I Dated a Closeted Gay Man

The experience changed me forever

How we met

He was cute though not quite handsome. Polite but not exactly well-polished. Smart but not necessarily intelligent. He had a friendly but determined demeanor; his glasses flowed nicely with his smile, balancing his “nerd” appearance and youthful looks.

Roderick — a translation of his actual name, close enough to ensure his privacy while allowing me the morphological analysis — was not mighty but dreamed of being. He did not rule, although he tried to be a leader. He was not admired but connected well with people who inspired him. I seemed to be one of those: a muse.

His insecurity was apparent when rather than flirting with me, he stared at me when he thought I could not notice. He smiled at me with his eyes. We bumped into each other way too frequently — I am sure he planned our “unexpected” encounters. He confided in a friend about having a crush on me. That friend hinted to me about his interest. I decided to make it easy for him to make a move by sticking around a little longer when we were in the same place at the same time and even inviting him to my parties.

I was not interested in him romantically as much as I was intrigued by his platonic ways. It never occurred to me that one’s sexuality could be an obstacle to pursuing love. Little by little, we started a friendship, although it was apparent that his feelings for me were strong. So, I decided to make a move myself. I invited him to my place for a drink, just the two of us. At that point, my attraction to him was growing, and I knew we had enough common interests to be dating.

We had an awkward first date, although I tried my best to make him relax. We talked about politics, books, and music for hours. And then, he left, with a peck on my cheek. I felt confused but done: I had given this a good shot, and it had not worked. We could keep our friendship, and I would ignore people who told me he was in love with me.

The following day, he called me. I was surprised. “I left things unsaid, and they are important,” he said. I thought maybe he wanted to declare feelings he was too nervous to admit the night before. Or perhaps he wanted to clarify that I was getting the wrong impression. What mattered was, there would be no more blurred lines between us. I was excited to find out which direction we were going next, either together or apart.

We had our second date, which was another awkward one. This time, I almost walked away, frustrated. His indecision was exhausting, and I had other things to do, other love interests to pursue. When it was evident that I was about to peck him myself and close that book entirely, he kissed me. But not before asking me permission, followed by asking me, “Are you sure about this?” No, I was not sure about that. But it was too late to hesitate.

We were off to a strange start, I thought, hoping that those interests we had in common and our mutual attractiveness meant we were right for each other — if not forever, at least for some time. But a sense of familiarity never settled between us. No day we spent together was completely free of a certain tension in the air that I could not quite put my finger on.

His persona

He carried himself as an old soul in a young man’s body. He wore a brown varsity leather jacket on his frail figure and semi-rimless eyeglasses frames on his pale face contrasting his dark hair. He behaved in public as though he was already a Court Judge — his dream job for when we finished Law School — measured his words, listened attentively, and never had a second drink. His lack of sexual experience was, to me, nothing but that — I was his first official girlfriend after all.

But there was a disconnect from his beginner lover skills and the Casanova tales he braggingly recounted unsolicited about women he claimed he courted before we met. At least one of those women existed in reality, although I will never be sure whether the passionate sex encounters with her were nothing but made-up stories.

She was his best friend’s on-and-off girlfriend, which made him kind of a jerk. Nonetheless, they were all friends. Anyway, I did not want to know how good she was in bed or hear about how they sneaked behind his friend’s back to fool around numerous times. But he did not stop recalling that affair until I told him to drop the topic entirely.

She was not the only woman he brought up. He talked about others, either to make me jealous or to indulge himself with passive-aggressive comments. One evening at a cafeteria, he pointed at one of his classmates and said, “She is in my contracts class. She obviously has a great body. Our teacher stares at her breasts the entire hour.” He also went on and on about an ingrown hair some girl had, which “disgusted” him. Despite being a size small, with a lean and toned physique thanks to several years of ballet, I started developing insecurities about my body. I am sure that was because of his comments about other girls’ looks. My confidence weakened, and I began to change.

Over time, he started gaslighting me. He would ask me to pick him up and be gone when I arrived. He would leave me a message to call him back but have his mother answer the phone to tell me he was asleep or out with a friend. If I asked him where he went, he defended his “freedom.” He seemed to enjoy making me wonder whether he was cheating, all the while reassuring me that he enjoyed spending time with his male friends, and I should understand that. When I suggested inviting “the guys” over, he resisted the idea, sometimes even acting offended. He implied I was not good enough to join him because I am a woman.

Toxic behavior

Three months into the relationship, I was tired. I decided to break up when we joined two other couples for dinner at a restaurant. Roderick went around the table, asking everyone what they wanted to order, and ignored me completely. When the waiter came up, he tried to pick what I was going to eat. So I made a scene, and we fought. How could I suspect he was gay when he conducted himself like a macho?

