currently exists around us. There are Duke students and more Duke students, and that's about it. Yeah, you can venture over to UNC or some other school, but let's be honest, it's pretty much more of the same.

My point is this: It's so easy to be bitter because a lot of us are just starting out, but it's also understandable because we don't know anything else. (Did any of you find "love" back in high school? I know I didn't!) Duke is a truly awesome place, and I love it here. I love many of the people I've met in my three years here, and have hated others, of course (insert your “favorite” frat-star or that annoying guy/girl from your freshman seminar here), but I have to step back and admit to myself that this isn't reality. Yes, Duke is obviously a real place where we experience real joy, real sadness, real pain, and real hardships. But this is also an incredibly artificial environment. Good luck making up your own schedule when you get your first job; There is no ACES, there is only your boss and his/her expectation that you will have your shit together every day. Didn’t get your assignment done? Sure you can go ahead and turn it in late—right after you clean out your desk, that is. Unless you go straight to grad school (and even then you probably won't live on campus), all of you--all of us--will have to move on to the real world after we leave the Gothic Wonderland.

Out in the wilderness that is the working world, there are no such things as LGBT centers and Fab Friday’s at which to scope out the, uhhh “talent”, or frat parties where you can try to play “guess the gay”, and realize well before you brown out that it isn’t gonna happen tonight. The ratio of your age group to old people will be very different than the 30:1 you have grown accustomed to here. It will no longer be attractive for you to show up to social events wearing a pinnie you made from a t-shirt that always seemed one size too small on you….At some point, sexy will no longer be how often you go to the gym, but how often you go to work, and without having to wear your sunglasses all day to hide the shame of the night before.

The real world is different because the situations are different, but so are the people. Think back to your first day of high school. Who were you then? You were you, of course. But maybe you weren’t quite as open minded then. Maybe your friends were a little less ambitious than the ones you have now. Maybe you weren’t as secure in your sexuality then…maybe you didn’t even know what sexuality was! “People never change” is a term we seem to hear a lot, and I think it rings true to some degree—I was Kory yesterday, am again today, and probably will be tomorrow. But even though I haven’t changed, I know that each day I pick up something new—some new experience, some new observation—that becomes a part of who I am. Slowly, you begin to think differently as all of these experiences start to stack on top of each other. Maybe people don’t change, but what I know is true is that people develop over time. What we think about ourselves in ten years will be different than what we think now, and how we think about other people will surely change as well. There are always wonderful exceptions, but chances are that the person you can’t get enough of right now will make the future you want to throw up.

I would argue that all of us are on some level pretty immature. No, don’t get defensive, I don’t mean childish. I mean that most of us are still pretty inexperienced romantically. Ever think you were in love? Well, ya weren’t. Love isn’t something you think, it’s something you feel. Trust me, I’ve been down that road before. My first romantic encounter was with someone I really really liked, but definitely not the kind of person I could now see myself with for the rest of my life. It’s easy to think that we lost out when we don’t know anything, or anyone, else. I only came to this conclusion after dating more people with vastly different personalities, values, character traits, etc.

I’ll concede the fact that the gay pool is also far smaller than the straight pool, because it just is. It also sucks that statistically we have to place everyone we meet into the straight category by default. Only when told otherwise can we even begin to feel like this is someone we could approach romantically, and even then that’s a whole ‘nother battle in and of itself. But I categorically disagree with the notion that these facts make it harder for us to find that one special person with whom we will end up. I had an AP English Composition teacher in high school give the class some rather colorful, but still excellent, advice about how to write a quality paper. She told us that she didn’t care how long our papers were as long as we made our point, adding, “I don’t want to have to search through a pile of monkey shit to find the gem.” I loved her analogy so much that I’m going to use it here to help me explain my position. Whether you believe in fate or not, your gem is out there, no matter how large or small the pile is. You’ll have to go through the pain of searching through that pile like everyone else, accumulating a lot of shit along the way. If you are a good person, you will find someone out there who completes you. If you don’t, I promise you it’s not because you’re swimming in the wrong pool. The LGBT community is just as diverse as any other no matter what its size.

Your situation will change. Your responsibilities will change. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight it, these changes are going to affect you in a tangible way.

