Sonriso, Part 9

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. 
~William Shakespeare, Othello

It was over—over in the most ambivalent of ways.  I still smiled at the thought of him but knew he’d be nothing more than an ideal in my life—just the right combination of intellectual, emotional, and sexual rise was (and perhaps still is) inspired by the mere flashes of his picture on Facebook or the occasional flashback to a memory together. 

In conversation, he’d often come up as an ideal guy.  He’d managed to resolve his issues with Mormonism and being gay as I was attempting to do the same in my life.  However, that remained a secondary or tertiary variable in my attraction.  Not long after my decision to give up pursuing a relationship with him, a chat window popped up on Connexion.  The picture had a Cheshire quality—a large smile and a rounded face:

“It seems we went to the same school.  You write pretty well.  Do I detect an influence of Nellie in your words?”

“Nellie Carter?” I responded.

“Yep.”

“How did you guess?  I took a column writing class from her.”

“I just have an eye for words.  Anyways, I’m Rick.”

“A pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

“I see we’re both friends with Evan Davis.”

“He’s perhaps the cutest of my friends on here.”

“He’s definitely a sight to behold.”

“That’s a good way to put it.  His type doesn’t come around often.  I’m having a hard time getting over my crush on him.”

“Interesting.  It looks like I’ll be meeting him at the club tonight.”

“Yeah? I’m meeting up with him for some coffee beforehand with a few friends.”

“So I guess that means we’ll be meeting up, too….”

After a tennis game of flirty retorts, we said our goodbyes and I noted the fortunate coincidence that I’d be meeting another cute and intelligent boy that night.

I made my way to Salt Lake with my clubbing buddies Ezra (who’d just moved into the Wood House) and Alberto.  We met Evan on his doorstep—the one I’d hesitated on that night of the first date.  The place and that moment took me back even though it was not the two of us.  I didn’t want to leave and the unhealthy desire to somehow claim him clouded my head.  He was distant because he was healing and I had no reason to impose my feelings as I had been in a similar enough position to understand, albeit in glimpses.

On the way to the coffeehouse, he conveniently mentioned that Rick would be joining us.  A smile came to my face as a result  of the coincidental conversation which had occurred earlier that day. 

Waiting for Ezra and Alberto to do each others’ hair, Evan and I sat across the table from one another.  Almost defensively, I turned the conversation to the connection we shared which would not send me into some sort of emotional hailstorm:

“How’s your brother doing? Erik and I talk once in a while after the mission but him finding out about my dating life and… preferences… would make that somewhat more difficult.”

“That’s the truth. Try being his brother for eighteen years and having that discussion.”

“He seems to be doing well.  I mean, he's the definition of Peter Priesthood.  Isn’t he in like eight different church choirs?

“Ha!  Yeah.  he practically lives in the church building,” he said rolling his eyes.”

“I think that’s actually part of the reason we became good friends so quickly.”

He smirked knowingly. “Yeah.  That’s part of it.”

We paused, expecting an explanation or question to fill the air.

“That’s all I can say,” he said with the same smirk as he sipped at his chai. 

“Hey guys,” Alberto said, interrupting.  “How does my hair look.” He’d just come from the bathroom with a Macy’s bag filled to the brim with hair products.

“With Alberto, hair is never perfect. He just abandons it when we all get tired of him asking about it,” Ezra said.  “I’ve been listening to him bitch about a single cowlick for the last twenty minutes.”

With that, the direct conversation with Evan ended as the discussion turned to common friends and how long it had been since we’d all been dancing.  My mind vacillated between topics—my inescapable attraction to Evan, his cryptic mention of my missionary friend and his brother, and the distraction that Rick would hopefully provide that night.

Rick’s arrival came with some knowing smiles on my part and his.  “This is Rick,” Evan announced to the guys sitting around the table.

“Hey everyone,” he said—a bastion of confidence.  All aglow, he plunged into conversation with a half-dozen people as the waitress—a friend of his—brought over his regular quad-shot mocha.  After some meandering around the table for a few minutes, he finally took a seat across the table next to Evan.

The conversation continued as I found an unexpected anxiety creep up on me and press against my chest.  Rick took his arm and placed it around Evan, caressing his back on occasion.  It was hard to swallow, but the reality was that the cute intellectual wasn’t after me after all.  Painfully, my sense of alienation doubled over itself with every signal of affection that I could not bestow upon Evan—an arm around him, a chivalrous opening of the door, hours spent together on the dance floor.

