Day 172: When Did You Know?

Me (left) and Laura actually sitting above Cabin 1 (1972).

"When did you know you liked girls?"

People love to ask that question, but it never bothers me (I guess because it's the sort of information I like to know, too). I've always had a stock answer - but I'm not sure it's totally correct.

I realized this on Friday night, when Leslie and I had the conversation in which we swapped stories about when we first realized we liked girls. She said she'd always known, from as far back as she could remember. I in turn offered up my same old story, about how I was chastely drawn to "big sister" types as I was growing up (Day 81) but didn't kiss a woman until I was 28 years old. I added (as I always do) that for the first 27 years, I never felt overtly repressed or anything.

Maybe because this was the first time I've talked about the subject (out loud) since I began this experiment, I found myself listening to my words with a more critical ear. Were those really just "big sister" crushes? Was I truly never repressed? And finally ...

Do the kisses with Laura count?

Laura was in Cabin 1 with me at sleep-away camp when we were nine years old. For four weeks we were great friends and just a little bit more.

Every cabin at camp had a huge crawl space underneath, a place for everyone to store the footlockers they'd brought. It was big enough that two nine year olds could sit facing each other on an empty locker. We began with "hand-to-hand" kissing, which meant that I'd put the back of my hand over my mouth, she'd put the back of her hand over her mouth, and we'd press our palms together and pretend we were kissing.

And then, over the weeks, we started kissing for real.

I don't remember much else about our time beneath the cabin, and I can't honestly say I remember what I felt. I certainly don't remember thinking, "Oh wow - I like girls!" ... but then again, I wasn't kissing a boy under the cabin, was I?

For years, I chalked my experience with Laura up to "one of those things" kids do - the equivalent of a young boy who explores his sexuality at boarding school. But as I was telling Leslie my story the other night, I kept flashing on Laura. I flashed on some of those supposedly chaste crushes, and tried to remember how I'd felt deep-down during college and my early '20s. Clearly, being gay didn't just come out of nowhere at the age of 28 ... so when did I know?

I'm still not entirely sure of the answer, but I'm moving closer to understanding that I probably desired women all along. I wanted boys to like me, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted a normal life and a normal future ...

But I wanted to impress, dazzle and bond with girls.

I noticed which boys were cute ...

But I noticed which girls were cool. And smart. And pretty.

I'm going to keep thinking about this one, and in the meantime, I hope no one asks me "when I knew" any time soon. For the first time in a long time, I'm just not sure what I'd say.