Age Ain't Nothing But A Number (Um, NOT.)

So, here’s the entry that I’ve wanted and simultaneously really not wanted to post. Personal? Oh yes.

I’ve been dating a guy for a few weeks now. We met earlier in November under circumstances that are rather unusual for me. Here’s the story:

I saw him standing on the L platform at 14^th Street and we made eye contact. And made eye contact again. And one more time. Once in the train, he sat next to me. What followed were the most tense eight or so minutes of my life. We didn’t talk, and we couldn’t really make any more eye contact because we were next to each other, but there was a tension between us that was almost unbearable. I knew I was attracted to him, but I didn’t know if it was reciprocated. He moved his hand to his leg so that it was about an inch away from my leg. I took that as my sign and as I was putting my iPod away at Grand Street, I turned and shakily asked him for his number. He looked at me blankly and said, “What?” and I immediately wanted to run away. He’s straight, I thought. It turns out, he didn’t understand what I said. Because he's German and I'm a mumbler. So I got the number, and he was interested, and yada yada dating.

So now that I’m more into the blog here, I can look at this more in terms of the relevant isms, I think. Of course, straight people can typically ask each other out without having to consider half the things I was thinking at the time. These include and are not limited to: “What if he’s straight?”, “What if someone overhears us?”, “What if he laughs or punches me?”. Part of that is my own fear of rejection, but there’s a safety component there that isn’t something that straight people have to be terribly concerned about. It was the L train, which has kind of a cosmopolitan reputation (or least as much as a subway line can have one), but it’s not like it’s a gay bar where I can be sure that he isn’t straight. We had to use an unspoken language to express our mutual interest, and even that was far from foolproof.

Now having seen him more than a few times, I’m becoming aware of my reluctance to talk about him with other people, particularly at school and with my family. Not that I think they wouldn’t be accepting of me dating somebody. But we don’t really represent the typical gay couple, mostly because he is considerably older than I am. I feel like I would be met with a lot of resistance if I divulged our age difference. I don’t think that resistance is due to direct homophobia, exactly, but I think it comes from an inability to neatly categorize the relationship. Or it might just come from genuine disgust about the age difference; disgust aimed at him for being a perv and at me for seeking that out. Such a reaction is completely mired in presumptions of gender and class along with sexuality. It definitely says something that I’m feeling the weight of all of this without having even told most people. I’m already programmed.