My advice: Don’t panic over what you can’t control. Don’t panic over what isn’t even relevant right now. Don’t be bitter; just be you. After all, it’s the latter that someone is going to fall in love with.

Relationship Oriented, But Not Narrow

After reading the top three essays in the Modern Love college essay contest (Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define; May I Have This Dance?; My Dropout Boyfriend Kept Dropping In), I wanted to add my personal experience to the dialogue about my generation’s conception of love, sex and relationships.

I consider myself relationship oriented. I find them simple. Straightforward. I don’t like starting my shivering walk of shame without saying goodbye. I don’t like getting hickies from over-zealous partners who don’t know about my “No Hicky” policy. I enjoy my rough, one-night-in-Vegas hookups, but I can't always stop myself from developing romantic interest afterward. Hooking up can be edifying, but is also as potentially lethal as entering a relationship.

Why am I like this, especially when avoiding commitment seems to be the official philosophy of my generation? The rules of the game are: Don’t ask anyone on a date. Don’t expect exclusivity. Don’t ask if you’re going to see someone again. But I do ask people on dates (I’m careful not to use the terrifying word date,) I do expect exclusivity (though this is not requisite for all successful relationships) and I do ask people if I’m going to see them again.

I don’t have a laundry list of interesting characters that I’ve done interesting things with. My post-college romantic life has been a sandwich: a couple of hook-ups buttressing a long, committed relationship. This relationship was the meat-substitute of my romantic life. I wouldn’t trade a million encounters in far-off locations or quirky stories for what I had with her. When our relationship ended I felt wounded. All last semester I was only able to hook-up. I rearranged my non-negotiables. I reevaluated my preferences.

In the midst of this, I asked a girl on a date off-campus. I was relieved when she said she didn’t want to pursue anything further. I didn’t see a relationship unfurling between us, nor the potential for a hook-up. My relationship-oriented brain didn’t calm down until it knew the other party had no interest. In my simple world, if you like a date with someone you go on another. And then eventually you are in a relationship. This narrative is hopelessly quaint. Impossible to achieve consistently, if at all. Did this really use to be my life?

I’d like to analyze the Malcom X movie with someone and make-out with them afterward. Someone I can go out to dinner with. Someone I can have amazing sex with. (Preferably someone who is into kinky shit but is also a sexual health nerd.) Someone I can go thrifting with. Someone with a car. Someone I can dance wildly with. If I met someone now who embodied all these qualities I would feel crushed. Like a butterfly in an exhibit. I don’t like the feeling I get after watching Malcolm X with someone who might hold my hand or fix my collar, but nothing more. I am frustrated by long, intimate, sexually tinged conversations with essentially straight friends. I feel alienated when I grind with someone I couldn’t converse with. This incompleteness is new to me.

The few queer girls I knew in high school rotated around me like a merry-go-round. In middle school I went to sites like Mogenic. In high school, I used Myspace and Facebook (Is anyone else disappointed that on Facebook you can’t search for people by sexual orientation?) My most epic moment was an awkward, groping kiss near the entrance of a Plano mall that was the result of a month-long long-distance online relationship. Then I met another girl who played World of Warcraft and sent me a (obviously fake) picture of her hot girlfriend in Iowa. We watched Brokeback Mountain in a theater (where she got asked to leave the women's restroom) on New Years Eve. She drove me to my house and we watched the ball drop with my family. Then she had to go home, ostensibly to feed her grandmother's cats. Another girl, the reason for the phrase "You looked better on Myspace", visited me at Vacation Bible School. Meeting people online still feels shamefully juvenile and desperate. (The origin of stories you don’t tell anyone, unless you write for this blog.) Over winter break a friend suggested I start using OkCupid. It has so far proved worthwhile; though I've already contacted or rejected every single gay female in a 25 mi radius.I think the more gay saturated an area is, the more the gay and straight youth converge in their attitudes on relationships. If I had more women to pick from, I might not feel the need to commit. (I could also be permanently relationship oriented, or value my relationship skills enough not to let then atrophy. )

I first meet someone in person, usually at school. We start talking. We start talking more and seeing each other more. Eventually someone makes a flirty comment. I’m nervous. I like this person a lot but don’t expect them to feel the same way. They do. We starting hooking up and going out, everything blurring together. Eventually someone pops the Facebook relationship status question. We’re official. In my narrative there’s no room for disappearing acts. If someone becomes unresponsive I imagine that they got busy. I wait. I don’t pine for them. No relationship, no problems. Then the cycle begins again. I don’t envision another relationship created by my dated high-school formula. Like the quadratic formula, it doesn’t work for every polynomial.

