Confession of a Man!

Chicago has always been one of my favorite places.  I love going to this windy city.   I had about an hour of ride from Chicago O’here airport to downtown, although the peak time had not yet started.  As I was waiting for my Uber at the airport, I realized that the weather was unusually warm for the month of January.  This was a good sign!   With no snow predicted for the duration of my stay in Chicago, I was happy.

I was still more happy when a brand new white Buick came and stopped in front of me.   Nothing better than riding in a new car for this hour long trip, a good conversation was all I was hoping for as I hopped into the front passenger seat of the car.  However, Paul, my Uber driver seemed rather a serious man.  I was always prepared for situations where good conversation is not an option.  I have my iPhone and headphones handy to save the day.

During our usual initial pleasantries, I realized that Paul was not as serious as I suspected; he was rather a quite person.  This was not bad at all. We can always have some random banters through the way.  

As we started moving out of the airport and onto I-90, I thought, if I could have taken a car on rent, it would have been much easier for me to visit my friends in Schaumburg and Barrington.  This is the place where I have spent my initial 5 years in United States.

I was looking straight ahead at the Grey Hound bus in front of us and observed the efforts made by Paul trying to move ahead of it. My eyes fell on the pink pearl necklace dangling from the mirror of the car. It was shimmering in the sunlight and reflecting the rays directly inside. I followed the sun rays from the windshield to the pearl necklace and on to the photograph placed on the car’s dashboard. Just as soon as I looked, I asked Paul, ‘is this your brother standing with you or a friend?’

He looked at the pic and then straight ahead. At first, I thought, did I do something wrong in asking. There was almost 15 second pause before he looked back at me again. ‘Oh well, he is actually my boy friend’, he quipped and continued, ‘we have been together for almost 3 years now.’

He must have seen something on my face because immediately he chuckled and then said, ‘ha! don’t worry, I get this reaction all the time. You are not the first one.’
‘I am sorry…’, I stammered, ‘I didn’t…, I mean, that was wrong of me.’  
‘Hey, that is fine.   It happens.’
‘But does it not bother you?’  This kind of look from every one you come across.’
‘It used to!’   Paul looked straight ahead trying to navigate a busy intersection.  It was still early afternoon, and much before the peak time. ‘I used to be bothered a lot, but I realized – the things that I cannot control, why should they trouble me?  This is what I am, and I am happy about it.’
I could hear an emergency vehicle approaching behind us. As Paul turned the wheel to get out of way of the ambulance, I asked him, ‘I am sure you must have faced lot of heat throughout your life/’

‘It was actually quite interesting!’ He was still waiting on the shoulder for the ambulance to pass. He paused, looked at me and then at the back mirror to get back into the driving lane. ‘On hindsight, it was more difficult to convince myself than to convince others. In fact, I did not convince anyone. All I needed was to convince myself. That was the hard part. Yes, those were the most difficult years.’

‘What do you mean?’ I was curious to find out.
‘Throughout my high school, I was very confused.  Everyone is expected to be in a relationship.  But I was not sure, where do I stand.  I should have a girlfriend, as is the norm, but I was not attracted towards them.  It felt weird as if there was something wrong with me.’
He changed the lane to a faster one, ‘the thought of being gay crossed my mind more than once and every time I dismissed it.  I thought, this cannot be happening to me, as if this is some sort of decease.’

‘Did you get any support from your parents?’, I interjected, ‘I mean, were they conservative.’
‘Oh no!, we were pretty liberal.  My parents were very open, but, you know, even in the most liberal types, there is some required behavior, if you will, drilled into your mind. You are expected to behave in a certain way, which is socially agreeable.  There’s no written rule, but you are just expected.  Not sure if I am able to explain, but a boy has to have a girlfriend and a girl needs to have a boy friend.  It’s just the society that expects you to behave in certain ways.’

‘I was under immense pressure because of that.  Throughout my high school, I tried to convince myself.  I finally made a boy friend, but was still not sure.  When I joined college, I tried to make a girl friend.  I thought, if I have a girlfriend, I will become normal.’ 

I thought I heard a choke in his voice.  but when I looked at him, he was very calm.  He continued as if speaking to himself. 

‘My parents of course realized this and despite being very open, they still could not digest that their own son is gay.  I guess, all this talk of being open and being liberal is always saved for others.  All is good if someone else is gay or lesbian, but when it comes to their own family, parents suddenly become too conservative.  The discussion in drawing rooms changes from advising others to be liberal to lecturing me on how can this be possible.’
This is the pressure of the society we live.  Suddenly, it seems so fake.   I continued to make girl friends through out my college days and imagined everything is great.  That my disease is cured.  You won’t believe, I realized that all this I am doing was to make my parents happy, that they can stand in the society and proclaim to the world, “My son is normal”. 

He went silent. I did not wanted to interrupt his thoughts. My mind raced towards my own unconscious bias of few minutes ago. As he took the exit and entered the downtown area of Chicago, he told me that although he had a girlfriend and he pretended to be normal, there was a huge trauma going on within his mind. His entire days went by thinking that somehow, somewhere deep inside he was lying. He was lying to his girlfriend, to his parents, to each and every friend he has or ever had and to the society at large. But most important, he was lying to every single gay and lesbian in the world, making their cause weak and he was lying to himself! When he broke with his first girlfriend, he went ahead and proposed another one. But that turned out to be the catalyst he was waiting for. His new girlfriend understood the huge emotional imbalance Paul was going through. And she gave him a deadline. He has to come clean and declare “Himself to Himself” and accept the reality within one year, or she would declare it to the world. He was left with no choice.

‘Finally, consciousness dawned on me and it took me a great amount of courage to accept my own reality. When I told my girl friend that I am going to come out of it and declare who I truly am, it felt like, I am confessing my sins. In truth, I was confessing to my own reality. There is no point in lying to my own self. If there is a true God anywhere, I felt, not accepting my own reality is an insult to His own design. This is the way I am and even from most conservative Christians stand point, I am no one to challenge His design.’

I looked at the GPS as it announced that my destination is half a mile away. The pink pearl necklace right above his GPS was hanging proudly, announcing the arrival of Paul.

Paul was no way upset or ashamed while narrating his life story. There was both an acceptance and a sense of achievement in his demeanor. But most importantly, he seemed completely with himself throughout the trip. I never got a chance to ask him about what made him choose Uber and if he has some other profession or not. But whatever it might be, I feel, in his life’s journey so far, he truly has arrived.

His girl friend, I felt was her one true friend. To her and through her, he was able to achieve a true confession of his sin of hiding his true identity.