The New York Times recently reported that “at least 5% of American men are gay, while many are in the closet or quietly suffering in heterosexual marriages — particularly in traditionally conservative states.” After the publication of this article, the gay media couldn’t contain their glee. Why? How long I have thought and prayed upon this subject I can not even estimate. At first, I simply dismissed it as “misery loves company.” But, that’s just too dismissive and simplistic. Then, I thought back to an incident that I excavated from my memory while I was researching my book. For some reason, I didn’t include it inside the final edition. What happened goes way back to my initial few years in the gay lifestyle: I was 20 and my first lover and I had recently separated. Actually, it wasn’t so much a separation as he had passed me on to one of his friends. These men were all wealthy, older, and had a penchant for younger guys. And, as often happens, once no longer a teenager, my first daddy lost interest. Well, a few weeks later, I saw my 50-something former boyfriend shopping with a much younger man (at most 18 years old) and I became hotly angry. It was the fist time I really felt used and dumped. I tried to act disinterested, when he spotted me and walked over; his new boy was now looking at some nearby rack of clothes. I was annoyed and made a sarcastic remark like: “It didn’t take very long to find a replacement.” I threw a couple of more rude and tactless remarks his way, when he finally interjected and said: “You knew…” He was right; I knew what he was like and what he wanted. I became rather emboldened and asked him: Why? What he said I will never forget, he stated simply: “I didn’t want to be the only one.” I was still pissed and snapped back: “What?” While I was aware, that as a young boy, an older cousin had molested him, I didn’t know that later he would turn around and do the same thing to younger kids at his rather exclusive private boarding school. For, it made sense in his mind: he had always been that way. He said he recognized these traits in others, and believed that he was just helping them along. He looked at me and said that he saw it in me as well. Now, he was done. Yet, today, I think he took away a certain satisfaction in this feat: he considered himself a caring individual who assisted others on their journey; and I further believe he felt a confident sense of comfort knowing that there was someone else in the world who could relate to his own life experiences. It became a sort of self-fulfilled prophecy: that was not the only one. Only, when it’s all said and done - it’s a sad ending for all: as the lost have merely misguided the lost.
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