Mom, We Need To Talk...

Well, it's been about two hours since I've been back in Columbus, GA and I've already cried twice.

That's how I was going to start this blog post. I was then going to proceed to tell you all about why I was crying and how upset I was about being home and not being accepted by mom. I was going to rant about how I would never be the perfect son she wanted me to be but how I would do anything I could to make her happy. All in all, it was going to be one of my sadder posts. But, I never really finished it. I kept thinking of new details to add or take away and I just never got around to posting it. Now, I'm glad I did.

In the post, I was going to talk about how my mom refuses to accept that I'm gay or even talk about it. I was going to cry about not having a good relationship with her. But, after a week of being here, I've picked up on something my mom keeps asking me:

"Baby, are you happy?"- mom asks me.

"Yeah, I am."- I reply puzzled.

"Are you sure? Because you know that all mommy wants for you is to be happy. You know that right?"- she says kinda awkwardly.

"Yes, ma'am."- In my head I'm thinking, what you talking about momma?! (anyone get the reference?)

"Good, because as long as you're happy, that's all I care about. Do you understand?"- she replies with a smile.

"Yes, ma'am."- I say still confused and baffled but maybe getting a sense of what she's hinting at.

Well, I didn't really catch on the first time she said it, but she's repeated it to me several times. Now, I'm not gonna jump for joy over this. She still hasn't said the g-word (gay) or even hinted at my sexuality. So I'm not entirely sure if that's what she's alluding to or just speaking generally. Either way, I feel like it's a step in the right direction for her. It's a long way from the "You're gonna burn in hell" and "Don't go near your little cousins" speeches. In fact, now she urges me to go hang out with them since I only see them once a year. But it did get me to thinking, what if the reason my mom and I don't have a good relationship anymore is because I've been pushing her away from trying to fix it.

I pride myself on being a very open person. I'll tell you just about anything if you ask me. If I feel I can trust a person, I'll open up to them in a matter of minutes (maybe not the best thing to do but that's how I roll). But with my mom, it's so totally different. I clam up talking about anything with her because I feel she won't understand or will rush to judgment. I don't tell her much about my friends (she's always been critical of my friend choices). I don't tell her much about my fraternity ("Why would you join a white fraternity? Do you think you're too good for a black one?"). I definitely don't tell her anything about my sexual life or even the fact that I'm somewhat active in the gay community. The only thing I do tell her about is Rhythm and Blue, my a cappella group. But even that gets some scrutiny from her ("Are you sure that singing group isn't taking up too much of your time?"). So, I basically tiptoe around all subjects in my life creating a very one-sided relationship where I know everything about her life and she knows nothing about mine.

Do I feel bad about it? Yeah, I do. But when everything that is important to me seems distracting to her, I just don't feel comfortable talking about it. Well, at least I used to. But now, things are changing. She's asking more about my college life and not being so judgmental and scrutinizing every little detail. And so I have started to open up to her more except for in one area.

Yeah, being gay, obviously. I want to tell her about the awesome LGBT friends I have. I want to rant to her about this guy I'm practically in love with even though we've only really hung out once. I want to cry to her about the past guys that have broken my heart. I want to tell her that I'm happy, truly happy. I'm enjoying life and having fun. I want to show her that being gay hasn't hindered my life or made it worse like she thought it would. In fact, it's opened up so many doors to so many amazing people and adventures. Most of all, I want to finally come out to my family but I need her support to do that. But I can't talk to her about this yet. I feel like she's still not ready. I don't want to push her to talk about something she's not ready to talk about.

But, I think she's getting there. She's slowly making her way to the point where she's ready to talk about it. So far, she's still at the awkward asking of "So... are there any... boys, I mean, young men you're interested in?". At one point, I tried to use this as my chance to go a little further with her by telling her about a guy but she hurriedly retreated back to her usual "Are you sure there aren't any girls you like? Maybe you just haven't found the right one." So, I just let it drop. She hasn't asked me that in a while. Next time, I'll try again.

