All My Exes: Part 4
Three Beards
PART 4: THREE BEARDS
I’ve been dating men since Ellen came out on the cover of TIME.
But in high school… Yep, I was “straight.”
I had three girlfriends within the span of my high school career and I was thrilled with the idea of reconnecting with them and including their voices in this project.
… How much did these early romantic experiences with women impact or influence my future relationships with men?
My theory was…. not much.
But I was wrong.
Writer and Producer: Evan Roberts
Story Editor: Kate Sullivan
Consulting Producer: David Boyer
Illustration: Andy Gottschalk
Table of Contents:
The Most Popular Girl in 7th Grade
It had been over 20 years since I had talked with Most Popular, and now I was sitting in her mostly cream living room on her cream couch. Her husband had disappeared somewhere upstairs.
Where we grew up, three grammar schools from neighboring towns came together to form the regional junior high school.
Somehow she was collectively chosen to lead us all, edging out the #1 girl from the two other elementary schools on the very first day of school. Put that on your resume!
As an introvert, I was content to observe the sociological shifts from the sidelines.
But suddenly, people from other towns knew my name. Or they were looking at me as I passed them in the hallway.
The Most Popular Girl in 7th Grade liked me.
Inquiring minds wanted to know: Do you like the Most Popular Girl at School?
(Duck quacks added to hide real names)
My older sister and Most Popular’s older brother were both upper echelon sophomores at the high school next door and had orchestrated our pairing behind the scenes.
It felt like an arranged marriage, a match made by our elders in an effort to join two powerful houses.
Now that the spotlight was on me, I felt like I had to perform the role.
We started talking on the phone. Passing notes in the hallway.1
At the first school dance of the year, I asked her out to the movies. We swayed back and forth as Axl Rose whistled.
The next week we went to see “Parenthood” with Steve Martin, and I agonized about when and how I should put my arm around her shoulder during the movie.
I didn’t.
According to this Compatibility Report that I procured from a wizard arcade game at the beach, I needed a lot of cash to keep Most Popular’s interest.
It was going pretty well until she invited me to a pool party.
I told her I couldn’t make it.
Oh, for sure. Actually, I’m not sure.
Back then, I was afraid that the boys she invited - athletic, ripped seventh graders with abs like a surfer - would decide my fleshy nipples and love handles didn’t belong there.2
How I Imagined Most Popular’s Pool Party:
The Pool Party I Wanted To Go To:
After I declined her invitation, our frequent phone calls fizzled out and her spotlight swung elsewhere.
Back on her cream couch, our conversation was warm and engaging.
Absolutely nothing was at stake, so I asked her a question that the 7th grader in me was still curious about:
In the spotlight of Most Popular, I had felt something I’d never felt before.
The boys stopped looking at me sideways. I wasn’t a target for a brief moment.
I had to find another girlfriend.
First Kiss
It was a whole year before I charmed my way into dating my next girlfriend, First Kiss.
She was a bad ass with bloody braces, a playful spirit who was up for improvising. Hanging out with her felt like recess never ended.
It was the first time I realized that the person you dated could bring out your favorite parts of yourself.
On Halloween, her brother hosted a party in the garage with his friends, the smart nerds of our school who later went into science or software.
We decided to be the entertainment, so we prepared a skit.
Twenty eighth graders entombed themselves inside an empty garage, hot-boxing their hormones and overdosing on FritoLay and Mountain Dew.
Outside, I limp from woods edge - disheveled and out of breath.
I bang on the garage door until the music stops.
The garage door rises slowly to reveal slack jaws and blinking bespectacled eyes.
I screamed:
“The Axe Lady is trying to kill me!”
Before she finished, they had turned away and the music came back on.
No one appreciated our pumpkin performance art.
Later, First Kiss and I had the garage to ourselves. I had brought the cassingle of “This One’s for the Children” by the New Kids on the Block.
We slow danced, and when she bent up to kiss me, her braces knocked right into my front teeth.
Kiss fail or not, I was filled with a masculine accomplishment - a rare feeling - and I was proud to have finally made it to the elusive first base.
I was still riding high by Monday when I wrote The Note.
I wrote First Kiss a private note that quickly got stolen and traveled all around school.
After the humiliation of Tartar-gate, she dumped me.
I was blindsided.
Months later, I wrote about the break up in my journal.
June 7th, 1991.
When we broke up, she didn’t even tell me why. I don’t love her anymore, but I want her to be a good friend of mine. She is the first person I know of that has a lot in common with me…
This is the first documentation of my longing for friendship to remain after a break up, ever hopeful that the end of romance didn’t need to knock the teeth out of an authentic connection.
