It’s a true story. I was just reminded of part of it by a post elsewhere, and it got me thinking about the people involved and the impact it all had on me.

This seemed like a good place for it, even though it isn’t really like most of the posts I see here.

Anyway.

Years and years ago, the 80s happened. I know that’s hard to believe, but it did. Towards the end of it, a chain of events led to me meeting two people.

A friend of mine had the hots for this girl, a senior. We were sophomores.

That friend introduced us, and wouldn’t you know it, we hit it off in the way my friend wished had happened for him. It was cool, just a bit sad for him.

This girl, it turns out, was into boys and girls. She introduced me to the person she was dating at that time. This person was, though we didn’t know the terminology then, the first trans person I ever met. Now, he had been assigned female at birth, and back then said that he had been born intersex. Well, he called it something else, but I’m not going to use it here. Later on, he did say that that was more wishful thinking than reality, but that’s not important.

Well, we hit it off as friends. Pretty damn good ones. Good enough to share the girl, both separately and together. The together part was really awkward and not fun for either me or him, but we made it work anyway.

Eventually, everyone realized it wasn’t going to work as a three way partnership, and we were all okay with that. We stayed friends for years, with a handful of fun nights trying things out again just to see if it might be fun as we aged.

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But that’s not the real story.

See, in terms of me, the experimentation and self discovery wasn’t just sexual. They changed me.

Before I met the girl, my familiarity with things sapphic was damn near only from erotica and skinemax movies. And I was woefully ignorant of anything else about what was then called LGB issues. I’d never met a gay guy that I knew of. Turns out I had, but they weren’t out until much later.

My friends took me along to parties and places that I would never have been able to go on my own. Partially because I didn’t know they existed, and partly because I was a sophomore when it all started. Your typical 15 year old isn’t getting into gay bars and brunches and house parties.

But, under the aegis of these two 17 and 18 year olds, I was introduced to what did a good impression of the area’s gay scene.

This meant that I was hanging out with folks of all ages, all persuasions, getting into bars and clubs and being accepted way before anyone else I knew was thinking it might be nice to go to bars and parties someday.

This may seem like a bad thing. But my friends, and their friends, looked out for me. I wouldn’t have accepted any drinks because I’ve never liked alcohol, but nobody offered them. Nobody offered me anything but a dance until much closer to 18.

It may not be apparent how powerful that was. The acceptance. Jr high had been hell for me. I was abused, assaulted, insulted and bullied every fucking day for years. It wasn’t until the last year there that I had any friends at all.

But here I was in high school, and people liked me, and were happy to see me. And all these amazing people were gay, or bi, or in drag, or trans, though nobody was using the term then and there.

I don’t know if anyone that hasn’t experienced that kind of cruelty and then gained the acceptance of an entire new world can get exactly how powerful that feeling is. It was transformational. I’ll not saying I got along with every single person, I didn’t. But they still treated me with respect and kindness, and it was obvious I was welcome there despite individuals not liking me, or vice versa.

If they hadn’t given me access to that world, I may not have later on become friends with my best friend, that’s still my best friend now, because there’s a possibility that I wouldn’t have accepted him fully when he came out. I like to think I would have, but I can’t pretend I was always perfectly behaved and open minded in the early days of my introduction to gay culture. I had a lot of ignorance and some preconceptions to move past. If my best friend had been the person that was my first step in understanding such things, I might well have fucked it up and not had him in my life all these years.

And, my trans friend, he was the first person to ever teach me how to fight. You’d think with us being pretty damn country, it would have happened one way or another, but it never did. My dad, later, would tell me he was scared I might hurt somebody because I was much stronger than I realized, but that’s tangential.

My trans friend had learned some martial arts and had zero fucking fear of using it. And he taught me some. Not a lot, because he was nowhere near knowing enough to really teach, but enough that I discovered I could fight if I had to. Enough that, later on, when I needed to fight better, it led to me diving into martial arts seriously for most of my twenties and up to my late thirties when disability fucked that up.

The girl that we both dated taught me I was worthy of being wanted, romantically and sexually. She taught me a lot in that regard that led to me being the kind of person that can stay friends with exes. She started me down a road to self confidence and a sense of joy with partners that was part of what my wife fell in love with.

Those two were perhaps the most influential factors that weren’t relatives in me having most of the good things I’ve experienced in life. And I didn’t make those connections until tonight. Well, this morning now lol. I can look back at all if the time I spent with them and draw a very clear line to who I am, and many of the things I hold dear.

Now, life happens, and we drifted apart. Mostly after I graduated high school and started working, but it did take a couple of years. We still run into each other, though they broke up by the mid nineties. And we say hi, and chat a little, but that’s usually it.

But next time, I owe them a great big thank you