I’m not a card-carrying member of the community. I’ve never been to Pride (the horror), I don’t run rainbow marathons, and I simply don’t talk about my queerness as an Indian man on the internet. While I’m perfectly happy to pay due deference to the dick, I’ve come to realize that I struggle with the “pride” part of the concept.
At the very end of my date with a lovely gay bespectacled man, an activist in every sense of that word, he leaned in for a kiss and asked me if I had come out to my parents already.
Do I tell him the truth, hoping with all my heart that he agrees to a second date, or do I go the easier route? Make a joke about my parents being progressive— barring the routine Islamaphobia— and how they’re hoping that this is merely a phase in the life of their left-leaning, liberal son. With time, your political leanings will change, and so will your lack of interest in marriage. With time, you will change.
He laughs, and I do too. I don’t know why I lied. I just knew that I had to. Luckily for both of us, he was forced to give me a quick kiss, saved by the incessant rings from a helpful Uber driver. Thank you, Manjunath.
I have a second date this Sunday and a tonne of guilt.
My queer journey isn’t a surprising one. I have always known that my interest in the cover picture of Jockey Boxers was unusual, and I was convinced that the right girl would be able to change this. It is probably why I asked the same girl out twice in school, varying strategies, choices of medium, and different wardrobes. For the readers wondering, she said no twice. However, asking her out, and the failed attempts were necessary for the role I was auditioning for. It’s far easier for boys to relate to rejection versus a perceived lack of interest in the “opposite sex”. To be one of the boys is all about mathematics, really. You calculate how many seconds you held someone’s hand, the number of Mississippis a hug lasts for, the acceptable number of shots of cheap Old Monk you down before you express how hot you found Akshay Khanna, the number of jokes you make objectifying women, and the excruciating detail of the porn you watch. It’s funny, now that I think about it, but cishet boys spend so much time discussing each other’s sex lives, that there is a veneer of homoeroticism to the whole conversation. But, to get back to my point, it’s a performance. There is a script to follow. One misspoken line, one touch too long, one glance in the wrong direction, and you’re out. It’s Survivor in a high school in a small town in Tamilnadu. For those unfamiliar with this staple of American television, Survivor is a reality TV show in the US that pits a bunch of great-looking strangers against each other, because the only way to win is to prevent yourself from being voted out by the group. Just like in Survivor, I felt compelled to pretend, even when I was being unbearable, to never lose the costume. Just like in Survivor, while everyone seems so different in the beginning, homogeneity seemed to be the goal. Just like in Survivor, I focused on building alliances, with people who would have my back, faking authenticity and vulnerability. Slowly, the disguise merged with my skin.
Fortunately, I’ve always been good at games and never did lose. At least, it felt like I won.
Recently, I’ve been wondering if I’ve been wrong about the rules of the game.
What my experience growing up taught me is that my queerness did not have to be a big deal, so I chose to consciously minimize it. Even when I came out to my sister, it was over text. I sent her a message, with little to no context. “Btw. I’m bi. I just thought you should know”. For someone who’s chronically online, she took some time to respond. When she did reply, she said, “Please tell me you meant bipolar? At least, we have drugs to deal with that”.
We share a history of mental illness, and in any moment of heaviness to do with my queerness, I laugh when I think about coming out to my sister. It was easy, it was comforting, and it gave me the courage to tell more people. I have now repeated the story quite a few times, but I spare them the details; a superficial declaration of my sexuality tossed into the conversation like an unnecessary garnish. I have a fulfilling career, a tightly-knit circle of friends, strong political opinions, and sufficient familial drama to make for a great conversation. We could talk about everything under the sun. Except for my queerness, of course.
And, if I’m being very honest, there are perks to this indifference. Marginalization is not something you leave in a small town. If you’re not a rich, well-educated, well-networked queer man, Bangalore is not easy to navigate. I know of many people who’ve been attacked on Grindr dates, men impersonating police officers to ‘catch’ gay couples, and queer folks who’ve been at the harm of physical violence merely for walking on the roads. Let me make this clear: I’m not one of these people. I come from privilege, speaking with certain fluency in English and Kannada that is comforting to police officials and boring corporate gays alike. However, the fear is so persistent, of both violence and of rejection. Not of my body, but my humanity. I know better than to be openly queer. I know better than to wear a gorgeous Kalamkari print and walk on my streets. I know better than to kiss a man on the roads, even if it is just the right moment to make a move. I know better than to even look a man in the eye for too long.