But that was not the end. He had a strange way of apologizing. It started with subliminal threats — we could go separate ways, but I would regret it because it was a poor decision. Then, he would open up about something personal, sometimes even shedding a tear. Finally, he would shift the topic to me by telling me how inappropriate I was. That could be because I seemed too happy around other men or because I did not respect his “freedom to just be a guy sometimes,” which sounded both immature and excessive.

His tactics kept us together for another six months. I found myself trapped into co-dependency and started spending more time studying to keep my mind off him. On random occasions, after going out, we would end up in the car discussing terms of splitting up as if we were in court: we presented oral arguments and evidence, and he — not me — would be the judge.

I settled: this was my relationship. It was not perfect, but that was fine. I just had to go through Law School and not overthink it. If he decided to leave, that was probably good. I did not feel I had the power to do it myself, and I did not want to waste any more energy fighting. I thought if we did end up separate, at least I was not angry, and we did not have to resent each other.

In “7 Stages of Gaslighting in a Relationship — How gaslighters emotionally manipulate, traumatize, and exploit victims,” Preston Ni M.S.B.A. wrote about how this type of wangle takes place:

“The temporary mildness is often a calculated maneuver intended to instill complacency and have the victim’s guard down before the next act of gaslighting begins. With this tactic, the gaslighter also further reinforces a codependent relationship.”

Other than stories about mysterious women, Roderick had jokes. They were not funny but cringe-worthy, homophobic jokes. He would randomly decide to tell one at a table, and I would sink in my chair, hoping the floor would swallow me. Both the sex adventure tales and the jokes were an obsession of his — he had one for every occasion, and my embarrassment made no difference.

In hindsight, those were probably clues about his hidden sexual identity. Although homophobic behavior does not mean someone is gay, his jokes were consistently about closeted gay men being accidentally outed — and humiliated — due to their clumsiness. When I recall those moments, I wonder if those performances’ goal was to create a character to separate himself from his most repressed wishes and deepest fears.

In a 2004 article for the Psychiatric Times on the topic, Dr. Jack Drescher wrote:

Closeted individuals frequently cannot acknowledge to themselves, let alone to others, their homoerotic feelings, attractions and fantasies. Their homosexuality is so unacceptable that it must be kept out of conscious awareness and cannot be integrated into their public persona. Consequently, these feelings must be dissociated from the self and hidden from others.

The pain

I cannot imagine the pain of living with a secret or in denial of who you are. I was hazed and immature, also trying to hide behind a mask of normalcy. I would just live one day at a time, working, studying, and talking to my friends about anything but relationships until I could figure out what to do about Roderick.

For him, I imagine, I started as a novelty — the muse — and turned into a chore. Perhaps he wanted to keep a platonic story between us, and I pushed him into my need for intimacy. Or, maybe I was the ideal girlfriend: my sexually active life with the opposite gender conveniently fit a role he had for a woman in his life. In that case, I was not as conforming as he wished.

In a nutshell, his challenges did not regard me. They were about himself. The controlling behavior, the demand for “freedom,” and the criticism of my looks were likely projections of his insecurities. He felt better about himself by crushing my soul. Making me feel less than that confident girl he met awarded him a feeling of superiority.

As Dr. Nisha Gupta wrote in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, “closeted gay individuals employ similar defenses and suffer similar traumas as they attempt to survive within a persecutory social world.”

Leaving Roderick left me bewildered and emotionally bruised. But oddly, it strengthened my relationship with my openly gay friends, who helped me understand him and the impact our time together had on me — I still catch myself sometimes longing for a man’s approval of my looks and manners. I am aware of how my once elegant posture turned into a shy hump, probably from the time I walked too tall for my boyfriend’s taste.

As I grow older, I learn not to ignore the psychosomatic effects of emotional scars on physical health. For that reason, I tend to relive sad memories from time to time in order to find out more about myself. Whether I wanted it or not, he became part of who I am, like a bad tattoo — it would be more painful to remove it than just living with it, and perhaps looking at it sometimes, to remind myself of why it’s there.

Dating a closeted gay man changed me from the confident, bubbly girl I was into someone a little rougher around the edges. But that is not necessarily bad, and I do not resent him anymore. I am sure Roderick changed too. I know he loved me, but he was not fully capable of experiencing love freely. Perhaps he will never be.

Despite the struggle of those months, I became emotionally stronger thanks to that relationship. I can now notice passive-aggressive behavior and respond accordingly when necessary. Moreover, I spend more time pursuing happiness for myself rather than making sure someone I care about is happy with me. I have a clear understanding that pleasing a difficult person should not be anyone’s priority. Most importantly, I accept people as they come, for they are on a journey themselves, and it may be a tough one.

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