The Early Years...
I was born sometime in 1966, in a hospital in Stanford, California (the exact date is something I don't generally divulge; you'll see why in Chapter 2). Most of the time from then until sometime in High School has receded into a blur to me, being relatively unimportant. While my roommates/officemates assure me that I had a plethora of childhood traumas which may or may not explain my strangeness, I don't feel my upbringing was substantially different than most people's.
I was raised Catholic, and my mother was of Irish descent. That means I grew up with a pretty heavy guilt complex, something of which I've never really come to terms with. I was also raised in a Scouting family. I was in Boy Scouts of America for 6 or so years. The fact that I never did earn my Eagle is a mark of some shame for me now, considering that I know that I could have if I had simply applied myself to the task. However, Scouting filled me with a sense of purpose and a strong sense of ethics. I pretty much still live my life by my interpretation of BSA's Oath and Law.
I grew up in a pretty standard Catholic-American family. I had three brothers, all younger, mom, dad, and the family dog (well, several over the years). We were middle-class, white Americans. We lived in Suburban Northern California, first in San Jose, then in upscale Cupertino. We had enough money so I was never lacking, even if I never seemed to get enough of what I thought I wanted. I went to public school through fifth grade, but went to parochial (Catholic) school from sixth through twelfth. My high school was St. Francis High School in Mountain View, CA. (I only mention that to see if there are any other SFHS alumni out there.) My experience in parochial school is probably the most fundamental reason why I am an atheist today.
(While in High School, I hung out with a number of really special people. I now look back in regret that I never really got close with them. We had some great times together: Hot-tubbing in the rain, Carries (?) grasshopper pie, pizza, surprise birthday parties (thanks, guys!), amateur melodramatics, Monty Python, and so much more. Time goes on, and I wonder what has happened with all of my High School friends. Am I even remembered?)
(Hm, maybe I am. I've recently been surprised by being contacted by some of my friends from High School. Thanks for the call, Tom! Great to hear from you, Dorothy!)
Dread Discovery
It was about the time I was twelve that I started realizing that I was in many ways different than other people I knew. Beyond the fact that I was very shy and introverted, and thus didn't really have any close friends, I was starting to realize that I was not sexually attracted to women like other boys my age were. I was attracted to men. Yikes! I liked the look of men's bodies, the sounds of their voices, and their scent. Was I gay???
I spent the next several years in heavy denial. I didn't ask to be this way. I tried everything I could think of to change myself. I even resorted to months and months of prayer, even though I had become something of an atheist by that time. I didn't dare share this with anyone, lest they think I was sick or immoral or something. Most of my life, I had been told, in ways both subtle and gross, that gay people were the lowest form of life imaginable. They were to be looked upon with disgust, occasionally pity, but always from a distance. And now, here I was, finding myself counted among these creatures.
As with many gay young people, I became very depressed. I contemplated suicide on a regular basis, but was always too afraid of the process to actually follow through. I started taking it out on my brothers, becoming a raging, terrible bully to them. I doubt they will ever really forgive me for that. When I came damned close to killing one of them by lifting him over my head and slamming them down on the ground repeatedly, I suddenly realized that I actually could wind up killing them. I made a promise to myself then that I would never again allow my temper to cause me to do harm to another being. Violence had become my refuge, my way of dealing with my problems. I realized that violence was never the answer.
(BTW, I'm finding that, being the first time I've actually typed this into any kind of a document, I'm re-living many of the feelings that I went through at the time. It's kind of odd, like an ache in a place that you can't see.)
Life went on for some time after that. My life became a cycle of lust, masturbation, and shame, occasionally interrupted by other important things: school, jobs, etc. I finished high school in 1984 (amidst all the Orwellian hype that went along with all 1984 graduating classes), and had no idea what to do with my life. Much to my parents' shame and chagrin, I enrolled in a local community college, and took part in a special program for honors students aimed at making transfers to full Universities easier.
The first year was exciting. I met a lot of new people who were intellecutally stimulating. We had fascinating discussions, often getting into topics that stretched my imagination and comprehension to the breaking point and beyond. My favorite classes were honors English and "Future Studies". These were the classes that encouraged us to think in different directions. We were encouraged to look for meanings that were previously undiscovered. We read incredibly fascinating books. We had great parties. We played great pranks. But even after a year of sampling the entire venue of possible majors, I was still uncertain of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
During my second year, I took an internship at nearby NASA/Ames Research Center. I was pretty savvy with computers by this point, and had done well in my programming classes, so I took a position with the Experimental Fluid Dynamics branch writing programs that graphically interpreted data from wind tunnel experiments. It was mostly interesting work, though frustrating at times. I worked on some cool projects, including stereoscopic movies (we had to order special glasses so that it could be viewed in the auditorium) and fly-through computer-generated models.
