Gray Feelings

When I was in middle school, I had a group of friends who started being interested in dating. I can still remember it like it just happened. My group of friends all gathered in a huddle, when it happened. Stacy asked who we all had a crush on. That word felt like a ton of weight fell on my shoulder. Crush. Why would anyone want to like someone to the point where it felt suffocating? But still, she persisted. I sat listening to each friend announce who their crush was and found the whole thing absurd. They didn’t even know these people, lost shadows in the crowd of the hallways. Why would they ever have a crush on them? These crushes didn’t even know who they were. My friends spoke of beating hearts and sweating palms, but I had never experienced any of that. I didn’t feel a rush of butterflies when my hands ghosted across another’s. I didn’t feel the heat of blush burning my face when someone looked at me in that way.

“Well?” Stacy asked.

I was suddenly aware that everyone was looking at me. It was my turn. I want to say a name, any name that I could think of, just so Stacy would leave me alone about it. But I also knew that if I said a name, then that person with the name would eventually find out that I had a crush on them. I didn’t have a crush on anyone. I was confused as to why we had gone from playing with Barbie and American Girl dolls to crushing. It all seemed so sudden to me, but not to them. My friends took this very seriously, especially Stacy.

“J.T.T., obviously.” I answered, rolling my eyes as if it wasn’t a cop-out. Jonathan Taylor-Thomas was one of the heartthrobs of the time, and he felt like an easy answer. It wasn’t like J.T.T. was going to come to my school and confront me about what I had said. I was never going to meet him in person. But at that moment, I could feel my friends slipping away from me. I could no longer relate to them. We went from playing pretend to figuring out how to ask our crushes out. I couldn’t talk to them about it, because at that time, there were no words for what I was experiencing. I don’t remember there being anyone out at my school, and the only person I knew that was a part of the LGBTQ+ community was my aunt.

My brother used to joke that she was more like an uncle, which I never found funny. My aunt was always just my aunt. When I found out that she liked women, it wasn’t a big spectacle. I was over at some big family gathering, Christmas or Thanksgiving, or something that meant we were obligated to see the rest of the family. When I noticed my aunt with a woman that I had never seen before, I asked the person closest to me who she was. They answered simply, “That’s your aunt’s girlfriend” and I never thought anything more about it.

That was it. No fancy frills. No over-explaining. Just a simple answer and I accepted it. In my eyes, there was nothing wrong with my aunt dating women. It had never computed in my brain that there would be something wrong.

Let me be clear. My family are not good people. I can remember a time when my grandmother warned me not to date an African American boy because of the way he looked. I understood that she was racist in that very moment. She would always make comments like that, and nobody said anything. My own mother would parrot my grandmother’s bigoted words. My entire family would constantly say horrible things about my aunt, all because she was gay. It made me absolutely say nothing about the fact that I didn’t want to date anyone, I felt no allure toward any type of person regardless of anything. I don’t know if these bigoted ideals are taught, because I certainly never accepted those lessons. But I always felt like an outsider in my family.

I felt like I was on an island of my own accord, like there was something wrong with me. I even tried to date in hopes that I would figure it out as I went. But nothing ever changed for me. I never felt that spark like most people do. Even though I said that J.T.T. was my crush, I didn’t particularly feel any crushing emotions about him. His character on Home Improvement was funny, and he seemed interesting, but even if he somehow appeared in my middle school to ask me out, I probably would’ve said no.

But as I was standing in front of my friends, in that awkward age in life, I felt like I had to pretend to fit in. I couldn’t tell them that I didn’t understand what a crush was, let alone want to have one. I couldn’t tell them that I had no interest in going on a date with someone, the very idea gave me chills. Not the good kind of chills, the kind that are an omen to something bad happening in the future. I didn’t feel that kind of childhood crush pull, the kind that they say everyone has.

I was just…me. An awkward girl with a too-big obsession with the Victorian era all because of a doll. I wasn’t interesting in kissing anyone, and that’s always been a part of who I am.