I was questioning my sexuality and it had started to mess with my mind. I was twenty years old and although I felt attracted to women ( and sometimes men) I had never had a sexual partner before. All I did was check people out and fantasize. What could I do? Those confusing feelings of mine were driving me crazy. The funny thing is that to top it all, I was falling in love with my girlfriend Nicole! I wondered what she would say if she knew that I felt attracted to both men and women. What would she say? I read a lot of stories about Down Low brothers. Black men who had relationships with women yet slept with other men on the side. Was that what I was destined to become? Men who were on the down low never admitted to being gay or bisexual. It was eerie. Some of these men were married and had children. I understood why they hid. I was a Black man and I knew that the Black community would never show any tolerance toward Black males who were gay or bisexual. Homophobia ran rampant in the Black community. Growing up, I heard a lot of people say some really nasty things about homosexuals. I always felt uncomfortable around people who said such things. Now I knew why. I knew what my mind had been hiding from itself all these years. I was bisexual.
I was still a virgin but I was on a voyage of discovery. I read books about gay and bisexual men. I read a really good fiction novel about a Hispanic high school basketball player. The guy was a popular jock, and he had a pretty girlfriend, but he was also secretly bisexual. He was confused, just like I was. He met a closeted boy from his school’s swim team and they became friends. He even became pals with an effeminate gay boy at school. The three of them became pals. The swimmer and the ball player even fell in love in the end. I read it over and over. This book is called Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez. I loved it. The characters were believable. I also read a non-fiction novel about a bisexual Black man who came out of the closet and told the world about the duplicitous lifestyle he used to lead back when he was on the down low. These books made me feel like I wasn’t alone.
I spent a lot of time with Nicole, even while all this was going on in my head. The more time I spent with this girl, the more I loved her. She was amazing, you know? I recall one time when I went to Plymouth to visit an old friend. Things didn’t go so well. I even missed the train and found myself stranded down in Plymouth. Nicole drove all the way from Boston and picked me up. Isn’t she wonderful? I loved this young woman! She was loyal, devoted and absolutely wonderful. Any man on the planet would be lucky to have her in his life. You can imagine how guilty I felt about those hidden sexual feelings that I had for men. I seemed to be stuck and had no way out. I felt trapped.
Sometimes at night, I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a solution to my problem. Surely there must be others like me out there. Guys who went through the same situation and found a way to work things out. I did a lot of research into it online. I read stories about bisexual men who were married, divorced or even widowed. A lot of these guys were Black males, just like me. I went into a very popular website, frequented by college students nationwide. I went into a chat room and that’s where I met an individual who called himself BiMan1984. We started talking. This guy sounded cool. We talked about anything and everything. Like me, he lived in the Boston area. He was also a college student. Man, it was a relief to talk to him. As time went by, we got more and more comfortable with each other. I could tell him things that I couldn’t tell anybody else. I could actually be myself when talking to him. For months, we chatted online. He sent me many messages and I always replied. Finally, there was someone I could talk to. Like me, he knew how the community treated any man who was anything other than straight. He knew my fears. I talked to him about some of my most forbidden fantasies. All the things that I longed to do with another guy. He understood. Finally, one day, he asked me if we could meet. I agreed to meet him in Boston. All was cool.
I couldn’t believe that I was actually going to meet a guy in Boston. Sure, it was a guy I had been speaking to for some time now but it was a stranger nonetheless! All of a sudden, I got worried. I wasn’t so sure about this anymore. Still, I was curious. Curiosity won over safety and I showed up at the Copley Mall to meet with the mystery man who called himself BiMan1984. I didn’t know it but I was about to get the surprise of a lifetime.
I went into the Mall, and waited. BiMan1984 described himself as a good-looking, athletic Hispanic male in his early twenties. He said he’d be wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. I waited and waited. Finally, I saw a Latin dude in red and blue, but…wait a minute…I knew this guy! It was Matt! The guy walked up to me and we shook hands. I could tell that he was quite surprised to se that it was me. Man, talk about a small world! Matt, the wrestler from Boston University was BiMan1984, the guy I had been talking to online these past few months. We sat down at a table to talk.
