People think I'm gay because I never make a move on women, and I let them, because the truth is harder to say.
It happens every few months. A woman at a party leans in, laughs at something I said, touches my arm. I smile, say something polite, and step back. Later, a friend will ask, "Dude, are you gay?" I shrug and say, "Maybe." It's easier than explaining.
The truth is that I want to flirt back. I want to ask someone to dinner and mean it. I'm 24, I'm told I'm kind, and I've been told I'm fun to be around. But there's a voice in my head that gets loud the moment someone gets close, and it says one thing: if she saw the real you, she'd leave.
The shame doesn't stay in the dating part of my life. It runs through all of it.
Last July, my friends rented a lake house for a long weekend. Six of us, a dock, a cooler of beer. On the first afternoon, everyone jumped in, laughing, towels flying everywhere. I stayed on the porch in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, in ninety-degree heat, and told them I was "catching up on emails." One friend tossed me a pair of trunks and said, "Come on, man." I said I'd swim later. I didn't. I sat there for three days, sweating through my shirt, watching a lake I'd driven four hours to see. On the last night, I overheard someone say, "He's been weird lately," and I laughed along from the other room like I hadn't heard.
I drove home alone the next morning and told everyone I had a deadline.
It's small things like that. I change in the bathroom stall at the gym instead of the locker room. I buy the same three pairs of pants every time, so I never have to try anything on. I've turned down every beach invitation for years. Nobody has ever said anything, because nobody knows. I've built a whole life out of dodging a moment that has never actually happened.
A woman at work has been flirting with me lately. She laughs at my jokes and remembers what I said last week. For months, I treated that like a threat. This week, I tried something different. I said, "I'm bad at this, and I get nervous." She smiled and said, "I'd noticed. I like you anyway."
I don't know what happens next. I'm seeing a therapist who works with exactly this kind of shame, and I'm learning that the voice in my head is an old story, not a fact. Last Saturday, I bought a pair of swim trunks, the first in six years, and I haven't worn them yet. They're sitting on my dresser, and I look at them every morning.
I'm not fixed. But I stayed in the room, and for now that's enough.