15 Layers of Irony

Today is National Coming Out Day, and while I don’t have an interesting coming out story, I still feel like I should add my voice to the big gay chorus. Yep, I’m really that self-involved.

Like most gay men I’ve encountered, I knew I was gay long before I was really conscious of what that meant. I can best describe it as a feeling of being different, which is very vague but hopefully something almost everyone can relate to. The older I got, the more those feelings grew. By the time my friends were starting to be interested in girls, I had pretty firmly asserted myself as not being “one of the guys.” I still talked about boobies for appearances’ sake, but I was very much going through the motions. I love breasts—I’m just not in love with breasts.

I came out to myself at around 13, though it still wasn’t something I really acknowledged. I can distinctly recall looking in the bathroom mirror and chanting, “You’re gay,” like some queer take on Bloody Mary. I guess I was hoping a fey ghost would emerge and teach me how to be a homosexual. Around that time, my friends started picking up on my more effeminate characteristics, though to their credit, they were reasonably cool about it. Well, as cool as teenage boys can be. I heard many variations of, “Holy shit, you’re so fucking gay. I don’t even care that you’re so fucking gay. I just want you to admit it.” Which only made me deny it more.

At 15, I started chatting on AIM with an older guy at school who finally got me to admit my same-sex attraction. At the time, these conversations seemed innocent, but in retrospect, he was totally a creep. No matter—his online lechery helped me accept myself in a way I hadn’t before. I started to tell friends (on a very limited basis) that I was bi, a label I had somehow managed to convince myself was appropriate. I’d never felt anything toward girls, but maybe that would develop later. I wish I’d come out as all-the-way gay from the get-go, if only because saying I was bi first doubled the coming out process. Also, I have plenty of bisexual male friends who have been stigmatized because everyone assumes bi is just a stepping stone to gay. Sorry, dudes.

When I was 16, I began therapy, and at that point I was able to identify as gay right away. In our first session he asked if I would like to date girls or boys, and I said, “boys.” It was easier than the label and a smart way to get the conversation started. And what a relief to tell an adult, particularly a professional. Over the next several weeks, we began to talk about the process of “coming out” and what that meant, but I was too consumed with bowel-shaking dread to give it any real thought. Besides, I was starting to tell friends at school, and that seemed like enough of a step in the right direction.

I actually didn’t come out to friends so much as tell them about my crushes. Much to my surprise (and delight), none of them so much as flinched. I was glad to have surrounded myself with open-minded individuals, a product of a liberal environment and my bitchin’ taste in people. I’m sure it also helped that everyone already assumed I was gay, long before I was willing to give them confirmation. Talking about the boys I liked openly was exciting new terrain, and such a notable difference from playing up faux crushes on girls. Seriously, do you know how hard it is to say, “She’s so hot” and sound convincing? I still can’t do it, even if I legitimately think she’s so hot.

Things got easier when I moved to Berkeley and started college, because, well, it was college and it was Berkeley, and who gave a shit? I still hadn’t told my parents, though, and I refused to even hint at my sexuality on Facebook. This was 2004, and the idea of being so open on the internet was still foreign. At the same time, I was jealous of my friends who displayed “Interested In: Men” without a hint of shame. Because I kept a journal back then, I can tell you exactly when I made the switch—October 3, 2004, shortly after my 18th birthday. I recorded the event in hilariously melodramatic detail, and I share it with you in the hopes that you’ll think it’s cute, and not just embarrassing—

I returned to Facebook. I clicked on the button to edit my profile. I put a mark next to “men” as the gender I’m interested in. All at once it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I’m not happy, but I’m better. I think I understand now. It’s like Roger says to Mimi in Rent: “You’ll never share real love until you love yourself.” How can I expect a relationship if I can’t accept myself?

…

I need confidence in my sexuality, in my looks, in everything. I’m working on it. I’m learning all the time. Something good will come of this. It has to.

