“I Wasn’t That Happy” by Lem

This morning Lacey had a dream inspired by someone or something about me. They argued that essentially I was too happy to be straight. Like when I went to Europe.

But…first of all, I was never that truly happy. I was only hyping myself up the whole time to try to be that happy. I never actually was that happy.

And second of all, I was young, optimistic and trying to be gay. Which sounds so far-fetched I guess. But I genuinely believed I was a homosexual. I felt cursed to be gay, so I decided to make the best of it and try to be really happy. The happiest I could be.

(Adult content below)

I tried to make my relationship with Jack as real a romantic and sexual relationship as possible. I tried to stomach as much sexual intimacy and contact as possible, but the most I could manage was giving oral sex. It was one of the least icky things I could manage to do that would still satisfy him.

I wasn’t that happy. Sorry.

A lot of the narrative on the vacation to Europe was phony and contrived to be happy not reflective of actual happiness, much like my constant smiles. And a lot of my attempts to enjoy sex with Jack at one point were done at first with some joy and anticipation as I thought they’d be better if I just tried more. At first I was apprehensive. But then months later I reasoned I’d just done it wrong. We weren’t having sex regularly. I “gave head” with some regularity, begrudgingly, but that was all. No kissing, no hugging, no holding each other, no holding hands. He’d sometimes try to kiss or hold hands or hug, but I hated it. I especially hated cuddling. I also loathed anal sex. …So…the times we did those things were awkward and deeply unpleasant and so they were few and far between.

Jack didn’t seem to realize that that was weird. That we never did much of anything physical other than me giving him oral sex or hand jobs. Maybe because Jack believed he had some power over me by maintaining that he wasn’t homosexual. But, in reality, that pretension also gave me a way out of being more sexual or intimate than I could stomach before (sometimes literally) vomiting.

We only ever tried anal sex about five times in all the years I was in his company. All those times were vile.

Yes, I look and sound happy. Too happy at his wedding to make any sense unless I was secretly straight.

The truth is in my micro-gestures and what I didn’t say.

I look happy in my photos in my youth with Jack…but not happy enough. The only photos really all that convincing are the ones near the very beginning of our interactions. …But…I’m never smiling with real joy or excitement or peace or love. I was a very happy person to begin with by nature so it wasn’t that difficult to smile. But you don’t see me looking in love…ever. It’s always distant and tentative…despite my smiles. And therefore nobody alive likely knows my real personality outside of my family. …I’m a cheerful person to an extent, but I had depth too. I was capable of being extraordinarily happy where smiling isn’t possible in a fallen world. I never felt that content.

Why didn’t I more? Why aren’t there droves of love letters? None of that would have had to be public. But if I was in love I should have wanted to write it somewhere, most likely. Out of sheer desperation to declare it in some way. To express my elation somewhere safe, like a private journal. …At least I should have found clever ways to suggest I was in love in my photos with Jack in my scrapbook. Not just merry, hyped-up bullshit. Not just happy-go-lucky childish nonsense. There should have been pronouncements of deep love. Simple one word things even. Things like, “He’s with me!” under a photo of the two of us. Or, “There’s no one like him!” under a photo of just Jack. “Love!” under a photo of us together. Maybe a photo of him sleeping in bed or after making love (which never happened once). Not just contrived photos of him sexually showing-off, but real intimacy. Because sure, I could have tolerated him showing-off…but there should still have been something real and deep and meaningful in some way that I felt with him that was evidenced somewhere. I’m some letter, or poem, or photo or gift, or postcard…or journal entry…or story even. Some reel. Some audio recording. A book. There’s NOTHING. …People often wonder if we were just friends for a reason. Given the amount of effort put into researching me and my relationship with Jack something should have been found by now.

No…my micro-gestures are of forced happiness, naïveté, and youthful optimism. I was under the impression I was homosexual. …I didn’t want to ruin some woman’s life. So I tried to make the best of a potentially tragic life. …The fact that I was so confused and ignorant was…common…back then…but also very dark, obviously. I didn’t know better? Yeah. I didn’t. I didn’t know better. I thought I was doing the right thing by being honest and not just trying to make things normal.

