If I’d known that being gay could mean this, I would have come out a lot sooner.
The young man stood across from me in the small, perfectly manicured yard of a decadent home that hugged slopes of Hollywood Hills. He was around 20 years old, awkwardly holding a wine glass, and this was his first big gay Hollywood party. He was from a small town in a midwest state. It might have been Ohio, or perhaps Minnesota; the details don’t matter, since this story isn’t really about him.