And once I’d edited my profile, I set about to telling Mom and Dad. Or telling Mom, in the hopes that she would tell Dad. I ended up coming out in an email, in case you still weren’t sure how much a product of my age I am. Seriously, though, the internet had a tremendous impact on my ability to find myself, as it were, and to share that with the people around me. For all our talk of technology isolating us, or of somehow making us less human, I feel compelled to say it gave me a strength I wasn’t sure I had.

Not that I necessarily recommend coming out in an email. It’s kind of a cop-out move, and if I had it all to do over again—well, I’d probably do it the same way, because I don’t like potentially awkward in-person conversations. I won’t share the email, or my parents’ response, because that feels personal on a level I’m not comfortable with. (There’s a first time for everything!) I will say that both my mom and dad were wonderful, accepting in a way I never dared hope—even though they’d given me no reason to believe otherwise. This is what I wrote in my journal after reading the email they sent—

I couldn’t stop crying. Before feeling the relief and the weight off my shoulders, I had intense feelings of loss. To be trite for a moment, this somehow made me realize that the innocence of my childhood is gone for good.

I love my parents. I probably underestimated them. And not just in terms of this. These past two years our relationship has been so strained, and I can’t help but think that I could’ve changed that. I waited so long to tell them. Now it seems almost irrelevant.

Let me explain what I meant by “irrelevant”—or what I think I meant, because I wrote that seven years ago. It’s not that coming out wasn’t important: on the contrary, it’s one of the most significant things I’ve ever done. It’s that coming out didn’t need to be the big deal I made it out to be. I spent so long imagining the worst (something I still do, all the goddamn time) that I hadn’t considered the positive outcome. And while things turned out fine in the end, I do wish I had made the decision to come out earlier. I’m not sure what I was afraid of, but it kept me from being honest with my parents and with myself for many years. I think high school would have been easier if I’d had them in my corner.

And so I leave you with this: come out. I mean, duh, but it’s one of those things that bears repeating. I know not all parents and friends will be as supportive as mine were—I’m very lucky to have received the response that I did. But the world is already a different place than it was when I was 18: it grows more accepting every day. And though there are signs of regression, politicians who would rather we retreat back into our closets and keep our mouths shut, there are far more people who would encourage us to make our voices heard. Do not let the negativity of people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum inhibit you from full expression.

It’s not just about coming out once. It’s about being out all the time. It’s about never being afraid to talk about your boyfriend or husband, or to walk hand-in-hand with someone of the same sex, or to wear a shirt proudly supporting gay marriage. Now more than ever, as the religious right threatens to send us back into the dark ages, we need to come out every day of our lives. I want all of us to be able to say “it gets better” and mean it. So join me in a far more public chant: I am gay. I am gay. I am gay.

“Stop worrying where you’re going
Move on
If you can know where you’re going
You’re gone
Just keep moving on”
— Dot, Sunday in the Park With George

I’m leaving Berkeley a week from today, and I’m way less anxious about it than I thought I would be. The act of moving itself is stressful, but the idea of being in a new place no longer fills me with dread. I’m ready to go—not just to adjust to life in LA, but to deal with the feelings of loss that come from leaving a place I’ve lived for seven years. Ask me how I feel next Thursday, I guess. Right now I’m strangely calm.

Also, I turned 25 on Tuesday. The day passed without incident. It’s just another arbitrary designation of time passing. It means as much as you let it mean.

And I’m choosing an uncharacteristically zen approach to all of it: the move, the aging, the uncertainty about my future. It’s time to embrace this time in my life as a period of transition, to not think about the path to success as a straight line. I’m giving myself the freedom to meander a bit in the hopes that I’ll eventually end up where I want and need to be. It’s not easy, and it’s not instant: I can’t expect to stumble into my ideal self. The more I relinquish control and allow for failure, the less I worry about actually failing.

