Salam: Boy meets girl meets girl

It’s overwhelming how much comes into perspective once we close in on the mirages we’ve defended for a lifetime. Arthur Miller put it best: “An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.” A quote I loved for years, but only truly understood when I came out.

As we all know, when this happens, there is much to reflect on. For me, few issues were as important as my substantial history of relationships with men. It was impossible to not get lost in my head analyzing my decisions, motives, feelings and rationale all those years.

When I turned 15, a lot of other things in my life turned, too. A full 180. I’d been pretty much nothing but the butt of boys’ jokes until that point. Once my body (very suddenly) developed, I lost the glasses and 20 pounds, and grew out my hair (all very rom-com), guys who had spent middle school calling me “butterball” and “Saddam Salam” were now asking me out; some were falling over themselves to date me. Others seemed ashamed to be into me, given my oddball status, but were on the sly. What was I to do with this new info – especially because this was the age when I had my first secret relationship with a girl?

I did what depressed, confused girls needing affection and attention do; I bought into it, but not fully until my first long-term relationship with a boy ended. That boy is very important to my story. We were together for almost two years. I loved him; he loved me. He was a “good ol’ boy” (as they say in Kentucky), and he is gay.

I knew it then as much as he knew that I was. We discussed it in the way that two naive, innocent, uninfluenced kids would: With no real awareness, but complete trust in each other. We were fine with the other person having crushes and little relationships with members of our respective sexes. We completely understood, and we leaned on each other in a time and place where we didn’t have anyone else.

I ended it when he went to college, and I needed someone else to feed my insecurity and temper my confusion. He was crushed. I was ambivalent. Thankfully, he came out some years later, I heard.

From that point forward, I was pretty much – and let me add, shamefully – what one would call a player. My sisters deemed Brit Brit’s “Oops!… I Did it Again” my theme song. From the bottom of my heart, I never meant to be that way. I didn’t know what I was doing. To make matters worse, most of these guys (aside from a couple crap relationships with mentally unstable dudes) were absolutely amazing, treated me kindly, and cared deeply for me. They also all knew that I identified as bisexual at the time, but despite my many comments about being confused about my sexuality, talking about my girl crushes, and the like, no one really reached in to dig up more. Not that it was their job to do so, but sometimes I wish I’d been put up against that wall.

Regardless, I never felt the right kind of connection with these men, even though I genuinely cared for several of them and had a special love in my heart.

There are so many variations of love; I wish I had known that sooner. Society’s “Boy Meets Girl and They Fall in Love” equation doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.

What I know is it wasn’t the right kind of love. I was essentially connected with the connection they had for me, and I played into it. I wanted to give them whatever they wanted me to be: a fantasy, a caregiver, a muse. In my era of dating men, I was never broken up with, and that is not a boast. It’s a reflection of a bigger problem. My oldest sister once asked me, “Don’t you think it’s weird that you’ve never had your heart broken?” Hmm, was it weird? I mean, yeah, I’d never been able to relate to girls’ tales of heartbreak and lost love, but was that weird? As it turns out, it was, because my heart was never in the right place.

I equate it to a broken compass, just spinning, looking for direction, but remaining lost. I loved those guys, though, as friends, as soul mates, even, but not as partners, and not in the way they deserved.

Back then, I never once asked myself, “What would make you happy, Maya? What do you want?” When a healthy girl would’ve said, “This isn’t working; I don’t feel anything,” I thought, “As long as he’s happy, I’m doing my job.”

It all culminated in a marriage I had annulled two months after the wedding – a regret I’ll always have to live with. Being gay in a straight relationship and engaging in the heterosexual roleplay is one of the ultimate mind fucks because it appears “normal.” The truth appears “queer,” and as it turns out, the truth most certainly is just that.