After being at NASA for a year, and living at home with my parents and siblings, my father accepted an apparently rather nice position with a company in Southern California. So I had to make a choice: stay working at NASA and find a place to live or move with my family and try to find a job and finish school down there. I chose to stay, and shortly thereafter moved into a small studio apartment in San Jose. It was tough making ends meet. I was not paid very well, and, being alone for the first time, I had not developed the habits needed to get by on small amounts of money. As I also had very few friends (well, two), and they lived on the other side of town, I was very lonely for long periods of time. This was the darkest period of time of my life. I wasn't prepared to spend a lot of time alone with my personal demons, and could not yet come to terms with my homosexuality. Life was not good. The fact that my parents forgot my birthday the first year I lived away from them did not help matters any (thus began my very negative view towards my own birthdays).
I lived by myself and worked at NASA for three years, all while continuing to take classes at the community college. It was slow going, especially when I had enough trouble with math that I had to take the majority of my math classes twice. I did take a great number of interesting computer classes. Eventually, though, I realized that without some kind of degree from a University, I was forever fated to work for peanuts.
I applied to the California Polytechnic State University (generally known as Cal Poly) merely because I had a friend who was going to school there and he really enjoyed it. I applied to the Computer Science department, since I had in the time I was at NASA learned I had no small skill with computers, especially programming. It wasn't until I let my supervisor and workmates at NASA know I was accepted to Poly that I found out that Cal Poly is one of the most respected Computer Science schools on the west coast. Dumb luck, I guess.
Fearsome Choice
I started at Cal Poly in the fall of 1988. (I haven't formally graduated yet, there's still a matter of a Senior Project to complete... :) I did well enough in my classes, and I made a lot of friends. Sometime near the end of that first year, I fell into a group of people known as the Punks (named for the newsgroup created just for their use, slo.punks). This is a group of 40+ people, always changing, always growing, that socializes together. We're mostly computer geeks, but, as you can see from the FAQ, we're not that exclusive.
A couple of years went by, and I formed a number of strong and deep friendships. This was somewhat new for me. I had never experienced this level of friendship with anyone else I had called my friend before. Not that these people were extraordinarily virtuous or anything, but there was a lot of genuine caring going on. We did the typical college things, including countless late evening/early morning talks about everything in the cosmos, parties with unusual themes and even more unusual dress and behavior, bizarre community projects, and the like. But underneath it all was a constant feeling of tolerance, support, and devotion. It was pretty weird in a wonderful kind of way.
One aspect of this group of people that I appreciated was that my lack of dating was attributed to typical computer-science shyness/introversion. I had a number of female friends in the group, but it was not unusual for the guys to remain single for long periods of time. So it wasn't until I had been hanging out with this group of people for three or so years before anyone started saying anything about my lack of a visible love-life. (I found out, much later, that a couple of the women in the group had been interested in me and had hinted at such. I was completely oblivious to that, thus enhancing my image of a completely clueless compu-nerd :) The first clue (that I noticed) was that I was given a teddy bear by a group of my friends as something to tide me over until I did find a girlfriend. Hm, was someone trying to tell me something?
The answer was: YES, and that someone was ME. During the last few months of my third year at Poly, I became seriously moody. I'd alternate between fairly happy to downright suicidal. I developed a number of chronic health problems. I'd explode at my housemates for no particular reason. I skipped a lot of classes, got terrible grades, and generally made life miserable for myself and many others. My friends diagnosed my problems as an extreme case of loneliness, which they got partly right.
My need for affection had started to have physical manifestations. I desperately ached for someone to hold me and that I could hold. And this someone was another man. Yeah, a friend can give you hugs and such, but it's not the same thing. So, I was constantly wrestling with myself. I needed affection from someone of my own gender, but I was not willing to go public with my gayness. That struggle caused me to act like I was a classic manic depressive (based on behavior patterns I've observed in myself over the years, I am probably borderline manic depressive, for which I should probably get help, but the period of time I describe above probably kicked it into overdrive). When my friends reached out to me through the gift of a teddy bear, I realized that I really needed to deal my personal demon.
I took the first step. I wrote an e-mail message to one of the people that gave me that bear and came out to her (hi, Gwen!). It was important to me that I do so since I had planned to move in with her and a couple other people. I wrote it late at night, so that she wouldn't be able to read it right away, and then stayed awake all night worrying about it. How's that for irrational behavior? :) The next day, I went to classes as usual and constantly worried about her reaction. I was afraid to check me e-mail for her response, and yet frantic about the fact that she hadn't responded. I finally got my response (the details are murky, but I believe she responded by early afternoon the next day), and the response was very positive. She was glad I felt I could trust her, and that I was going to try and resolve my situation. She also wanted to help me find someone I could be happy with (a little ambitious, but I seriously appreciated the sentiment).