This goes against my standard approach. Cynicism has often been a comfort to me. On a practical level, you’re never disappointed when you (vaguely) hope for the best and (concretely) expect the worst. And I have, for a long time, maybe for always, outlined all my aspirations with the caveat that they were unlikely goals. But really, who can tell? It’s too soon to know where I’m going to end up, and as long as I’m moving in some direction, I can’t be too down on myself for not being there yet.

At the same time, I have to allow for the possibility of disappointment. It’s not a matter of assuming it will happen so much as knowing that it’s out there. I think I can temper my expectations with realism without killing my enthusiasm, and that’s the real key. Finding motivation when you’re a neurotic person can be tough—or rather, it’s easy to find reasons not to try. You imagine the negative outcomes, and when you picture everything that can go wrong, it’s hard to make the effort. Sometimes, it’s close to impossible.

I’m writing this here even though it’s very personal. Not in the sense that it embarrasses me, but that these are very much my feelings. I’m not sure anyone else will get anything out of it, which is OK, I guess. You don’t have to read it.

The reason I’m writing is because last night I found my old journal, the one I kept when I moved to Berkeley at 17. I’m glad I have a record of my thoughts then, even though I cringe at a lot of it. (Get it together, teenage me!) But regardless of my lingering anxieties and quirks (oh my God, the quirks), I can see how much I’ve grown. Like, ideally, I’d be totally fine right now, but maybe being less crazy than I was a few years ago is enough.

Because it’s hard to see the bigger picture. I’ve always had trouble living in the moment: I dwell on the past, or I obsess over the future. So I ask, when did I get this way? And when will I be better? But there’s so fucking much in the middle, and who’s to say how long “the middle” lasts?

Let that sink in. Remember your mindfulness training. Focus on every step. You move forward whether it’s conscious or not: you age and you change locations, and over time, you stop feeling like there’s nowhere you belong.

And in five years, maybe, you look back on this blog post. You laugh at what a tool you were at 25, then you smile because it’s been a long time since things felt so dire.

I’m having a rough time—with leaving Berkeley, with adjusting to a new home, with not knowing exactly what I’m doing next. I know these are all normal things to feel anxiety about—as opposed to my fear that spiders might lay eggs in my face—but it’s still not a pleasant sensation. Over the past few (several) years, I’ve learned various techniques to deal with depression and anxiety. Some of them even work! The one thing I can’t stop doing, whether it works or not, is talking about it.

Thanks a lot, cognitive behavioral therapy. I mean, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing: talking it out is a lot healthier than repressing it into an ulcer. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive!) Experience indicates that the only way to get past my problems is to talk about them. But there’s a difference between sharing with a medical professional and airing all one’s dirty laundry on the internet. None of the strangers who read my blog or Twitter feed really need to know that I feel like sleeping all day. But that doesn’t stop me from telling them.

I know this isn’t just a “me” problem. I come from a generation of overshare: we’ve been given so many outlets to talk about ourselves, and we’ve been encouraged to let our feelings out. When I was in high school, I at least had the decency to camouflage it in vague LiveJournal posts with Dashboard Confessional lyrics, but now we all spell it out. Is “TMI” even a thing anymore? I’ve definitely been shut up while telling a boring story, but I can’t remember the last time someone didn’t want to know an embarrassing personal detail. Are you kidding? We live for that shit.

Talking too much about our problems still seems preferable to not talking about them at all. As much as I cringe at the way the “it gets better” campaign was co-opted—most recently by The CW’s absurd H8R—I appreciate the fact that people are talking about and responding to bullying. There was a time when being picked on meant being picked on. You accepted it as a fact of life, and you didn’t tattle. Do people even say “tattle” anymore? Probably not. Either because the concept is outdated, or because there’s some new street slang I’m not aware of. I’ll just wait for one of my hipper friends to enlighten me.