I sometimes wish I didn’t know better.
When I moved to Bangalore, I had my heart broken by multiple women, and engaged in multiple clandestine, sexually intimate relationships with men. Everywhere I turned, dating a man was often done in secrecy, if not, you were a queer activist. There is no in-between. So, I did what I thought was best. I would often go on dates with young and old men, have a lovely time, and on the third date, tell them I’m moving cities. My friends often joke that my unofficial policy is to only date men outside state lines. I wanted my queerness to be a party trick, purely for the entertainment of straight people, a palatable form of expression that excluded the visibility of love, heartbreak, pain, anger, and the sheer confusion of loving a man. It’s one thing to try and convince people of a delusion you want them to share with you, to buy into your schtick. It is quite another thing to let yourself be taken in, shaping your personality through these small lies. I have got to the point where the lines are blurred, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to find my way out.
I think I’m ashamed.
Shame is not a feeling that I strongly resonate with. I’m fairly confident, very extroverted, so loud, annoyingly energetic, and perpetually in love with my job and my friends. But it’s impossible to deny shame when it rears its head every single time I think about leading a life with a man.
In the past, I have always given myself permission to fall in love with unavailable people. Women who’ve never had crushes before, women whose only allegiance was to the Lord Jesus Christ, men who were straight (never doing that again), and queer partnered men who lived 10,000 miles across the Atlantic ocean. You can see the pattern. I’ve made it a practice to fall for people whose absolute lack of interest would always cushion my fall.
I recently messaged the lovely gay activist who made me blush and cooked me dinner. I told him that things simply weren’t working out for me and that we’ll have to take a break. He was kind and understanding, making this message so much harder to send. I’ve been thinking a lot about what put me off exploring this relationship:
He has a dog that was fairly clingy and fought for his attention more than I did.
He didn’t ask me enough questions about myself. Am I not interesting enough?
He’s an elder queer, with far more experience dating, with far more experience in bed.
He’s an activist
He’s an activist
He seemed to be able to pierce through a fairly well-put-together story of why I don’t date. He quickly pieced together a naivety that made me feel so seen. So juvenile. So inexperienced. So defensive. So ashamed.
When I broke things off with him, I reached out to friends with the list. I knew I wasn’t looking for opinions and suggestions. I had already made up my mind. I wanted validation that this was not a high-stakes decision to make, that it didn’t matter. I did not want to regret missing out on an incredibly fulfilling relationship with a gorgeous man and his lovely poodle just because I was afraid that I was being seen, in all the glory of my shame.
What is the price of searching for love while finding it harder to love yourself?
I’ve spent so much time denying this humanity in me, that shame has started to room in the same place as my heart, hidden, being stowed away in the dark. Shame isolates. Shame makes you feel so alone in your experience that it becomes necessary to rationalize its survival. Otherwise, the loneliness is all-consuming. My story is not unique, it isn’t even so tragic, but I’ve always felt this incredible loneliness in my body, in my being, and in my love. I was convinced that I had tricked every single person in my life, and I had done it well enough to find so much support and community that I wanted to continue doing this forever.
To give credit to a younger me, I think I’ve played a decent game, having survived this far with my self-esteem and self-worth intact. However, I cannot help but wonder if there is an alternate universe I could have explored, an opportunity to grow into the person I am today without having to hide such an integral part of my being. I don’t just like dicks, I also love the men who come with them. I want to be with a man who is kind, loves public transport, can read Tamil fluently, and is willing to listen to me drone about the importance of sunscreen. Being in love openly is a public declaration of my humanity and I am disappointed that I struggle to do this and that for twenty-five years, I have never been brave enough to try.
I have a date this Sunday with an anarcho-communist I met on a dating app, and I’ve only been talking about him.
Will he be kind?
Will my friends like him? He says “Yeeee”, instead of “Yes”
Will he hate that I like pretty expensive things?
He lives 25 kilometers away. In Bangalore terms, isn’t that a long-distance relationship?
Will he love me?
Am I ready to fall in love with him?