With her response, I felt the support I needed to come out to the rest of my soon-to-be housemates. I got a supportive response from Chris, and from Johnson, a typical "whatever." (Johnson eventually came out to me and then to the world in general a couple of years later, shortly after meeting his current partner, Peter.) So, life got better. I felt that I could eventually be public and be happy (at this point I had never heard of the term "out of the closet"). I felt I had a sufficient support base from which to explore what this meant to me. I started seeking out gay people on the Internet and on local BBS's. I found the soc.motss newsgroup (300+ messages a day, all from gay people!) and Pentode BBS (in SLO). On Pentode, I met a number of local gay people, including one named Scott. Scott was near my age, was computer oriented, and was gay. I spent a couple of months getting to know these people from the anonymous safety of my computer. Eventually, Scott encouraged me to go to a beach party that GALA was throwing.
At this point, I felt it was necessary to come out to my parents. The last couple of visits I had with them were filled with stress and fighting and moodiness on both parts. They deserved to know why. I couldn't deal with calling them, so I wrote them a letter. I mailed it on the day I went to the beach party.
I conned one of my straight friends to come with me (for support) and ventured out to Morro Bay. I found the rainbow flag they said would mark the spot, and a small group of men (I think there were 4 by the time I got there). Needless to say, I did not know any of them, and was feeling vastly uncomfortable. I can only assume that they realized I was recently "out" and were letting me deal with it in my own way. I was getting ready to leave when someone showed up who matched Scott's description. I introduced myself, and indeed it was Scott. We talked, walked along the beach, and I started to feel a lot more comfortable. When we got back to the group, the group had grown to a good 50+! There were people from all walks of life, men, women, single people, couples, families, and more. It was incredible! It really made a difference in my life. I talked and laughed and played (they had brought a number of things to play with including a volleyball net, a croquet set, and all manner of Frisbees and such). When I finally got home, I felt totally energized. I was alright! I felt like I had emerged from a nightmare into a new reality where life could be good.
This was the Sunday before school started Fall quarter. Thanks to the emotional boost I got from the beach party, I felt empowered to make serious changes in my life. So I did something rash. I sent a message to my group of friends, the slo.punks. I used a private message base we had established on one of the school's computers (which, sadly, exists no more; R.I.P., polyslo) and came out to my 40+ friends. I knew I would loose a bunch of them. I knew I would have strained relationships with more of them. At best, I hoped for a supportive response from one or two of them. Again, I sent the message out late at night, and was kept awake all night worrying (notice a trend? :)
Much to my surprise, I got nothing but overwhelming positive support from my friends. Yes, one or two of them were no longer comfortable around me, but I didn't really lose any friends, and instead had laid the foundation for even stronger relationships to grow on.
A few days after the beach party, I agreed to be the Vice-President of GLBU, the Cal Poly club for gay people. On that day, my parents got my letter and we had a phone conversation (it wasn't exactly positive, but it also wasn't exactly negative). My relationship with my parents then went a bit quiet for a while as both of us explored what my newfound freedom brought us. (They eventually processed my gayness and now are completely supportive of me. From what I have heard and read, this is a pretty typical response from parents.) At the same time, my relationships with my friends grew and I made a number of new friends in the gay community around SLO. This community was much larger than I had ever expected, and is full of wonderful people. I feel truly blessed to have come out in SLO.
Happily Ever After?
The years went by, as they always do. I found a partner in my life, Michael, and have helped to start Dover Pacific Computing, a local software venture. I've finished my classes at Poly and may even eventually graduate (I'm on track for the end of Winter quarter, 1997). I spent a year as an officer of GLBU, and recently became an officer of GALA. I'm out and proud, and life is fairly good (it could always be better! :)Time passes...
Recently, the company I work for, Dover Pacific Computing, inc., decided it needed to relocate to San Diego. While the decision is the right one for all significant business reasons, I can't say I'm totally happy about it. I love San Luis Obispo; I love it's smallness, the feeling that no matter where you went in the city or surrounding communities, you were in your own neighborhood. I loved Farmers' Market and the knowledge that you were quite likely to run into everyone you knew in the city on any given Thursday night. But the company is a good one, the pay is outstanding, and the people I work with (for the most part) are good people. So, Michael and I decided to move to San Diego as well.
We've only been here about a month. So far, we've found *some* things to like about it. There's a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour, which is something that both Michael and I remember fondly from our childhoods (or, in Michael's case, his teen-aged years). We've joined a health club with the fiancé of one of the other developers, and we've started working out and, hopefully, loosing weight. Of course, there's the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, and Disneyland is only 1.5 hours away. On the downside, though, is that since we no longer have full-time housemates--a coworker of ours spends about half of the week at the house, but he's away on weekends--we have to be more attentive of our puppy. She stays indoors for the time we're not home, and can't stay inside more than eight or so hours in a row. So, this has limited our ability to travel a bit. We're adjusting, though.
To be continued...