Welcome to Jestertunes! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Feel free to leave a comment, read through the archives, and enjoy yourself. See you again real soon!

“When did you know you were gay?”

I get asked this question fairly often… always by some slightly-too-interested straight guy. My standard answer when I want the conversation to be over is usually, “The day my best friend played a special game of Truth or Dare with me on my 13th birthday.” It’s a pretty effective way of ending the conversation without giving them too much information, but enough to make them think and blush.

Truthfully, it was long before that fateful Truth or Dare game.

I always felt like an outsider, different from the ‘normals’ around me. I remember being about 5 years old and injuring my foot, Mom and Dad decided I should have it X-Rayed. I got quite upset by their explanation of how an X-Ray machine would “take a picture of my insides.” I was afraid that the doctor would take one look at the picture and know that I was an alien from another planet.

That’s right, an ALIEN from another PLANET. I was stunned to discover that there was nothing unusual about my X-Ray. I was certain that I would have three hearts, or my brain would be in my stomach.

I can only guess that this was the earliest manifestation of my homosexuality. That and a love of Karen Carpenter.