For now, I'll bide my time. It seems like she's making progress. Slow, minimal progress but it's progress nonetheless. I'd love any advice on how to deal with this or maybe speed up the process a little (jk, but actually). I want both of us to be ready to have these conversations but what do I do now that I am, but she's not?

Anonymous Posts(2.15.10-3.21.10) (FINALLY)

Every week, we collect anonymous entries sent in using the link on our sidebar and post them all on Monday. We post anything as long as it doesn't contain personal attacks or hate speech. Feel free to submit your thoughts and questions :)

Right. So.

It is clear that as an editor I've pretty much been The Worst in the past 3 weeks. There's no excuse for it, and I'm truly sorry for people who were upset by the lack of posts - specifically anonymous posts. I'm getting my act together, promise.

Since then, though, despite my complete failure, The Girls on the staff have just been crushing it on the blog. Veronica and Risa have been writing simply amazing pieces for the site (if you haven't checked them out, do so right now). Patrick deserves cred, too!

So here are the way way long overdue anonymous entries, yo.

#1

I don't know how I identify. Sometimes I think one thing, then later I'll think something else, and even later I'll be unsure again. And sometimes all of this bothers me. But The Center never fails me. Whenever I'm there I just always feel really empowered. The students there are unlike students I've met anywhere else on campus. In just a few words they are: grounded, passionate and eccentric. I love the "community" feeling that exists. And Janie, Chris and Peg always make me feel welcome. Thank you for facilitating this positive space on campus.

[Ed. Note: Amen. I have never been disappointed by a visit to the Center, either. To think that I was so anti-going freshman year! I don't even want to think about all the hugs I missed out on. Thank YOU for making my time there just as warming :)]

#2

Same shit, different gender. I am the one who expresses my feelings, sacrifices time and sleep, and is generally more invested. I thought being in a same-sex relationship would be easy because there would be certain commonalities in the way we think, but I was so wrong. Is there something in me that is attracted to taciturn people? It just pisses me off to think that I'm "the girl in the relationship" because that supports the stupid gender binary in addition to my clingy, dependent-on-my-significant-other tendencies...but it seems that that is the most accurate description of what's going on here. I guess it is just a personality thing, rather than a sexuality thing. Some people are attracted to blondes, I'm attracted to people who have trouble putting their feelings into words. Does anyone else find themselves taking on the same role in every relationship they're in? This is starting to get frustrating.

[Ed. Note: That is frustrating! Ambiguity in a relationship sucks, and yes, seems to be a Y chromosome thing. Feeling that you are putting in all of the effort with little positive feedback can be crippling. For some reason this short-lived show Ari (King of Obscure Entertainment) told me about once comes to mind, called "Tell Me You Love Me." Basically the premise was pretty much that: just... tell me you love me. Meh. I may be way off, but that's how your post resonates with me.]

#3

There are a ton of cute girls here, huh man?"

This sentence, and others like it, sometimes are my worst nightmare. I used to identify as gay, in fact, I've come out to my family back home, and all of my friends at Duke. The problem is, everywhere I go, I run into new challenges with coming out. You would think that once I was totally out in school, I would never go back into the closet, but for some reason, that hasn't been the case lately.

You see, I'm currently taking a semester off and doing an internship. At first I wasn't intending to go back into the closet, but sexuality really never comes up in my conversations, and I'm kind of tough to spot as gay, so people simply assume I'm straight. When people assume this, it seems so tough for me to correct them, because I don't want it to be awkward or anything. I just want to go with the flow, because I don't really mind, except for the fact that I'm hiding something that is a large part of my identity. It's such a catch-22, because I don't want to make things super awkward, but at the same time, the fact that I like guys is probably going to come up in all of my close friendships. I dunno, I guess I just really value my relationships with straight guys, because I don't identify very much with a lot of the gay community that i've met for some reason, I guess it's just not really my scene. I don't want to hide who I am, but at the same time, I don't want guys to think that I want to hit on them just because I like hanging out with them.

Not too sure where I'm going with this, but anyone have any advice?

