Love Never Fails

Chapter 2: Nick

I'm gay.

I've known that since a girl wanted to be my girlfriend in kindergarten and I told her I'd rather die and burn in hell forever. Yeah. Such a gentleman, aren't I? I even added "yuck" after that. She took it remarkably well, though. Although, she did tell her mother and, next thing you know, her mother and my mother become best friends, my mom starts studying the bible, and we become Jehovah's Witnesses.

Sorry, I rushed through that story. I've basically summarized the whole serendipity of my parents' life-changing decision of accepting The Truth in a paragraph. The truth is that I'm not exactly what you'd call the talkative type. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's not that I'm not friendly or unpolite. Just... I've learned that the more you give away, the more there is to be used against you, so I tend to give an image of cold distance and try to not talk too much. I've learned that the best course of action in any circumstance is generally to let everyone see what they want to see, and hide everything else. At least that is the only way I've managed not to get hurt so far.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't get me noticed.

"That's all Mr. Addams, all correct. Have a nice flight," says a cute, smiling, but female flight attendant. OK, that sounded misogynistic. Not my intention. Sorry. I just meant to say that I would very much have preferred for her blue-eye, perfect-teethed, slender-body-typed and obviously-gay workmate sitting next to her to have been the one giving me the welcome to the boarding gate.

The first and most important rule to follow when your life depends on projecting an image that hides who you are, is that you have to watch yourself very, very closely and at all times. It takes a lot of self-control and, sadly, also self-denial. For others to see what they expect to see, your true self has to be kept silent inside a box as much as you can. Inside that box, though, you can let yourself go wild. But your true self must never escape that box.

I know, said like that it sounds awful. I'm not going to lie... it's not easy. But after so many years, this has become like a second nature. And nobody says how big or small that box needs to be. It just needs to be kept closed. Whatever your true self wants to do inside it is up to you... and the only limits inside that box are the limits of your own imagination.

For example, in my head, I'm making all sorts of stories possible, from cute romantic comedies that end up in both of us travelling arount the world together, getting married and having gorgeous children... to unspeakable things made only for dirty minds. And that's cool, because in the real world it wouldn't have made much of a difference. All of that is exclusively happening inside my personal Fortress Of Solitude. Nothing would have changed my actions or reactions in the real world. In the alternate reality where I turned right instead of left and was assisted by Mr. Blue Eyes, I would have used the same smile to thank him as I use now to thank her coworker, and I would have walked away towards my gate just the same. OK, my smile to him might have been a little bit more heartfelt, but that's something only the me-inside-the-box would know about.

I'm not going to deny it... at first this internal duality and the effort to hide this part of myself was torture. But that's where the second most important rule of hiding in plain sight comes in: project an image that is tolerable, but just. Let's be honest, pretending to be someone you are not, at the same time as hiding your true self in an airtight fortress is exhausting. If I had to do that constantly, eventually the walls around my castle would start to wear out, and I can't allow that. It would destroy my life. So by projecting a cold and distant image that people tolerate, but don't particularly like, I keep them around, but also away. Just enough to not go insane. Over the years I've come to find a comfortable spot where I can be myself within the walls that keep me safe. It's quite lonely in here, but It's a necessary evil, I guess.