The sinking feeling of jealousy left me powerless.  Rick taking Evan’s hand at the end of the night to hold it left me with a deep sent of resentment for my over-sensitivity.  It has always been me weakness, I thought to myself.

Rick knew my feelings for Evan and I wonder at times whether, as he smiled and glanced in my direction, his pleasure was somehow augmented by my overpowering anxiety.  My frustration of not being able to read a simple assemblage of teeth and muscles also left me questioning for weeks whether my romantic quest would ever amount to anything more than a series of heartbreaks.  If I could not rely on my sensitivity or instincts, what could I rely on?

In the end, I was reassured by a simple, genuine smile.

“That guy does not know how to take a hint,” Evan recounted at a party.  “I’d pull my hand away, but he didn’t pay any attention.  I took FOUR trips to the bathroom that night for some alone time.  He was kind of upset after I turned him down for a date a couple days later.”

The reassurance that my respect was more than hyper-sensitivity put the confident smile on my face that I needed as the desire to enter a relationship would finally be satisfied.

End of series.

Sonriso, Part 5

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

—Phyllis Diller

As far as milestones on the path of gay life, one that sticks out in this twenty-something’s life is the day that people were able to deduce that I was gay based on my Facebook profile. When you think about it on a deep level, facebook profiles are very interesting cultural documents that speak quite a bit to who that person is and who he or she would like to be.

Although my profile clearly stated “Christian—Latter Day Saint,” and I belonged to groups for my ward, my Family Home Evening group, and my mission, the “gay” part of my Gay Mormon Boy mantle was beginning to peer through. And people reading through the lines—my politically liberal views, my photo albums devoted to outfits coordinating my socks to my shirts and/or ties, and finally my GLBT Facebook friends from across Utah. The plan was to remain enigmatic on Facebook and let people find me on Connexion (a GLBT social network), but with a somewhat random friend request, I knew that I was slowly unmasking myself, a fact that deep down was somehow comforting.

The request was all at once surprising, nostalgic, and alluring. It was Evan, Elder Davis’ brother, and his unforgettable smile remained as brilliantly white as ever. I was taken back to that moment back on the grass on the quad over two years ago. It was like reliving the entire experience with another set of eyes, or rather the same eyes unfiltered—the immaculate smile, the perfectly sculpted musculature, the cool ease to bear it all and remain stylish in just a pair of shorts and sunglasses. I knew why I had noticed particular features and I knew that the reason he’d stuck in my mind could not be completely attributed to my politically liberal mentality or my desire to study and understand the human condition. There was an element of physical attraction there which had been left for me to unearth much later.

I responded excitedly—coyly. The interaction unfolded casually over a course of a week or two:

“You're Erik’s brother, right?”

“Ya I am. Did you go on your mission with him or something?”

“Yeah. It's a small world full of twists and turns. We lived together for four months. He came up to visit a couple of years ago and introduced us on the quad if I remember correctly. That's why I asked. (My apologies... my memory is kind of freakish like that). A lot has changed since then.”

“Whoa yeah that was a long time ago... good memory. The good old days up there, I miss it. So what has changed?”

“Well, it hasn’t changed a ton, honestly. As for me, I’m probably as successful and happy as I’ve ever been. I’m doing research, I’ve figured out my future. I’m giving presentations to the state legislature and at a conference in Minneapolis plus I graduate in May…. Oh yeah, and I’ve been dating boys for about nine months now.”

“Its nice to have graduation in sight. I was so happy to have my degree and be done (even though I kind of miss it, more so the social aspect). I saw you were friends with a lot of the people I know up there so I was wondering...

“I'm glad you are happy and doing good things with your life. Trust me I know exactly how you feel. I could finally figure out my life and move on when I came out and just started living my life the way I wanted to….So meet any keepers?”

And from there, the conversation turned to our histories—to Mark on his mission and to Evan’s recent breakup with his own Mark. There was something definitely intriguing about the way we’d gotten to that point, demonstrating just how unpredictable life could be. I hesitate using the word “serendipity” even now, but that was the underlying explanation for our interactions in my mind. It was more than repressed sexual attraction. Somehow, his story validated my own and brought it close to home. It wasn’t the first time, but the fact that another important piece of my life was tied to this experience indirectly brought the situation into perspective.