[Ed. Note: Good post! Personally, I have many straight male friends that I'm completely out to (and always have been). It's never been a problem, and the honesty prevents really awkward and uncomfortable comments like the one you mentioned above. They've never felt uncomfortable around me (as far as I know) and we talk about everything. I don't think we give straight men enough credit - just as not all gays are not the same, not every heterosexual is a homophobe. At the same time, though! It can be really difficult to bring these things up on the fly or out of nowhere - today, someone asked me if the homework due tomorrow was gay. I didn't say anything (I really shoulda, and I'm pissed that I didn't). I'm still kind of working on that myself. Has anyone figured how to navigate these issues?]

#4

A friend of mine recently asked out a woman she had been interested in for weeks. She finally got up the nerve to ask her out and was overjoyed to get a yes. The date went fairly well, nothing spectacular but far from terrible. A few days later, my friend was approached by a mutual acquaintance of theirs and was simply told that the interest was not mutual. Rather than be cruel and say no at the outset, her hopes were raised and then dashed via a third party. This is the kind of thing we all used to see in middle school. I have heard countless other stories of avoidance and middlemen used to solve dating issues. If someone has the guts to put themselves out there, the least that can be done in return is to explain yourself (a “sry i think we shud just b friends” text is probably not the most well-mannered approach) and treat the other person with respect. So please, let’s collectively suck it up and endure the uncomfortable conversations and put an end to the middle school drama. We all deserve better. /end rant

[Ed. Note: Agreed. The Joe Jonas Breakup should not be the paradigm for communication at Duke. We can do better.]

#5

I'm a very outspoken ally but her comment challenged my pre-existing ideas in an unusual way. She was telling me about her boyfriend and how he was jealous that she was spending so much time with her best friend (another female). I almost made a comment that "well, you're into guys. so what's he so worried about?" except she explained that she's bi and her best friend is an ex before I had a chance to make my remark. I'd like to think that my thought wasn't homophobic or heteronormative (because I didn't assume that she was attracted to men), but I admit that it was assuming of a different sort of normative--one of being attracted to only one sex. Thanks, friend, for showing me that no matter how hard I try to be inclusive, I'm still a product of this society and I have some of my own prejudices to overcome.

[Ed. Note: GREAT point, #5. A goal of mine, too, is to recognize this (huge) room for progress even within The Community. Major changes in how we speak start with Us.]

#6

WHERE ARE ALL OF THE ANONYMOUS POSTS?

[Ed. Note: I know! I can't really stress enough how sorry I am for going M.I.A. Besides infinite guilt, though, the people who've called me out on this remind me that there are people visiting! Which is promising! Keep me honest, Readers.]

#7

Sometimes I intellectualize (rather than thinking about what I feel) my sexuality and I think I should be bi. It's about the person, right? Not their gender. At least it should be.

[Ed. Note: Ideally, yeah :) It's very difficult to break out of societal norms when it comes to attraction, but I know many people who've been much happier once they did.]

#8

When I first met the staff at the center as a freshman I introduced myself as a "straight ally." I'm sorry I couldn't just call myself an ally [without specifying my sexual orientation] or that I didn't feel comfortable just introducing myself by the other typical freshman labels [hometown, intended major, etc]. I realize that proclaiming my straightness like that doesn't really make me much of an ally at all and that it was just lingering homophobia on my part. I'm past that point, now, but I still feel bad about it.

[Ed. Note: Thanks for sharing, #8, I really like this post. You rock.]

#9

BDU, I won't lie. I'm a little disappointed in the lack of posts lately. I still check back every day, though, so keep up the good work. I'd love to see more stories about LGBT life at Duke in particular. How was your adjustment in coming out? How supportive is the straight community? I know that I'll be there soon, but I'm still impatient. All of your articles are great, and this blog is one of the first things I check every morning.

I posted a while back about being accepted ED, and I have suggestion. There is a pretty active Duke 2014 facebook group, and I was hoping that someone could post a link or a thread to the page, especially when the RD admits start joining, which should be very soon.

[Ed. Note: Yo whattup '14. Missed you. Sorry for the slow couple of weeks! You are in good company with your frustration. You're pretty much The Best for checking up on the site all the time. We'll do better by you, promise. About the facebook group, I'll get on that. Feel free to talk us up to other incoming students yourself! Spread the good word!]

Have at it, Readers! And again, thanks for your patience. This Community has always been there for me, and I appreciate the support and encouragement. In other words,