Even at nine years old I could tell something was wrong (note the word "wrong"). My reactions to situations and my emotional responses were different from other boys, and the older I became the more obvious the difference was. While I was certainly no angel, and could be just as aggressive as the rest of the boys, I was able to see things with a more compassionate eye than most of my peers. I could almost sense a heartbreaking “backstory” in certain situations, and probably injected too much sensitivity at inappropriate times by typical "boy-type" standards. And as misguided as it might have been, I also had an empathy for the weak and defenseless, and I would often become the friend of the friendless (even if those kids were friendless for a good reason). I suppose I felt like I should be their friend because I was starting to see myself as an outsider... even if that wasn't really the case. My perception of myself was that there was something wrong with me.
I assessed myself as a non-aggressive, sensitive, artistic boy who didn't really like sports, but liked to play with girls instead. Hmmm... What did the kids call a boy like that? A momma’s boy, a pansy, pussy, sissy, wuss, etc? (Mild explicatives? Yes, but we were only nine or ten... and lived in the suburbs. The bad stuff comes a little later.)
I think I was saved from an abundance of teasing at the time because I was tolerated by the other kids, physically active, and had an outgoing personality. But still, knew I was different from the rest so I saw myself as an outsider, which in the years to come, would make me feel like I had to withdraw emotionally from others, especially other males.
Then there was the sports thing separating me from the herd... I wasn’t as competitive, or as aggressive as the rest of the boys when it came to sports, and I really didn’t like watching games on TV either. I didn’t actually hate sports, but I didn’t have the same interest they had. And when I was a boy, if you didn’t like sports you were regarded with suspicion and were in for some sort of ridicule. (I imagine their reaction was a leftover Darwinian mechanism cavemen used to weed out the wimpy Neanderthal who couldn’t hunt of fish as well as the rest.) So without an interest in sports to act as a bonding agent, I had to seek out other avenues to connect with them.
Around nine or ten was also a time when sexual stirrings began for me. All the boys were starting to see themselves in a sexual way, and they were starting to talk about girls (even if they hadn't a clue what it all meant yet). While their comments were crude and immature, talking about feelings they shared served to bring the other boys even closer together. It seemed like this was initiation time into the Jr. Man Club and I didn't want to miss it. But while some of the boys were beginning to become aroused, or at least stimulated, about the idea of touching or being touched by girls, I was more interested in the possibility of being touched by other boys. Of course my sexual thoughts and ideas were still very nebulous at this point, but the attraction to having contact with other boys was growing.
This time in my life was significant because it was at this point, I started to lie about my true feelings. There was an outlet for the other boys to start talking about their feelings, but I couldn't talk to them about how I really felt. So I put on my heterosexual disguise and followed their lead through a world I'd never fully relate to.
No comments:
Post a Comment