#THE GAY DATING GAME FULL#
And when morning came and I did wake up, I walked in a daze to the bathroom and turned on the shower full blast and gasped for air. Some nights when I went to sleep, I didn’t seem to care if I woke up the next day. I became depressed, lost my appetite, fell behind in school. Then I broke down, and living with it - the truth - grew much more complicated. I never struggled much with my sexuality until I came out to one of my closest friends after my freshman year of college. I never planned to come out as “John Haley, gay man.” For some time, I had cultivated a belief that my sexuality constituted something shameful and unnatural, so I pushed down feelings which started as early as seventh grade to live as “John Haley, straight man.” In some ways, it was a strangely peaceful existence. I guess that explains why my first kiss with a girl didn’t happen until I entered my senior year of high school - or, maybe, why I never really thought about kissing girls at all. Dating, or love or whatever - it’s not formula-based. At some point, instinct, desire for connection or some random human impulse is supposed to take over to guide you toward love. Years passed, and slowly I came to realize why I acted this way. While my friends around me developed relationships lasting months or even years, I hopped around from possible girl to possible girl, never advancing the relationship beyond its early stages. By the time I had finished high school, I had developed my own personal approach for maneuvering through the dating scene.
#THE GAY DATING GAME MANUAL#
When I was his age, I learned about relationships by example - dissecting snippets of gossip whispered in middle school hallways, constructing a manual in my head to navigate through the dating process. At 12 years old, he was just beginning to dip his toes into the world of romantic connection. My youngest brother was relatively inexperienced, but his youth brought on a welcome change of perspective. The subject was ripe with possibilities: My sister had a new boyfriend, one of my brothers had recently broken up with his girlfriend and another had been dating the same girl for some time. This past summer, I sat at family dinner on Fourth of July weekend in Manhattan, and the conversation on the younger end of the table was turning to discussion of relationships.