Can the closet have a case when honest relationships are involved?

By J. Corbett Holmes

“Come out, come out wherever you are!” the good witch chirps. And the munchkins scurry out from beneath houses and behind sugary bushes. As a child, their task seemed simple enough. They appeared to relish their requested task. So like the spry, little munchkins—when it was my turn—I approached coming out with the same simplicity. And for years, I happily went about my gay life, until one day I got lost and fell—in love!

It was just after my fall that I began to develop a hearing problem. It seemed I suffered from a raging case of selective hearing. So when certain statements arose, it was easy to disregard them. I didn’t care—my vision was still good. So as I gazed across the table at the most beautiful man I’d come across in years, I took the more discerning path of interpretation when processing his declaration. The boner in my pants wasn’t helping. Nor was my second martini.

“Well,” he continued, “I have a few gay friends, but I’m not really out at work and my family doesn’t know either. It just hasn’t been the right time to come out to them.” He said it all so quickly—to get it out of the way faster, I suppose. He was considerate in that way. It helped to break my fall—or so I thought.

I was still suffering from my initial fall when I locked myself in the house with a stack of DVDs and a quart of ice cream. I didn’t believe I would ever find my way back. Then came The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was a book I’d loved as a child, and now here it was, as a movie, to remind me where I’d come from and how far I’d made it. And just like little Lucy (the girl in the story), I never imagined that exploring a dark—albeit beautiful—closet would lead me to a frosty place filled with so much deceit and trepidation. At first, like Lucy, I was only able to see the closet as a beautiful, mid-century house up on a hill, filled with nothing but amazing possibilities. It seemed so cozy. But, the closet’s interior was so dark, I could barely my see own hands. Still, I didn’t care.

Then it happened—the invasion of the “wardrobe warriors”! “Hey I really want you to meet Scott!” he said. I‘d heard about Scott before. He was the one before me—the one who had helped Steve through his divorce several years earlier. He was also married. In fact, he is still married—with two children!

Meeting the ex is never easy. But, crippled by my selective hearing problem, I agreed to have a social night in the closet with my dream man and his ex! Seated at a booth in a secluded bar near the foothills of Pasadena, I was introduced to the wardrobe warriors. There were two—Scott and his “special friend.” Banter began, but it wasn’t the banter I was used to. So I just smiled, muddled through, and drank a lot! While guzzling down my second martini, Scott inquired, “So, what do you think about dating someone in the closet?” Ouch! It felt like someone had just slammed my fingers in the closet door!

I suppose, from being out for so long, I was used to negotiating through uncomfortable inquisitions. “Well,” I began, taking another big gulp of my martini, “He’s not really in the closet! I mean we go out and do stuff, and nothing is a secret when we’re together.” I tried to make it sound as effortless as I could, but I’d just been outed by someone in the closet.

As the liquor continued to flow, so did the conversation. I soon discovered that the wardrobe warriors had met at soccer practice. Their kids played on the same soccer team. Essentially, they were closeted-gay-soccer-dads, who had created their own playing field—devising their own rules! But as disbelief set in, so did my third martini. Inevitably, each time I started to feel the claustrophobic confines of the huge closet, all I had to do was gaze across the table, and my vision was quickly readjusted by an out-of-focus infatuation. Sadly, though, I soon discovered that being closeted was only the beginning of my dream man’s lying, which eventually forced my escape from the dark hidden recesses of his closet.

It was eery the memories the movie brought back—my dreams as a child, my early flight out of the closet, and the discovery of a new land filled with my magical (gay) brothers and sisters—not to mention a few wars with evil people trying to rule the land. And now like Edmund (the little boy in the story), I wondered if I too had sold out my (gay) brethren in pursuit of some (eye) candy? Had I happily elected to “hide out” in the name of lusty affections? Or had he sold me out, by choosing to stay in? Do those in need of the protection of the closet secretly enjoy the game of hide-and-seek, only choosing to come out when it comes to “play” time? Thus, leaving the rest of us to wage war upon the religious right for basic rights like our place at the altar.

Like all secrets—or the children’s fantastical trip into a closeted world—deception only begets more deception. Thus the cozy, closeted life we’d created became fraught with far too many skeletons.

As for the children, and this one broken-hearted adult, our adventures into the closet only made us stronger, smarter adults with a better understanding of the world. It seems sometimes you have to go deeper into the closet to come out with a greater appreciation of your gay life.

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