But what do we expect when we talk about our issues? Bullying requires intervention, but what are you going to do about my anxiety? Maybe nothing. Maybe just listening helps. And, speaking for myself, I think it’s more about talking than it is about anyone responding. I don’t expect you to hug me while whispering platitudes in my ear, or to offer me a handful of Klonopin. I just feel better when I write. If I can take a genuine feeling of moroseness and transform it into a mildly entertaining tweet, at least I’ve produced something. And maybe I can smile a bit at how lame I’m being. Besides, wallowing is more fun when you drag someone else into it.

I guess my fear is that you might take my words as, at worst, a cry for help, and at best, fishing for compliments. When I say I spent the whole day feeling like I was walking through the Swamps of Sadness, I’m not asking you to make a therapy appointment on my behalf, or even to tell me I’m too nice a guy to feel that down. (Note: no one has ever said this.) And I will concede that there are people I turn to for pep talks and occasional adoration, but I tend to be more direct about that. When I put it all out there for a wider audience, I don’t have ulterior motives. Sometimes a self-deprecating joke is just a self-deprecating joke.

And what about when I’m being serious? You know, like right now. Why do I talk about my need to talk it out? It’s partly a form of (free) therapy, as I said, but I’d like to think there’s more to it than that. Sometimes I share because I want someone else to relate. If you know I feel shitty and I know you feel shitty, maybe we both feel a little less shitty. Or not—I don’t know your life. But I can’t be the only one comforted by the thrill of shared experience. I like the idea that someone can read what I write, or listen to what I say, and think, “Yeah, I totally get that.” Even if that thought is immediately followed by, “Good thing I’m not enough of a self-involved tool to blab about it on the internet.”

Which is all to say, I think I feel better after writing this, so I’ll stop. But I could go on. Believe me, I could go on.

I was so eager to move out of my parents’ house when I was 17. And not just because I was a teenager and consequently a little shit prone to butting heads with Mom and Dad on a regular basis. It was more about the symbolic act of movin’ out. (Cue the Billy Joel.) I somehow got the notion that moving into my own place meant magically transitioning to adulthood, which—now that I look back on it—doesn’t make any sense. Whatever. You should never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind.

My first semester at Berkeley was rough. It was my first time away from home. I was living in a crappy neighborhood. I guess I grew up in some ways, though that’s as much as a result of just being at college, which teaches you more practical life skills than employable abilities. I graduated in ’08, and I lingered—because where else was I going to go? I couldn’t afford to live elsewhere, and I couldn’t go home. These were both seared in my mind as absolutes. Even though I’d be saving money by returning to my parents’ house, as many of my friends opted to do, it was simply not an option.

What was I afraid would happen if I moved home? Because in my mind, it was as impossible as breathing underwater or sitting through a Sofia Coppola movie without taking a nap break. I think what it comes down to is the perception of failure—whether that means believing that I have failed, or believing that everyone else will think that I have failed. I don’t make this judgment when it comes to others, but I hold myself to different (sometimes unreasonable) standards. If I were to return home, the act of moving out would become retroactively meaningless. This whole time I thought I was moving forward, I was really moving in a circle.

Obviously I have changed my opinion, because I am in the process of (temporarily) moving back home. I don’t think of myself as a failure—though I don’t think of myself as particularly successful either. Realistically, I am on a good career trajectory, but a lot of where I end up will depend on luck, and the right opportunity coming along at the right time. Or maybe winning big in Vegas, if I get bored and decide to take up gambling. So what’s the big deal about living with my parents while I try to take the next step?

If I break it down, there is nothing wrong with moving back home, especially since I refuse to let this become a permanent situation. (My parents are great, but we don’t really need to be subjected to each other all the time.) That doesn’t mean I’m not feeling some anxiety, which perhaps goes without saying. It’s one thing to reduce my decision to the pros and cons, and discover that yes, living with my parents until I find work in LA is the smartest course of action. But I’m still embarrassed when people confront me about it. “Are you going to live with your parents?” they ask. To which I’m forced to reply, somewhat sheepishly, “Yeah—for now, at least.” I don’t actually think anyone is judging me, but projecting my judgments onto them still makes me feel pretty awful.