Matthew sat down and we got to talking. Man, I was still surprised to find out he was the guy I’d been chatting with. Matthew seemed so fine and masculine, I couldn’t believe that he swung both ways! Of course, I knew that most bisexual and gay men weren’t anything like the effeminate stereotypes. Most of them were usually indistinguishable from straight men in outward appearance, mannerisms and behavior. We talked for some time. He told me about his life. He’d realized that he was bisexual at the age of eighteen. He had a relationship with Morris Stanley, a guy from his school’s Hockey team. He also had a thing going on with Stacy Brown, a fine-looking sister who lived in Somerville. He showed me pictures of his lovers. Both of them were very attractive people. Matthew was cool. He was also a lot more experienced than I was. In his lifetime, he’d been romantically involved with five girls and three guys. I told him that I was still a virgin, even though I seemed like a player and had a steady girlfriend.
Matt wasn’t surprised that I was a virgin. If anything can be said about the gay and bisexual community, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. We talked for hours, about everything from sports to life as closeted bisexual males to minority issues and so on. We had a lot in common. We ate dinner inside the Mall and then went to a movie theater. We watched a cool movie together, Brokeback Mountain. Everyone was talking about it. A movie about two Cowboys who fell in love. Both of them were regular-looking guys who just happened to like other guys. Both of these dudes were bisexual. One of them ended up marrying a feisty Texan Cowgirl. The movie was realistic. I really enjoyed it. So did he. When the afternoon ended, we traded cell phone numbers and email addresses. We promised to stay in touch. I was ecstatic. It looked like I had finally found myself a friend…and he was just like me!
That night, when I went home, I felt happy. I was not alone. I lay on my bed, thinking about my life. I can’t explain to you or make you understand how lonely I have been. Most people simply wouldn’t get it. I was a tall, good-looking Black male in college. I was healthy and strong. I was also very smart. Yet I was desperately lonely, and felt that no one would understand me. I felt like I was all alone in the universe. Well, I wasn’t. There were others like me out there. There had to be. Even in the Haitian community. There had to be young Haitian men and women who had the same type of feelings I had. Those young people probably hid their feelings from their families and friends, for fear of alienation and rejection. Here’s to hoping that someday, we will all be free to express our true selves in the world.
I lay there on my bed, and my thoughts drifted. My mind wondered, and I almost didn’t hear the knock on my door. I went and opened it, and there she was. My lovely girlfriend, Nicole Saint Joseph. She was standing there, wearing her letterman jacket over a gray shirt and jeans. I smiled and welcomed her inside. She looked at me and said we had to talk. I was suddenly very nervous and led her into my dorm room. Things hadn’t been the same between us for a long time. I still cared for her, you know. I was always there for her. I went to all of her matches. I was loyal and affectionate and completely devoted. I wanted her to be happy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t happy. I thought I could hide it from her. I was wrong.
Nicole sat down on my bed and we talked. I was nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She was asking me so many questions. She thought I was depressed or something. I hadn’t noticed how stressful my existence had gotten since my repressed feelings resurfaced. I was so stressed out about it that I had lost weight. Without noticing, I had lost ten pounds! Well, I hadn’t noticed but Nicole had. She kept pressing me with questions and I struggled to give her answers. We had been going out for a few months. We kissed and all that but rarely went further. Originally, I had felt a strong attraction to her but she told me that she wanted to know me better before jumping into the sack with me. Like most men would be, I was frustrated because of that, but that was before my repressed feelings resurfaced. I had been so busy feeling confused about my sexuality and searching for answers that I had ignored my girl’s feelings for me. I felt so bad because of that.
What should I tell her? I took her hands in mine and told her that I was sorry because I hadn’t been myself lately. I had a lot to deal with. Seriously. I didn’t tell her what but I told her how stressed I was. She told me she only wanted to help. We talked for hours about these things, and things we used to enjoy doing together, like going to the movies or watching sports together, way back in the beginning of the relationship. Nicole smiled. She remembered those times. I told her that from now on, things were going to be different. She smiled and gave me a hug.
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