an essay by Codey
Hi everyone. My name's Codey (yes, with the 'e'). I'm 16 years old and I write poems. I've been writing poems since I realized cat and rat sounded alike. I was eleven before I finally wrote one that I thought was worth saving, but all those earlier ones were just as much fun to do as my later poems. Lately, I've been trying my hand at prose, and I have to admit I'm no Grasshopper or Graeme, but I'm learning.
I feel really honored that The Mail Crew asked me to write this essay. Their site is one of the best and most important for LGBTQ teens on the web. Oh, and we can't forget our Straight friends. There's a lot they can learn about us, and themselves too, on this site. I say 'us' because I'm gay. I realized that at thirteen and, due to circumstances I had no control over, I didn't know this was supposed to be some deep, dark secret, and immediately began telling the people around me. I'm blessed with the most wonderful and accepting Grandfather on earth, and all he said was, “If you are gay, then you owe it to God to be the best gay person you can possibly be.”
I guess this is where I'm supposed to talk about my writing and why I write. I wish I could say I write to make things better for mankind, but I can't. I can't say I write to enlighten my readers with my brilliant ideas either. I write for a strictly selfish reason: it's fun to do. It's nice that some people like to read the things I write, but even if no one ever read a word, I'd still write.
I use various themes in my work, but friends and family are, by far, the predominant themes. I have a strongly held opinion about the importance of friends and family. In fact, I consider friends to be family, extended family maybe, but still family. Perhaps because I lost both at a point in my life and had to start basically from scratch, friends and family are high on my list of priorities. Since the deaths of my parents and brothers, I've built up a great group of 'adopted' family and friends. I live with my Grandfather now and have exceptional friends. I have the world's best partner and, in January, we celebrated our 'two year, working on forever' anniversary.
Friendship, to me, is defined by three words: loyalty, honesty and acceptance. No one has the right to be someone's friend. Friendship has to be earned. If you want to be friends with someone, you have to prove you deserve it, and if they want to be friends with you, they have to prove they deserve your friendship. Friendship is a kind of love affair between two people, and love affairs are doomed if only one in the relationship truly loves the other.
Tim (my partner) and I have quite a few friends and as far as we know they are all straight. Last year, we finally met another gay teen in person. He was a student at the school we attended. We were both thrilled to finally have a friend like us. We jumped at the chance and within weeks, he'd proved he didn't deserve to be anyone's friend. My point is that if you let one thing about a person override your good judgment, it could lead to trouble for you.
If you want to be friends with someone because they're popular, or cute or for any other shallow reason, you'll end up with a shallow friend and, what makes it worse, you're just as shallow. Friendship has to be based on the total acceptance of all that we are. We can't pick and choose the attributes of our friends. We may not like everything about our friend or all that he does, but we have to accept them as a part of the whole person he or she is.
We hear a lot about teaching tolerance these days. Those are fighting words to me. I don't want to be tolerated. Toleration has a negative implication that I'm flawed in some way but, out of the kindness of their hearts, they'll tolerate my existence. Well, I bet you can guess which part of my anatomy they can kiss. Accept me for the person I am, the person God made, or get the heck out of my way and let me get on with my life, being what and who God intended me to be.
Because of our orientation, our choice of friends is critical. With us, picking friends is like a high stakes, winner take all poker game. It's all or nothing. Many of us live with a secret that could get us hurt both emotionally and physically. We have to be sure in our hearts that our friends are totally accepting of us, and not just because we have a cool car or for any other insignificant reason. We need to know our friends won't turn on us if they discover we're gay. This is a legitimate worry to many teens. How will our friends (or family) take it if they find out we're gay?
As I said earlier, I came out at thirteen. I was lucky that the people around me at that time were accepting. I've received nothing but support from my Grandfather. Tim came out at his 14th Birthday party. He figured that since his family was so cool with me being gay, they'd accept him too. He was right about his parents and sister but the one person he was most sure would accept him ended up completely rejecting him. Tim and his older brother have not spoken in over a year now. Don't let my story or anyone else's influence you into coming out before you are ready.
