A gay highschool reunion...

After probably a year and a half, I finally got to spend an evening with the only openly gay person I went to highschool with.

Leah didn't come out until the second year of her university, and while everyone else wasn't particularly surprised, it certainly took me off guard. After all, this was a girl that I had known to have fooled around with a few boys in her day, especially on one hilarious and fondly remembered evening a few summers ago during a party at my house.

I vividly remember her coming out to me during my first year at university. I was talking to her via IM, and commented on her profile picture, a nice snapshot of her and another girl, both dressed formally and looking great. Their smiles were a mile wide, and I asked who the other girl was, honestly curious about her friends and how she was enjoying school.

"Oh," she said. "That's my date."

Thinking she was being a typical girl, I assumed that this 'date' was just a friend of hers who had attended their residence formal with her. The thought she was being serious didn't enter my mind, as I replied, "She looks cute, how long have you two been together?"

"Oh, I guess a couple months now," she said. "Her name is Elizabeth."

Without ever actually saying, "I am gay," we spent the next few minutes talking about her girlfriend. Looking back, it was a nice experience, and I hope I was one of the people that offered no snobbish, small-town reaction to her sexuality. I myself was still figuring things out at the time, and didn't return the favor of being as candid.

Last night, she happened to be passing through our home town. She hasn't been home for the summer in years, and barely makes more than a few day's appearance at Christmas, so when she wrote asking if I was free I jumped at the chance to see her.

The evening was a flashback to highschool days. I took the same route that I always did from my house towards hers, and grinned when I pulled into her driveway. Here I was, Friday night back home, and I was going out once again with the people I used to.

She opened the door seconds after I'd run the bell, and smiled at me. Her hair was cut shorter than usual, with a shag that I would have found quite attractive on a boy. I smiled as we hugged, and noticed her parents come into the room. We talked for a few minutes about how I was doing, about the old days and how everyone had flown the coop, including their daughter.

"But you, you're so thin!" Leah's father said, sizing me up. I muttered some comment about being on a student's budget, and the conversation changed to something else.

Of course, for the next few minutes, I obsessed over his comment. Good Lord, was I that big in highschool? I don't think I necessarily qualify as being really thin, comparative to the naked boys I've seen. Not that I'm large, but it took me off guard that someone who hasn't seen me in years would make a point to imply I've lost a lot of weight. Wow, has it really been that much? And if so, what the hell was I thinking in highschool?

The only departure from our usual Friday routine was the fact that instead of drinking at someone's house, or rather in their basement, we were drinking in a bar. Leah sat across the booth from me, and our conversation just flowed. We covered the usual topics, catching up on school and future prospects and living arrangements...everything.

Then came her mentioning of Pride Week. I had hoped she would recount her time with me, thinking maybe it would be a good way to segue into subtly telling her about my own sexuality. All I had to ask was, "Did you have fun?" and she spent the next minutes explaining all the details of her weekend.

I was conflicted the entire time. Part of me wanted so badly to say, "Oh, I know, wasn't the weather stupid?" and just have it out in the open, but the other wanted me to tread lightly. While I have no problem with her knowing (and actually really would love to have that open between us), I do question her ability to keep it between us. And really, there is only one person I would fear her letting it slip to, the most probable blabbermouth...her best friend from highschool, Marie.

And so I sat there, nodding along as she told her story, then proceeded to go into great detail about all the recent drama in her love life at school. She goes to a small university known for it's extremely high population of gays and lesbians, as well as a very liberal town that provides a positive space for the community, young and old. And yet, she still maintains that the gay community is small.

"It's all interwoven, these weird triangles," she said. "You probably are dating someone that somebody else you know already dated, and it gets dramatic," she added. No shit.

In many ways, we're a lot alike. Her thoughts on dating seem to mirror my own; we're both not unattracted to relationships of substance, but we both still allow ourselves to have fun along the way. I very much got the sense from her that she's the easy-going one in dramatic situations, and it's often everyone else that gets jealous of the other person. She even really impressed me with her politeness and gentlemanly attitude in a situation she described..."We could have either gotten into a making-out competition, or I could have just not shoved it in everyone's face, so I didn't throw myself on her after she made out with the third party," she said calmly of a brewing love triangle between her and two of her friends.

And that was the most interesting point of our gay talk, her troubles with her friends. "I've got to get myself into the whole 'make friends first' thing," she said. Now, I know for a fact she has a great group of lesbian friends at school, I've even been out with them before. But it was how she described meeting new people that I so related to.

"You just..." she said, trailing off. "You meet a person, and you see so much potential for it to go somewhere, and I just find myself interested in them romantically, or I think 'oh you're pretty' or something, and just fall into thinking of them that way instead of actually just being their friend."

I nodded.

"But, it's hard, I mean I've got to stop doing that and focus on just enlarging the circle of friends. Why does that happen, why do I just jump right to being interested in them!" she said, taking a mouthful of beer.

"Well, it's a small community!" I said. "It's not like other people, where you can maybe meet a date anywhere in life...things are small that when you meet someone you want to jump at the chance to have something with them, because the odds seem to be a lot lower than in the straight community."

If that didn't get her mind whirring, I don't know what would, but she didn't ask me any questions. I thought somewhere in that, in my comfort about talking gay and my understanding of how impossible it is at times to stop yourself from going for more than friendship, that she would have picked up on me. But nothing was said and we carried on to a new topic.

Then the reason I didn't want to tell Leah walked through the door. Marie slid into the seat beside her, and suddenly the urge to come out was shoved back into the closet. In the few first minutes, I was reminded how gossipy and nosey Marie is, and how entirely possible it would be for Leah to accidentally mention it, and then Marie spread it far and wide. I did some mental head slapping, thinking how stupid it all was that I couldn't be out to a lesbian, that I couldn't be out to the few people I still talk to from home because of the small-towns-talk-syndrome.

Conversation continued, and suddenly Leah looked at me and said, "So Steve, how about you, what's new on the dating front?" It would have been a perfect introduction for me to tell her about my current romance, but I shrugged it off with an over-dramatic, "Oh GOD, let's not talk about it, you'll be bored."

In the parking lot, we had our hugs and said our goodbyes and made our promises to visit each other. I stared meaningfully at Leah when she suggested maybe visiting me in Toronto. "Yes!" I said, enthused at the idea, already planning our trip out on the town. "Come visit...we'll go out!"

On the way home, I decided I should probably tell her. Why not, right? Ask her to keep it specifically from Marie, and things should be alright. And then finally we can have that long talk about our gay lives, from day one.

I'm just still not convinced it's the best idea.