I can tell people I’m moving home, but it has to be with that asterisk. Otherwise they might think I’m a bum, or that I think I’m a bum, which is maybe just as bad. Perhaps in the future I’ll just link them to this blog post: “Yeah, I am moving back in with my parents, and I do have some reservations. Read about them here!”

Even after reading this—or for me, writing it—I’m not sure my anxiety makes any more sense. I get that, in this economy (magic words!) temporarily living with one’s parents is a viable and often smart decision. I also know I can’t ever get past these feelings of apprehension, because symbolically, the act of moving back home is still problematic. I guess I just have to accept it as a thing I’m doing, and move forward accordingly. If I want to be an adult, I have to act like an adult—and that’s something I can do from anywhere. Of course, living under the same roof with my parents might mean I have to try that much harder.

The title of this post is kind of a lie, since I haven’t exactly overcome all of my social anxieties. It’s a process, and as my sweaty palms and nervous stomach aches can attest, I am still not always comfortable surrounded by people. But I’ve made great strides, and at the risk of being presumptuous, I thought I’d share some of my tips and mental reminders for meeting new people. Advice from Tony Robbins might be more practical, but you’re probably closer to my height. Besides, feeling awkward is an issue I face daily: I’m kind of an expert.

1. You are not the only person with social anxiety. Being an anxious person (clinically or otherwise) can feel very isolating—perhaps more in the past than now, in an age of constant antidepressant commercials and tweets about, you know, social anxiety. But it’s still easy to get so lost in your own head that you assume everyone else is a fully functioning human, and you are the nutty outlier. Lots of people’s brains work differently than the “average” person—we might all be kooky in different ways, but we’re very seldom “normal.” So take comfort in that. The person you’re chatting with is maybe questioning all of his life choices, too.

2. Practice makes perfect, or close enough. If you feel like you’re shitty at small talk and other forms of conversation, you might be kind of right. But don’t be such a defeatist about it. The easiest way to feel more comfortable talking to strangers and new friends is by doing it: like anal sex, it feels weird at first but the more you do it, the more relaxed you/your sphincter will become. (Yes, Mom, that is the most obscene analogy I could think of.) Every time I go out and interact with people face-to-face, I feel like I get better at it. I’m not a pro, but I don’t totally suck.

3. Worrying about being interesting is boring. Let’s get this out of the way first—some people are a little bit dull. You know who you are. But I’d say most of us have something unique or insightful or at least amusing to share. Trying too hard to excite people is bound to backfire—nobody likes a show-off, except at bar trivia night. It’s a lot easier to keep the attention of those around you by acting natural and not pushing too hard. To keep the anal analogies going, that’s how you get conversation hemorrhoids.

4. Get comfortable with personal space. If we hang out, I’ll probably want to hug and maybe kiss you a little, but not everyone feels the same way. It’s often hard to gauge what people are looking for, which leads to awkwardness and hurt feelings. (Have you ever been denied a hug? It’s worse than genocide.) Be intuitive—see how the person interacts with others. Don’t overstep your bounds by getting too handsy, but don’t be weirdly detached either. While you obviously don’t have to hug people if you’re not down with that, standing with your arms crossed is sort of a bummer.

5. Sex is the icing on the cake, and the cake doesn’t really need icing. I think the most stressful part of social interaction is trying to figure out which person you’re going home with, when the answer is very often “no one.” I’m not saying you should hold back on flirting, because maybe you’re really sexy and good at it, but for me, removing that from the equation makes things a whole lot easier. You can build a better rapport when you’re not trying to get into someone’s pants. And then maybe said person will think you’re charming and attentive: he or she would love to be pants-free for you. Just don’t count on it.

6. Remember how fucking awesome you are. Look at you. You are one smooth, stylish motherfucker. It doesn’t matter if you are suave by everyone’s standards—it matters that you feel like you are. This is the most obvious tip to feeling comfortable in social situations, and it’s also the one I have the most trouble with, because I spend a good amount of time fixated on my flaws. Maybe they’re real, maybe they’re not. The point is, feeling good about yourself makes others feel better about you. If you think you’re cool, people will pick up on that. And I think you’re cool, friend—I love when you do you.

