When I came out to my mom, I told her I might still marry a woman. I wasn’t talking about sex. Forever and ever and happily ever after doesn’t necessarily pertain to sex. I have loved so many women in the way that every husband should love his wife. And you can have sex with a total stranger. I just didn’t know if I would ever find sex and love in one person.

I hadn’t felt anything even close to love at first sight since watching Richard Gere in Pretty Woman at the tender age of six. That’s when I first realized there was something different about me. Seeing Julia Roberts get swept off her feet by her rich and handsome client, I wanted to be her so badly because he did something so special to me. Kissing seemed like a weird thing to do, but I knew if I were going to do it, it would be with Richard Gere.

I love money and, as my mother taught me, nice things, but through my experience that summer with Tarasova, I got in touch with my inner Russian-ness. And Russians, in general, don’t have money. So I was fine with not having it, either. I wore my poverty as a badge of a prideful club.