Happy stuff is really pretty boring for everyone except the people involved (this is the reason why graduation ceremonies are boring but car crashes sren't, and why newspapers write about floods and robberies, but not sunsets and birthday parties).

For a second, I wasn’t sure what else to say. I wanted to stand up in that rowboat and shout that we’d be together forever, because I thought it might make him feel better, and also because that’s the way I felt. But that seemed wrong somehow. Promising him my undying love because I thought it would make him feel better was just a variation on the whole dating-him-out-of-pity thing. It was the exact opposite of what he was asking me for. Plus you’re never supposed to stand up in a rowboat.

I know that opposites attract, but who the hell wants to spend time with an opposite? What in the world would you talk about?

My kids and I kept walking toward the door. You’ve heard the expression “a bull in a china shop”? That’s what I felt like. I even imagined I heard glass breaking all around me. Except it wasn’t me or anyone else knocking over all the gift shop’s delicate glass trinkets. No, it was my kids’ opinions of me, each one falling to the ground and shattering into a thousand unsalvageable pieces.

The bane of almost every gay boy’s existence: sometimes the biggest high school jerks are also the hunkiest.

“Fine,” I said to myself, following after them. I couldn’t very well have them walking into quicksand. (Or could I? It would sure solve a lot of my problems.)

One of my best friends had hooked up with the object of my affections, and my other best friend was so mad that he was barely even talking to me. I was not having a good week.

“How hot?” I said. “How heavy?”
“Pretty hot, pretty heavy,” Min said. “I mean, we didn’t do everything. But we did stuff. Well, mostly he did stuff. Which I guess means I’m a slut, but not a whore.”

I tried my best to ignore those teenage guys. They had no way of knowing I was gay—not as long as I kept myself from drooling (difficult, but doable).

Let’s face it: being openly gay at age sixteen really, really sucks. (And if you’re saying, Well, then, why did you come out? it’s not like being gay and closeted at age sixteen is some carnival in the cafeteria.)