The Last Girlfriend
Everyone was talking about Last Girlfriend the first week of 10th grade, because she was the new girl in town.
I remember the first time I saw her.
She had the most amazing hair, and a bounce to her step so that when she walked down the hallway when the morning sunlight was streaming through the windows behind her, it made her curls look like she was in a slow motion Noxema commercial.
She was a walking-talking-Sassy magazine cover.
I asked Last Girlfriend if she remembered how we met.
She was a blank slate.
She didn’t have any of our student body's cultural memories.
She could not have known that in 7th grade, Frazziano announced I was a faggot to the entire backyard at Tori’s kegger.
I thought I could use her ignorance to my advantage, and woo her into dating me.
But someone on the football team liked her, too.
Despite that pressure, Last Girlfriend and I started dating.
And it was really fun for a few months! Until she figured out I was a fraud.
A heterosexual façade.
One night, my parents were away and Last Girlfriend came over.
Making out in my bedroom, we started to go further than we had ever gone before.
We were half-naked, and then…
My body was rejecting heterosexuality.
We broke up after my little homo seizure, but we stayed friends for the rest of high school.
This was fast becoming my brand. First Kiss and I had even moved past Tartar-gate and were now pals.
All three of these women are officially on my list as exes.
But looking back, what all these relationships have in common is that I was more concerned with looking straight and fitting in.
Having a girlfriend was an attempt at throwing bullies off my scent.
The emotional toll of these break ups were not felt as romantic losses, but as losses of social status.
The real heartache was reserved for my male friends, the unofficial exes.
Selections From the Diary of a Closeted Delusional Teenage Homosexual*
*Ranked on a scale from 1-10 where 10 is the most delusional
May 4, 1993
I’m so jealous of him. I see him in the halls and I think “Wow. Look at him.”3
No one will know how hard it is for me to be friends with him.
Relatable. We’ve all feel this way about someone.
But, no self-interrogation as to why it’s so hard…? Dig deeper, buddy.
May 9, 1993
It’s a constant comparison.
It kinda sucks being his friend, but at the same time… it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
OK, is it the best thing ever or does it kinda suck?
You don’t even know that you’re completely smitten.
May 15, 1993
I love that kid, I really do.
In the most manly way possible, I love him.
Oh, honey.
May 31, 1993
I don’t want him to die.
I wish that I could die and just follow him around like a ghost and just like, guide him.
Like a lil gay ghost who watches him in the shower, just to make sure he doesn’t slip?
This needs to be cross stitched onto a pillow.
And we need a new scale.
June 6, 1993
He’s getting distant. He knows that I want to be best friends and he can’t handle that.
I don’t know if people will ever know how much I love him - especially him.
Coming back down to reality somewhat here…
But he doesn’t need to know, babe.
July 5, 1993
He said that if I was gay, he’d still be friends with me.
Is it a show of true friendship or is he suspicious?
Both are true - but neither option was feasible at the time.
I made no attempt to answer my own question. Instead I upped my dosage of delusion.
July 19, 1993
Is there anything beyond friendship, other than an actual family member? I want that with him and no other friend.
Yes, and it’s called a boyfriend!
I read through all my journals from that time period for this series and it was one of the hardest parts of this process.
I wanted to reach back in time and lobotomize myself.
The shocking thing was:
I started to empathize with many of my straight male friends from that time period who, eventually, had stopped returning my calls.
I needed an intimacy that was beyond what most boys that age would want from a platonic friend, and I fully understand why they would want distance from that. Or at least, as teenagers, not know how to deal with it and so create distance.
Regardless, it shaped me.
I sometimes wondered if the loss of male friendships in high school inspired - in the years to come - my habit of leaving relationships early to avoid being left.
In summary: What did I learn from this exploration into my high school relationships?
1990s-style internalized/societal homophobia can hold you back a few grades emotionally.
Dating girls to fit in while nursing unexpressed affection for boys set me up for a lifetime of intimacy challenges.
Burn your high school journals!
It’s not until I got to college and was surrounded by people who knew nothing about my past, that I started figuring out what being in an intimate relationship was all about.
Hold my hand!
This is where the roller coaster begins.
Tune in for Part 5 where you’ll hear:
Next time on….
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this series and your own stories about exes.
Leave a comment below!
Thank you, Next:
Years later, I made a short film with a pool party scene that is similar to the angst I had about Most Popular’s pool party.
Years later, I made a short film that was loosely inspired by this friend in high school. Password: hickenlooper