Maybe Being a Closeted Teen Actually Was Better

I've often thought about how much healthier and happier I would be today if I had not been in the closet as a teenager.  I've made an assumption that, on the balance, I would have been better of then and now if I had come out in my youth.  But I'm reading a book entitled Openly Straight and it got me thinking.  Is that really the case?  The book is about a teenager who, openly gay through his high school sophomore year in Colorado, transfers to a Massachusetts prep school to enjoy a "normal" (ie. straight) life instead of being the different one. 

It is informative, but not dispositive, that my teens years were in the early to mid 1980s.  Like most situations, setting is ever so important.  No real analysis of what might have been can be made without considering the context in which that "might" would have taken place.  However, while the time period is fundamental, I'm not so sure it's completely different today.

I realize of course that the passage of time often tends to brighten and sanitize experiences.  But even accounting for a fair amount of positive revisionism, I can truly say that from my late sophomore through senior years of high school, I enjoyed a wonderful life full of good, close friends and happy experiences.  We were all extremely close, my group of 10 to 15 LDS buddies.  Not a weekend went by that we weren't hanging out at each others' houses watching movies, going to dances, participating in late night adventures and just otherwise having a truly great time.  Thanksgiving mudbowls, toilet papering houses, pulling people over with my flashing red light and then laughing as we sped away.  A number of things that could land one in real trouble in our hypocritical, zero-tolerance, ridiculously unforgiving society of today.

The summer after my junior year, 10 or so of us went camping for a week at the Rubicon Reservoir in Desolation Wilderness.  It was a 10 mile hike in with fires still permitted in the wilderness.  We had a fantastic time.  It was all burping and farting and diving off of rocks.  Sleeping in hammocks and climbing the dam.  Sitting around a fire talking about nothing and everything while.  The youngest of us was 15, the oldest 19.  A priceless sense of independence and freedom that seems sadly unavailable to the structured youth of today.

Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends, a better place to be or a better set of experiences.  I had it so good that I struggle to recall the handful of times that there was a fight or other unpleasantness.  We liked, even loved, each other.  And, with a few exceptions, still speak at least occasionally to this day.  In some instances, very frequently.

I was absolutely not out of the closet.  Not even to myself.  Looking back, I think it should have been obvious to my friends that I was gay.  But those were different times and none of us really thought that it was possible for any member of our group to be gay.  Perhaps it was even more than that.  None of us even thought about the subject at all.  Except me.  I knew I was attracted to other guys, but I dismissed it and all my furtive experiences as a phase that I was sure to outgrow if I just continued to date and act the straight part.

But let's say I had come out.  Perhaps during my junior year.  I am certain that doing so would have cost me all those wonderful experiences.  That's not to say that some, possibly most, of my friends wouldn't have tried to understand.  I don't think they all would have just walked away and abandoned me.  But our relationship would have been completely different.  The easy camaraderie wouldn't have been there.  I would have been different.  The one who didn't belong.  They would have been uncomfortable.  Could I have gone on camping trips with them, what with all that changing and casualness and such?  I can't imagine how that would have worked.  I believe they would have been on guard all the time, careful about what they said or what I said.

I've thought about this a lot lately.  Maybe more than I've considered anything in a few years. 

All that thinking brought me to the here and now.  It's hard to say whether or not I'm "out".  I'm not sure I really even know what "out" is.  In order to be out, do we need to have proclaimed from the rooftops that we are gay?  Is it sufficient that those close to us - family and friends - are aware of it?  Does it mean that we simply don't hide the fact that we are gay, freely discussing it when and if the appropriate setting - whatever that is - presents itself?

Plenty of folks at work know.  Of the eight other members of the office team, I've directly discussed the fact that I'm gay with two of them and made it fairly obvious to two more.  I'm pretty certain that two of them don't have the first clue, while I have no idea about the last 2.  So, let's settle on 50% knowing I bat for the other team, or at least would bat if I ever got up to the plate.  I am confident that if the subject arose, I'd simply tell anyone who asks.  But, no, I'm not particularly forward about it.  The likelihood of me ever having a boyfriend or spouse is to put it very, very generously remote, so I won't be dealing with that "he's with me" issue.

I like it that way.  I work in a very masculine and very traditional industry.  I don't think the folks that don't know would be hostile, but I do think that things would be, well, different.  Even my coworkers who do know I'm gay never appear to be very at ease when the subject of homosexuality comes up on rare occasions.

The truth is I'm comfortable how things are now.  I don't want them to be different.  I don't want the awkward pauses or guarded conversations that come with the "differentness" of being gay.  I don't think that awkwardness makes people homophobic.  I just think they lack a frame of reference and don't really know how to respond.

And, while life is easier for the gay youth of today, I expect they face many of the compromises that I confronted as a teen.  Tolerance, even the more satisfying state of acceptance, doesn't make gay young folks any more relatable to their straight peers.  The fact is, a gay teen guy in the locker room likely chills the conversation and makes those around him uncomfortable.  Like the protagonist in Openly Straight, I can understand why a young person might want to keep his gayness close to the chest even in today's more open environment.  It's hard to be the "other" for anyone one, but especially for teens and early 20s who are still trying to find their place in the world.

I could be more courageous.  I'd love to live in a world where I could be gay, out and open and not have it matter.  But the world is not thus.  So I think for now it's steady as she goes.  And I totally understand why a gay youth, even one who has accepted his sexuality and is not ashamed of it, might want to be somewhat reserved.  Wanting to fit in is different from being ashamed.  I find no fault in anyone, young or old and including myself, who simply wants to be a comfortable part of the society around him.

Or maybe I'm just a wuss.