Contrary to popular belief, I had an emotional affair with a fellow Johnnie during the second half of my freshman year. It was all hush-hush, I no longer recall why I kept it so, after all, when Christopher visited me two or three days before winter break 2003, my homosexuality was instantiated. I was no longer in the closet, not that I felt as if I had ever been.
My parents knew my reality from the beginning; I might have been precocious, but I was precocious and gay. If it would take them 22 years to ‘discover’ it, it was an invented discovery. Parents always know; whether they choose to turn a blind eye to it, that is a whole different story.
Perhaps rumors circulated about me. My freshman roommate declared that I had “silent sex” – with my hand? Some called me “eccentric” while some said “He runs to and fro, always wearing those white headphones of his. I wonder what he’s listening to. I hear he has a ‘web site’ … so-and-so hit upon it but then an hour later when he attempted to access it again, it was offline. He’s rather private; he reeks of mystique.”
I did introduce him to Sarah. I was heading over to his place, when Sarah sauntered out from behind a bush. And so I took her with me. His room was littered with music manuals … a taste of the nightmare that would later terrorize my nights.
And how many times has he not dropped out of school; I am a flake in this sense … he exceeds me. Now he lives in San Francisco and he seems happy.
But I mention him because he once said to me, “I can see why the others [i.e., the other students] are here, but you, I can’t put my finger on it.” I felt like a fraud amongst believers; I was Christ amongst his followers.
I am a believer that everything is relative. I met what’s-his-face when I had turned 18. It was mere coincidence – it was not intentioned nor fated. That’s nonsense for those that do not wish to understand. After all, there is comfort in believing in such things. If you desire truth, then you will suffer.
Yet I seem to have fallen into such horrible thinking; have I made myself think that I belong at St. John’s and that nowhere else will I succeed?
It cannot be. The real reason why I refuse to go to a normal school is because I realize that in such places I shalll stand out. I become that fastidious stereotype that raises his hand and has an answer for everything. The teacher at one point despairs, and after turning in every direction only to realize that his hand is the only one up, has to admit defeat. Sometimes the teacher will say, “Anyone else besides so-and-so?”
And how horrifying it is to see an A on a paper. I trembled. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. At St. John’s I will never make an A, nor will I ever be commended for my linguistic abilities. No, at the College I will be punished for my deficiencies and not lauded on my abilities. So what if I can’t fucking sing! I don’t give a fuck! Yes I can design web sites, read French, Italian, Catalan and Portuguese. But it does not matter, I can’t sing and that’s all that matters.
Life is absurd. How many times have I said it?
I have begun preparing Plan B.