Towards the end of those weeks, a simple “Let me know the next time you’re in Salt Lake so we can make some time to hang out” brightened up a dreary, busy week at work. Fighting the impulse to immediately text back, I suggested an hour later that Friday would work after a presentation down there. As the week progressed, the stars aligned for what turned out to be an incredibly significant day for me.

End, Part 5.

Sonriso, Part 4

A Flashback

Keep smiling - it makes people wonder what you've been up to.

—Unknown

I’d been anticipating this day for a week now. I was going to see an old friend in a very different context—so different it was weird to consider calling him by his first name. To me, Erik was always (and perhaps always will be) Elder Davis. We were missionaries together in Brazil. We were never paired up as missionary companions, but arriving at roughly the same time, we quickly developed a bond.

My earliest memories of him come from my first missionary conference in which we gathered (as missionaries regularly do) for training sessions and a nice dinner. He welcomed me, provided some advice (having 3 more months of experience), and wasn’t afraid to talk about pre-missionary life back in the states. We later ended up living together as missionaries and developed an even closer relationship.

Our reunion revolved quite a bit around the gossip we shared and inside jokes we had. He would call me a communist (in part because of my political views and in part because of a communist musical I’d started writing with my friend Serenity in high school) and I would tease him about looking like a twelve year-old.

Not much had changed when he made that trip up to visit me and his brother. I was more liberal than ever (going so far as to attend a College Democrat meeting or two) and he could pass for fifteen now—maybe. The day was perfect. The closest you could get to a brilliant Brazilian day. As I approached him from across the quad, the intermittent cool from the bright green grass and the radiant heat from the chalky pavement brought me back—fleetingly—to the urban and rural tropics I’d known in Brazil. My past had met my present briefly in this one moment. Little did I know that a tiny piece of my future would enter into that moment as well.

“GMB! It’s been like six months and a continent!” he called to me from across a band of sunbathers.

“Davis! What have you been up to? Still getting asked out by girls in middle school?” I teased.

“Quit that. I’m just starting back up at the U again.”

“Aren’t you loving school?”

“Blah,” he responded complacently. “Sometimes I’d just like to go back to Brazil.”

“Are you kidding me? All you did was complain about the heat. It’s always something, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” he said in his most nasal voice. “Let me introduce you to my brother,” he said motioning towards the sunbathers. “Evan,” he called.

With that his brother got up to introduce himself.

Immediately, my eyes were drawn to the brightest smile I’d encountered in my life. “Nice to meet you. I’m GMB,” I said.

“I’m Evan,” he said, still smiling as he extended a hand and secured the sunglasses mounted in his short faux hawk with the other. Even then, in the days when I thought I was straight did I note that he was attractive. As my eyes drifted from his face downward, I noted the perfectly toned abs, the stylish board shorts, and that his perfectly-tanned complexion continued from his smile down to his toes.

“He’s gay,” Erik told me a few moments later (once we were alone). I hadn’t really known about his gay brother. I’m sure he mentioned him in passing not as his gay brother but simply as “Evan.” It kind of surprised me because I’d wondered about Erik’s sexuality, but left those questions in the air.

Apparently, it was a big issue for their family.

“My mom wasn’t too happy about the trip up here,” he explained. “She didn’t think it would be a good idea to stay the night at Evan’s since he lives with his boyfriend, Mark.” I didn’t pry into the situation, but it was in the back of my head.

I had met gay men before. There was Ianto and a couple of guys I taught on my mission, but somehow this seemed more immediate and close because a good friend’s perfect Mormon family was impacted. I found our political divergences particularly interesting at this point. I didn’t claim to understand the movement for GLBT rights or the people it represented, but the notion that love could be conditional based on something so personal didn’t really settle right.

As I showed Erik around campus—my office, my favorite spot in the library, the campus café—our conversation seemed to be halted by our differences and Evan’s homosexuality. We remained in the neutral territory of discussing school and reminiscing about the mission. Still, it was as happy a reunion as one could hope for or expect. Intrigued by this earliest glimpse into the true lives of gay Mormon boys, question came to mind that would not be answered for another two years when Evan and I met again.

End, Part 4