The Gay Guy

I met the Gay Guy on the first day of ninth grade. He rode my bus and had a locker near mine, so we saw a lot of each other even though we shared no classes. We quickly became fast friends. Many people believed we were brother and sister since we both had freckles and red hair, even though mine wasn't particularly red.

The Gay Guy moved away in the November of our sophomore year, but we got back in touch thanks to the Internet later on. We remained in touch and talked online almost every day. Gradually, I noticed that the Gay Guy was changing. It was only natural for people to change over time, but I didn't like the way he was changing. He was obviously anorexic, which in itself was a problem, but he also extended it outwards: When I said I wanted to build a little muscle so I could keep up with the guys at work, he ignored the "muscle" part and said I was going to be fat. He was shallow in other ways, too: He was only interested in extremely good looking guys, and he disparaged anyone who didn't meet his physical standards, especially as far as weight was concerned. He dragged me down if I liked anybody who didn't meet his standards and called them all fat, whether they were or not. When I dated the Writer, the Gay Guy was happy for me because the Writer was so good looking. It didn't seem to matter that he treated me badly. I repeatedly lectured the Gay Guy on shallowness, pointing out that there was far more to a person than his outward appearance. A person's worth isn't inversely weighed in pounds.

It seemed to me that the Gay Guy projected his own insecurities onto me. He criticized many of my own actions, at least as far as relationships went. Over time, I began to not tell him stuff because I didn't want to have to defend myself when I didn't even need to. In retrospect, I suppose it was emotional abuse. I wonder if that had anything to do with his bad relationships.

Of course, there were still enough good times in our conversations for me to overlook the bad points. Our conversations were hilarious; we could talk about anything and laugh at each other. He reacted the same way I did to everyday life, with the notable exception of aforementioned shallowness. I told him the story of the Batshit Insane Drama Queen; he reacted with precisely the same horror I had. We also both later dealt with a (male) drama queen whom we'd met online through some mutual acquaintance or other. The male drama queen talked to me regularly on Facebook, but then I got busy with work and couldn't talk to him for a while. I went and looked at the Gay Guy's page one day and saw that the male drama queen had posted on his wall that I wasn't talking to him because I was mad that Hillary Clinton won Texas (This was during the primaries of the 2008 election). I commented to say "Uh, what?" and that I wasn't mad and had just been busy. The male drama queen replied to say "Oh cool; talk to you later; I have a story for you." Minutes later, though, I noticed that I could no longer view his page. He'd blocked me. I was just about to mention it to the Gay Guy when the Gay Guy messaged me and said the male drama queen was really mad at me but wouldn't say why, only that he was never speaking to me again. I couldn't figure out what the hell his problem was, but if he were going to be nuts, I didn't want to talk to him anyway. The Gay Guy agreed with me, but he kept talking to the male drama queen anyway. If somebody treated a friend of mine like that, I'd probably back off. I shrugged and figured it was only a matter of time before the male drama queen had a similar run-in with the Gay Guy.

I was right, of course. The male drama queen was supposed to attend a party with the Gay Guy and some other mutual friends, but he never showed up. Then the Gay Guy checked his Facebook and saw that the male drama queen had blocked him and all the people at the party for no reason. After a couple of days, he unblocked them all and apologized for not attending the party and said some family emergency had arisen. I scoffed and asked "What kind of family emergency makes you block people on Facebook? He's nuts. Get rid of him." The Gay Guy was forgiving, though, and kept talking to him anyway.

I suppose the above story should have been something of a warning sign. People who tolerate that kind of behavior in others typically don't do it because they're genuinely accepting and forgiving people; they tolerate it because they tolerate it in themselves. Like I said before, the Gay Guy seemed to project his own problems onto me. For example, the Gay Guy moved too fast in relationships while accusing me of doing the same thing. I think too far ahead, but I actually do very little. With the Writer, for instance, I planned several dates ahead but never actually got that far. I like to think and daydream, but nothing actually happened. The Gay Guy, meanwhile, moved in with a guy he'd only known a month. The guy read his mail, mooched off him, and cheated on him. I encouraged the Gay Guy to dump the loser, but it dragged on for months. The other guy proceeded to stalk the Gay Guy a bit after it ended. Having been there and done that, I was sympathetic and didn't voice my "I told you so" sentiments.

Soon after, though, the Gay Guy met somebody new, and it started all over again. Apparently, he'd learned absolutely nothing about moving too fast. The Gay Guy's new guy lived in Washington, DC, so they had met online somehow or other and rarely met in person. They talked online and on the phone, but they only made a few trips back and forth to visit over the next several months. Then the other guy asked the Gay Guy to move in with him, so the Gay Guy at once began planning his move. I tried to caution him, but of course he wouldn't listen. He quit his job without having another one lined up, and he sold all his furniture on the grounds that he wouldn't need it anymore. I face palmed and tentatively suggested that he leave his stuff in storage at his mom's or something, that way he'd have a fallback plan in case it didn't work out. He insisted everything would be fine and proceeded with the move.

As I predicted, the Gay Guy got dumped within a month. Late one evening, I sat at my computer when the Gay Guy instant messaged me and said he'd just gotten dumped. I expressed my consolation and asked what his plan was, if he were going to move out or move back to Texas or what. He said he wasn't going to do either of those things and was going to go throw himself under a train. I panicked and began trying to dissuade him. He wouldn't listen and abruptly signed off. I tried calling him, but he wouldn't pick up his phone. Very worried now, I began emailing every contact on his Facebook friends list. I told people what had happened and gave them his phone number so people would email or call him and talk him out of it.

The next day, the Gay Guy instant messaged me and said he'd been flooded with phone calls, text messages, and emails. I was relieved that he hadn't done anything stupid. He said "Of course I didn't. I'm a drama queen; you know that." Actually, I didn't. I knew he had other issues, but I didn't think he'd say he was going to commit suicide when he wasn't. Then the Gay Guy posted on his Facebook wall, for all to see, that I had embarrassed him in a huge, public way and was on his shit list. I went numb with rage. Not that I really expected a flood of gratitude, but I certainly didn't deserve that. I was only trying to help; he didn't need to push the blame onto me.

That was the last straw. Long tired of his other issues, I wouldn't stand for public humiliation. I deleted him off my Facebook and instant messenger friends list, and I deleted his number from my phone. Some months later, he instant messaged me out of the blue one night and said "Are we friends again?" I didn't reply, and he typed "Oh, right." I never heard from him again. I did look at his Facebook page and saw that he'd gotten back together with the other guy, which I suppose is a good thing until the inevitable sticky end.

I do sometimes miss the friendship I shared with the Gay Guy. We had hilarious conversations and could talk about anything . . . only I couldn't. I couldn't tell him certain things because he'd start disparaging me. In the end, I decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Like I said before, people who tolerate that kind of behavior in others don't do it because they're nice, they do it because they're the same. I wanted to cut out that kind of nonsense from my life and did. It was sad, but I'm ultimately happier for it.