And before I go, a few don’ts: don’t think that alcohol makes you more likable, don’t try to be an asshole to impress people, and don’t pass judgment on everyone else because you imagine they’re passing judgment on you. That’s shitty. No one likes a shit.

When you hate moving as much as I hate moving, there’s probably more to it than the hassle. Don’t get me wrong—that’s a big part of the anxiety. I like having stuff; I don’t like taking that stuff and putting it into boxes. I can’t use my stuff when it’s in boxes, and I can’t lift boxes when they’re heavy. There are a lot of obstacles here. Still, I’m self-aware enough to know that there’s a deeper root to my hesitation.

I remember moving to Berkeley seven years ago. The only way I could cope was insisting that it was a temporary situation. Never mind that I intended to stick with the whole college thing—I was determined to never think of the Bay Area as home. Which was naïve, obviously, but I was 17. (For reference, I also thought I’d be going to grad school!) The difference between “moving” and “a very long vacation” is what kept my stress level relatively low. And for that whole first semester away from home—my “real” home—I dreamed of returning to LA.

I’m not trying to be poetic: I literally dreamed about LA all the time. I also dreamed about my teeth falling out, but that’s neither here nor there. It was only at Thanksgiving, when I took my first trip back since moving north, that I realized how deluded I was. Life in your hometown doesn’t just take a time-out when you leave. It seems obvious now, but I assure you it wasn’t at the time. Just as I assure you I spent way too many tearful nights overidentifying with that scene in Garden State in which Zach Braff talks about losing a sense of “home.” Bad movie or not, the sentiment rang true. I suddenly didn’t feel as though I belonged anywhere. I was an idiot to purposely avoid adjusting to Berkeley, and I was an idiot to pin all my hopes on LA staying just as I’d left it. You can’t go home again, stupid.

If you told me I’d still be in Berkeley in 2011, I would have a) called you a liar, and b) been surprised humanity managed to survive that many years of a Bush presidency. But here I am, sitting at the same coffee shop I’ve been coming to since first forcing a caffeine addiction on myself. What I found after a few years of living in Berkeley was that I wasn’t so much looking for a “home” as I was looking for stability. I missed LA because I was used to LA, because I understood my life there (more or less), and because there were routines and patterns I associated with the city. Moving somewhere new means establishing new habits, and holy crap, that is not as easy as it sounds. But eventually I was settled.

Too settled, maybe. Sometimes I think I could live here forever. Not because I’m so smitten with Berkeley—although it’s objectively a nice place to live—but because I’ve once again let my fears of being uprooted get the better of me. As much as I’ve come to appreciate LA when I go down for extended vacations, I’m still comforted by my ability to return back to a rather mundane existence in the Bay Area. But there’s a difference between being secure and being stagnant. I could stay here indefinitely, but I don’t want to. I know there is more for me in LA right now. And while I’m also sure I could make more of my current life in Berkeley, experience shows me that I won’t.

I need to push forward despite the discomfort, and that means taking my stuff and putting it in the goddamn boxes. I’ll think about leaving my apartment for good. I’ll think about saying goodbye to the friends I’ve made here, though admittedly many have already left. And I’ll let that anxiety wash over me, because you have to feel it build before you can feel it subside.

I don’t want to move. There, I said it. I want to be in LA, sure, but I don’t want to have to make the choice, to take the action, to plunge myself into once-familiar waters. I’ll do it because I owe it to myself to not let anxiety hold me back. I’m nearing the quarter-century mark (hey, it’s as good a milestone as any) and growing up means facing fears, right? Besides, the logic of my decision to move will soon trump any feelings of unease. If it happened before, it will happen again.

And with that, I’m going to stop staring at the boxes—and start filling them.