Hey, I came across this Young Adult book that Adam Phillips recommended to me a year or two ago, called Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg. I was in Barnes and Nobles, and I basically devoured the book in about two hours. I honestly loved the story.

It's the story of a guy, named Rafe, who after being Mr. Openly Gay Guy, decides to get a new fresh start by going off to boarding school and just being regular. Because of his resemblance to a very former popular student, he's embraced by the jock crowd, and he manages his way around friendships with macho jock types, while dealing with his growing feelings for his new friend who doesn't know he's not straight.

I loved it. Because I was just there, in so many ways. I've grown up in very gay tolerant environments, but at the same time, didn't tell everybody I ran across that I was gay because I knew that if I did I would be expected to be Mr. Fabulous Queer Eye for the Straight Girl...that's what you were expected to be if you were openly gay at my school- a fabulous diva or a cool raver club kid. And plain shirt, cargo shorts wearing me just didn't have it in me. It's kind of funny- I didn't grow up with the fear that I'd be gaybashed for being gay; just that people would expect me to turn into Carson Kressley. It annoyed Teenaged Me when girls would say that they wanted a gay guy for a friend because it was a cool thing to have.

And then I related to the other part of the story- Rafe trying to fit in with macho frat-boys-in-training, and finding in the end it just wasn't really a fit. Freshmen year of college, I tried to hang with them. There was one particular group of guys, with a leader named Kurt, who basically treated me like their mascot and I took it because I thought it was cool to hang out with guys who looked like they belonged to the jock crowds I'd seen on T.V. (Again, my high school didn't have sports, and the school that we could play sports for had guys that were insanely intelligent and not like the dumb jock stereotype on T.V.) And fuck, I'll admit that I was totally lusting after Kurt, who sent all kinds of confusing signals to me such as calling me up randomly over summer '06 and telling me that he missed me. (Who dropped me as a friend as soon as I told him over an AOL chat that I was gay in '07, but whatever.)

I moved on to try and hang out with the hipsters my sophomore year, and then during junior year 1/junior year 2, I kind of realized that it wasn't really me, either. I just kind of became a Goddamned Independent (G.D.I) and met my friends that way, regardless of their labels. And it was a relief to be finally just be myself, and not have to put on any masks or ways of selling myself. It set me up for my Grad School Years, where I was just completely and totally myself, and I made some of my best friends that way.

Another thing that the book touched on, that I ran into during my Grad School Years, were people treating being openly Gay like a brave thing. I didn't think of it a brave thing. It just was who I was. One woman who bartended at this bar I went to actually gave me a hug and told me how great and brave it was that I was openly gay. Of course the context was that this was a very conservative area we were in (Western P.A.), and people had stories that floored me like a guy who told me that his roommate bitched online about how his gay roommate should die, etc etc. But it was like, "Why does this matter? Why can't I just be a guy who happens to be gay?" I've always gone with the mindset that if you don't treat it like a big deal, others won't do so, and it's like people found that my being so casual about being gay made me stand out like a sore thumb in that charged environment.

Anyway, if you like YA novels and happen across the book, give it a read. It really made me think about my Younger Self and His Search for Identity, and also begs an interesting question- what happens if you can pass for something you're not? Do the guys who can fit in really have it easier as opposed to the ones who have been flamboyant since birth? A lot of interesting thoughts and tangents you can go here with this book.