for years, i fended off my mom’s constant harassment and concern as to why i was single. for a long time, it was i’m concentrating on my studies or i don’t like any of the girls at caltech or, even better, i’m just a late-bloomer.
by the time i was 20, though, my mom’s concern progressed into despair. when i was home over christmas break in 1997, she leveled with me. eric, i’m worried that you don’t know how to love.
huh?
i’m worried that, because of the broken marriages and everything that maybe i’ve screwed you up and you’re gonna be single for the rest of your life.
eek. wow. not very easy to brush this off. my mom’s concern was genuine, and wholeheartedly motherly. my mom and dad divorced when i was 5. the alcoholic stepfather finally left us alone when i was 13. the live-in long-term boyfriend that followed, he up and left one day when i was 20. from my mom’s point-of-view, i’d been sorely single since my one and only [well, one substantial] girlfriend, jennifer, when i was 15—and it was all my mother’s fault.
so, i sat there, in my mom’s house during christmas, as she looked down upon me, sadly, probably with a bit of pity, wondering why her [finally growing into his looks, surely some girls must be chasing after him] son was so sorely single, why he hadn’t mentioned any girlfriends in over 5 years.
i sat there, making excuses, even though by that point i’d enjoyed 3 substantial relationships. the first one, my high-school crush and first love who i still pine about often, wondering what could have been, had we not been separated by age and distance.
the second one, the hot older norwegian jock who still claims to be straight even though i spent six months worshiping the ground he walked on, and him worshiping… well… let’s not go there.
the third one, the geeky bi-sexual soccer jock who cheated on me with two girls [at once] and thought nothing wrong about it.
each of these relationships were substantial enough for me to call them relationships, and substantial enough for them to contain some of the ingredients of love. if anything, for a 20yo gay boy, i was quite lucky to have had such luck, to have come to terms with my sexuality and to have had my heart broken 3 times. but, my mom knew none of this.
she repeated, again, eric, i’m worried you don’t know how to love and i dismissed it, trying to assure her that everything was okay. but, without actually telling her about my love life, about my romances, about the huge portion of my life i’d been keeping secret, there was no way to stop her worrying about me, to stop her from hurting more than i could imagine.
i came out to her a few days after i returned to caltech, wimping out by coming out to her over the phone. after a few days of shock, crying, emotions, religion, confusion, anger, questions and eventually love, i began to fill her in on the sordid details. at first, she thought i was trying to shock her by telling her so many details about boys and dating and romance and trysts and breakups and describing my hunky boyfriends in such graphic detail.
but, you see, i wanted to assure her that i knew how to love. and, although it took her time, she stop being so worried about her eldest being single and miserable and lonely. of course, she still wanted grandkids.
—
here i am, some 8 years later, though, and i’m wondering myself if i still know how to love. ok, ok, i’m being a bit dramatic and alarmist. but, when i look back at that eric—the hopeless romantic who threw himself and his heart into relationships on a whim—i laugh. i laugh, perhaps too bitterly, at his naïveté. i laugh, because i’m envious of the excitement and the silliness and the obsessiveness of it all.
god, if i only had a blog back then! no diaryland or myspace profile would be able to contain my gushing. the hopefulness, the making plans for the rest of our lives, the excitement, the hormones. writing poems about his smile, surprising him with gifts, forsaking friends, sleep, class, work, everything just to be able to sneak off with him till the sun comes up.
i’m not worried, cuz i’m very much in control of my destiny. and, when i’m ready to lose control, to remember how to love, i know it will happen. the ice will melt, the giddiness will return, and i’ll feel like a teenager all over again.
