Forbidden Attraction

All through high school I played sports was involved in J.R.O.T.C. and that helped me become fairly popular. I had the typical high school experience, I went to parties, dated quite a bit, and in general lived the normal high school experience.

One day a friend of mine told me that a guy in my school had a crush on me. At first I thought that she was trying to play a joke on me but she swore that it was the truth. I was truly shocked when she told me this. First, I did not think that he was gay or even questioning his sexuality. Second, I thought why would he have a crush on me, I was straight and back then I thought that a gay person would only have a crush on another gay person.

I felt ashamed that he had a crush on me and I did not know how to handle this situation. I instantly got very defensive stating that fact that I was not gay. Then I began to wonder what would happen to me if anyone else knew this secret. Would the rest of the jocks hate me or beat me up? I was terrified that the rest of the school would think that I was also gay.

I had a few different ideas on how to confront this problem. I thought that I could solve this problem the same way I would handle a problem on the football field. By getting into a fight. But since it was near the end of my senior year I figured that being kicked out of school would not be a good idea. I thought about publicly shaming him in front of the whole school, but that would expose his crush on me. Ultimately my decision was that I would avoid him. That meant no more talking with him in the halls or in any class.

After becoming older and wiser I can now see that I made a mistake with the decision I made. I should not have ignored my friend. I cannot imagine the shame that he felt after I started to treat him differently and I now feel ashamed for the way I treated him. He was brave to tell anyone about his feelings and I disrespected his bravery.
-- Israel