(Dis)connection

Despite my initial star-struck sightings of Matt, I don’t remember the first time I actually met him, but by the end of freshman year we were hanging out a little. He had started dating a girl on my floor pretty much before classes even started. I wanted to dislike her but she was just so dang nice. I even remember talking to her about her dates with Matt; I was encouraged because she seemed lukewarm about him. She was still attached to her ex-boyfriend. I was thrilled when they finally broke up second semester and Matt and I began to spend a little bit of time together.  

By sophomore year, we had mutual friends and were hanging out a lot more. We spent a lot of time with our one friend who lived off campus in a big fancy apartment. Since we weren’t drinking and partying, we had to come up with other ways to entertain ourselves, mainly watching movies, playing games and making stupid videos. I remember one time we came up with an entire plot, gave each other character names — I was Sidney and Matt was Forrest — and memorized lines. We filmed a scene wherein our kidnap victim, who was catatonic (I have no idea why), made her daring escape. Even though she was in a stupor and could not move her muscles, she drove a car in the parking garage underneath our friend’s apartment building. The video shows her in the driver’s seat completely still while the car is moving. I think we had her control the gas pedal while Matt was crouched down in the passenger seat wheel well steering the car. This was the epitome of hilarity to us.  

While I had fun with Matt, I remember wishing for a connection with him. I wrote my best friend from high school, the closeted gay one, that I was hanging out with this great guy, getting to know him and wanting so much to connect with him. I also talked about it with my Wheaton friends as I grew more and more down about it.

I wondered if Matt was just not deep enough for me, was not serious enough and too interested in just having a good time.  

We were not even dating and I was already doing that thing I’d done with Samuel, pushing him away and pulling him in. I distanced myself from him because I did not really relate to him. This was the language (“connect,” “relate”) I used back then because I didn’t have the context, knowledge, or experience to realize what was missing. I was totally drawn to his good looks, but I did not feel emotionally or sexually attracted to him.  

But then he did something that made me think maybe I’d been wrong about him. The end of each school year was always a big deal. The atmosphere was full of possibility. Everyone was super excited for their big summer plans. Campus was abuzz with students running around doing last minute errands, packing up, and saying goodbye to friends. The summer after my sophomore year, I was headed to the Philippines for a missions trip. Matt and I met one last time to say our goodbyes and he gave me a book he had spent over a month making, full of his drawings, poems, pictures and words of wisdom to serve as encouragement to me while I was in Manila and also to remind me of how much he cared for me. My heart melted. My parents picked me up from Wheaton and on the 12-hour drive back to Kansas, this little Enneagram Type Four was in a state of euphoria. I read and re-read those pages. I could not believe he would do something so thoughtful and deep and caring for me.

THIS was the emotional connection I had been craving with him. 

We wrote letters to each other over the summer, and once we returned to Wheaton for our junior year, we started dating. I was nervous to see him, knowing that our relationship would have a new element — physical stuff. In my journal from that time period, I write, “I’m so nervous to see him. I feel so weird whenever a guy starts to like me, etc. It makes me feel weird and unnatural – I feel so inexperienced.” In that same entry, as I continue to hash out my fears and doubts about Matt and kissing and sex, I state, “The thought has crossed my mind that I’m gay. I don’t feel that I am – I just haven’t met a whole lot of guys I’d like to date.” I am floored that I wrote this in college, that I named it, actually wrote the word “gay.” I have no memory of feeling this way so early on but there you have it.  

I put off our first kiss for as long as I could. I wanted to hide my inexperience. I was ashamed of it; he seemed so confident and he was so cute and he must have had a ton of experience with girls. It wasn’t until a couple months or more into our junior year that we finally kissed…an awkward out-of-sync kiss on a soccer field. I guess it wasn’t so bad, because he stuck around.  

My journal is full of my thoughts about my awakening sexual desires as we advance from kissing to making out and groping and pushing the boundaries like good Christian kids do. I wonder why one time I feel on fire and the next I feel cold as ice. I write, “I didn’t realize how differing I’d be in how much I enjoy making out with Matt.” (I know, I am a master of the English language.) I go on to state that my roommate talks about how great it is kissing her boyfriend and this makes me feel discouraged that I don’t always feel the same way.  

In those first months that Matt and I dated, I had many questions and doubts about my relationship with him. One day I felt confident about being with him and the next I felt down and apathetic about it. He felt strongly about me and I was hesitant to get too involved. I never experienced the honeymoon phase. No rose-colored glasses for me. I knew I was not experiencing all the feels accompanied with the first blush of love like Brenda and Dylan on 90210 or Leo and Kate in Titanic. 

But I didn’t think I was that much different from anyone else. I saw my friends have ups and downs in their relationships. I saw them break up and get back together. Often, initially, one person in the relationship felt more committed than the other. I did not think I was unusual.

Even though I wonder in my journal if I might be gay, I did not really think that was the case. It was not something that concerned me.

I do not mention same-sex desires in my journal again…until six or seven years later. However, in hindsight, my fickleness with Matt had, at least, something (okay, a lot), to do with my lack of attraction to men and my burgeoning attractions to women. 

Kudos to Matt…he was patient and persistent. My feeling grew for him. I got over my shyness about my inexperience and adjusted to being part of a couple. Eventually, we ended up in a committed dating relationship.