No one knows your circumstances as well as you, yourself. If there is any doubt in your mind about your emotional or physical safety, don't come out until you are out of that situation, and always make sure you have a safe place to go. OK, you ask, if you can't come out because of your circumstances, how can you have a place of safety without confiding in someone? The truth is, you probably can't unless you become involved with the child welfare system. As flawed as the system is, it's still a better alternative to what might happen otherwise.
At some point, you may need to confide in someone and, again, this points out the importance of real friends. If you have a totally accepting friend, odds are it's because they learned it from their parents. Get to know your friends' parents. Become friends with them too. They'll appreciate the effort you make to get to know them and you'll build a trusting relationship with them. Maybe it's a relative you feel close to or someone at your church or school. The main thing is to have somewhere to go should the need arise. If you're ever caught in a confrontational situation where you feel threatened, lie. I know lying is dishonest, but if you're confronted and don't feel safe telling the truth, lie through your teeth and then get away from there as quickly as possible. There's nothing wrong with lying in self defense.
There's an old saying, “to have a friend, you have to be a friend.” Sometimes this is a lot harder than it would seem. It's hard to be a friend to someone else if you aren't a friend to yourself. How can we expect someone to accept all that we are unless we first accept ourselves? Don't we, as teens, have enough things bouncing around in our brains that we don't need something we have no control over to worry about? Too many people for too many years have tried not to be what God made them. It didn't work for them and it won't work for you. We need to take all that energy we spend wishing we weren't gay and trying not to be, and channel it into learning to accept who we are. You don't have to be out to be comfortable with yourself and have a positive self-image. If you don't want to tell people you're gay, then don't; but don't try fooling yourself.
I've spent a lot of time so far telling you what kind of friends you should have as well as the kind of friend you should be. Yeah, I know it's easier to say than do. I was very small when I was younger and was bullied and teased a lot. It bothered me a lot and so I withdrew and had only one or two close friends. One of them asked me once why I acted so different around him than the other kids. I had never realized I was, and so made an effort to be more myself around everyone. You know what happened? I was still teased and bullied but I also gained some new friends. As soon as I started relaxing and not looking for trouble to come at me, I was more comfortable with myself and so more comfortable around others. I was still a small, skinny runt, that hadn't changed, but the way I dealt with it did, and that's what made the difference.
Basically, that's the same thing Aaron did when he stood up on that bus and said “yes, I'm gay.” He adjusted his attitude and, once he changed, things began to change for the better for him. He finally accepted himself and opened the door for others to accept him.
What it boils down to is three rules for making friends:
Rule #1: Accept yourself for who you are. Stop worrying about things you can't change and only worry about trying to change what you can.
Rule #2: Relax and show people the real you. Stop walking down the halls looking at the floor because you're afraid someone might notice you looking at other guys. Stop hiding in corners trying to be invisible because you're afraid someone will read your mind and discover your secret.
Rule #3: Don't worry about being accepted into the cool group. When other people start seeing the real you, like-minded people will be drawn to you and you to them. Hell, if no groups want you, so what? Start your own group based on mutual interests and genuine friendship. All those school cliques are a joke anyway.
OK, I lied. Rule #4: Don't fall into the trap of “doing drugs with these guys will give me a place to belong.” Not only are they bad for you, but there's no friendship among druggies; they're users in more than one sense. They use each other to score drugs and will lie to each other at the drop of a hat to protect their stash. Their main concern is if you can help them score more drugs and will share yours with them. They're bad news, so stay away from them and the drugs!
One other thing before I close. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to be sexually active just because you're gay. I'm not saying experimentation is wrong. Even straight guys do that, but some things should be held back on until you're old enough to understand the consequences. Don't let anyone talk you into doing anything you're not comfortable with. If someone is more experienced than you, he had to get that experience somewhere. You don't know who his other partners were and so anything he may have picked up from one of them can be passed on to you. If you do become sexually active, ALWAYS practice safe sex. You want to keep your orientation a secret? How are you going to keep that secret while explaining how you got HIV or some other STD to your parents? Besides, it's much more fun when neither partner knows what they're doing and you learn together.
Well, that's my two cents worth. Remember it's all only my opinion. I've told you what I believe and how I feel about some things, but it's only advice. Take it or not, but if you're miserable and lonely right now, maybe it's worth a try.
Peace to all my brothers and sisters, and remember that God made you and God doesn't make junk.
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