High School: A Forced Recollection

Some years ago a couple of my sisters and their kids were visiting Seattle and we all ended up at a street fair or something on Capital Hill, Seattle's tragically hip and heavily gay neighborhood. One of the community info stands, something to do with the gay community, was giving away balloons so my sisters stopped for the kids. A guy working the stand looked at me and said “Didn't you go to Mason High School?” 

I looked at him and recognized him. His name was Dean and he'd been a year or two behind me. Dean and I had no dealings in high school though we'd both been in a volunteer program that worked at the local nursing home and hospital, mainly filling water jugs for residents and patients. (I'm not sure why I was in that program, probably because someone claimed it'd look good on a college application. Or maybe I was a slightly better person than I recall being.)

Despite Mason High school not having been enormous (around 600 students total) the only thing I knew of Dean was a minor story that my high school friend-with-benefits, Nate, had told me.*

“Uhm,” I replied, not wanting to have to make small talk merely because we'd once been at the same place at the same time.

“Yes he did!” one of my sisters answered for me. I can't recall if she also volunteered my name.

Dean looked into my eyes knowingly and said in a knowing tone "I understand."

I might've said something clever like “Yeah, well, uhm...” or “Thanks for the balloons.”  Then we walked off.

What I wanted to say, in a knowing tone, was “No, you don't understand. It was almost entirely fine. I'm not escaping from my past or recovering from a queer youth spent in quiet and secret torment. I don't live here on the Hill in the “community.” And though I've been fooling around with guys since middle school and have just discovered that there are parks full of guys to fool around with I'm not gay the way you are gay.”

But fortunately I just said “Yeah, well, uhm...” or “Thanks for the balloons” or maybe “Yeah, well, uhm...Thanks for the balloons.”

And fortunately I didn't act like an ass so I only feel very vaguely bad about ignoring Dean's polite and sweet acknowledgement of how being queer in high school in the early 80s could be a generally unpleasant experience.

I'm also glad I didn't act like an ass because now I know my "I'm not gay the way you're gay" thought was based in my still not knowing myself and internalized homophobia.

That brief encounter with Dean happened years ago, but if I ever bump into him again I'm going to say something like "You probably don't remember, but you were really kind to me once and in return I was a bit of an ass. So, sorry, and thanks."

*Nate was a guy who attempted to fool around with a lot of different guys.  He was surprisingly successful, probably due to the other guys being chock full of raging teenage male hormones. During sleep overs or any situation where a drop of pants wouldn't seem too weird Nate's standard ploy was to “accidentally” reveal his impressively large penis to the other guy. 

 When Nate was  recovering in the hospital after having his appendix removed he used his accidental exposure technique on Dean. Nate was in his room and saw Dean across the hall making water rounds. Knowing Dean would be coming into his room Nate hiked up his hospital gown, barely covered his junk with his bed sheet, and pretended to be asleep.  Dean came into Nate's room, filled his water jug, then lifted the sheet for a peek. Oddly enough Nate never used this encounter as the basis to put the moves on Dean. Very  unusual for Nate.