It's almost an overworn cliche, the lovers who are not supposed to be together. TVtropes.org offers a staggeringly exhaustive list of couples who are kept by destiny from living together harmoniously forever more. My personal favorites are Julian and Winston from 1984, kept apart by the Party, or Lyra and Will from His Dark Materials, kept apart by the nature of reality itself. That's some cockblock.
But the ones most applicable to our situation are the ones most anachronistic and foreign to the Western world. Take Amreen and Lokesh, or Miss Katherine and Sam from Holes, (arguably) Mayella and Tom from To Kill a Mockingbird, Catherine and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, Tristan and Isolde from the eponymous Wagnerian opera, or even the namesakes of my column, Romeo and Juliet of the Shakespearean play by the same name. These tales don't resonate with modern Western sensibilities. Miss Katherine and Sam, and Mayella and Tom are kept apart by societal racism. Catherine and Heathcliff are kept apart by social station. Amreen and Lokesh, and Romeo and Juliet are foiled by ancestral feuds. Well in our enlightened post-racist society free from all bigotry and prejudice, such quaint dramas are relics of a less benevolent time.
Seriously, contemporary parents may still raise their hackles when their pretty white daughter brings a black man to Sunday dinner, but even that inexcusable stupidity is small potatoes compared to the stupid shit I've seen LGBT couples put themselves through in the search of some ol' closeted lovin'. I have a friend who volunteers at the Democratic Party offices just to meet with her girlfriend, and she's an independent. I'm sure all of you have told some breeder parent that their precious fuck trophy was at a "study session" with you and totally not out having hot, sinful gay sex with their illicit lover. And brother, if I spent half the time in after-school tutoring that I told my parents I was attending, I'd be on the honor roll. What should be a simple, rosy, typically teenage affair becomes a Spy Vs Spy style game of careful deception, plotting, and subterfuge that twists one's moral landscape into an uneasy and unfriendly terrain.
I wonder how most of you feel about it. I know many of you are otherwise close to your parents and are deeply hurt by the need to lie to them. My parents' impressively poisonous outlook on homosexuality makes this distasteful task much easier for me. The constant barrage of lies becomes simply another part of the charade that must be kept to protect myself from dire consequences. But at least I had someone to commiserate with. If ever I felt unclean or rejected, at least I had one person with whom I could drop the pretense.
Here's an important lesson that I impart to you baby-gays. Some of us are more okay with the illusion than others. Some of us see it as a thrilling game and take pride in the care, effort, and cleverness required for the task. Others believe that everyone deserves the truth from them. Some believe that the risks involved in being in a secret relationship outweigh the benefits. Others think that happiness should be seized whatever the risks. I've found that it's far more helpful to discuss these possible differences before starting in on that fling. Just a thought.
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