Why would Lacey have been an exception? Well…where I was forced and hyped-up with Jack and I avoided as much sexual contact as possible…while for while in the late 30’s trying to be sexually attracted to Jack to no avail…I wouldn’t have had to try at all with Lacey. I never could enjoy sex with him. I just endured it. He was male. Lacey is not only female, she’s exactly my ideal.

It’s tragic. Her whole life she dreamt of being some man’s ideal and falling madly in love with him. That was what her heart longed for. To use the beauty she intellectually suspected she might naturally have…to make some man extremely happy. That moment never came. Her living legal husband values and valued her extreme natural beauty but it was nothing special to him, possibly at all. He believed he could marry almost anyone he wanted and said as much. Her beauty wasn’t particularly meaningful to him. He noted it, and readily acknowledged it as objective fact, sometimes pointing out why it was superior to most other women. But it was essentially…a luxury, perhaps. Just something he enjoyed like good coffee, not something he cherished all that much. He’d comment on her looks…but never in a romantic way, always out of desire or being objectively impressed.

Lacey’s beauty means far more to me. …The sad thing is…we never talk about Joe enough. Joe is a lot like her legal husband. He too would never have given her…that. And I automatically do. I can’t resist her.

As much as Jack had charisma and energy and we tried to have a jolly time of it…often…that’s dramatically different than losing yourself in passion. Losing yourself in passion changes things. And it doesn’t just happen once necessarily.

Lacey and I would have had kids. Young. Not that many, but certainly more than one. And we’d have been extremely happy. You’d have found love letters and poetry. And I’d have taken photos of her to war. There’d be no gap in my letters to her. I might not have even gone, to be honest. Yes, really. …Lacey is extremely beautiful…and I’m likely to have worried. Not about our love but about the lies that men can tell and her sweet, hurt, tender heart.

I seduced Lacey. I did. I didn’t seduce Jack. …And nobody guessed I would. You’d think if they knew I wasn’t gay and I seduced Jack they might have worried…but because that’s not what happened…they didn’t think of it. No, regardless of what you’ve heard, I didn’t sexually desire Jack. He was the real sexual instigator. Except, I did seduce Lacey. And it might have been too tempting to stay, so as not to let her be stolen and to enjoy her.

I was a nerd with glasses and asthma. But I was tall, and apparently her perfect man. …Why would you risk losing that? An ideal woman who is crazy for you. I might not have gone to war…if I could have been honorable enough in some other way.

Why did I pose gay? Well…why did I fake happiness? Because I was trying to be genuinely happy. I wanted to be as normal as I could be. I had asthma and yet I was raised to be optimistic about it. …I felt the same way about my perceived homosexuality. I didn’t think it was necessarily a sin, but it did seem to be a sort of deformity or ailment. I didn’t want to be a bad sport about it though. I wanted to be as happy as possible! As triumphant and American as I could be. I felt fortunate to have a boyfriend even, at times. Especially one as ebullient as Jack. But I wasn’t actually in love at all…I hated sexual contact…loathed intimacy…and a lot of what you’ve read otherwise is a misunderstanding or a lie.

I wasn’t sad at Jack’s wedding. Not in a jealous, despairing way and those emotions are what was inevitable if I cared about him at all in a romantic or sexual way. There’s no possibility I was I was ever intimate with him at all and at all homosexual if I didn’t feel at least somewhat sad in some noticeable way. You can contrive some farcical emotional excursion where I didn’t mind…because I loved him so much…but that’s not reality. Humans have no control over how certain events effect them if they’re not in a coma or psychologically abnormal unfeeling people. If I loved Jack at all in a romantic or sexual way ever and supposedly I did…I’d have been sad at his wedding to anyone but me. But what you see instead is me being nonchalant and pleasant and happy. I even look touched by their union. But I don’t look sad in any photo in that way at all. Maybe I look insecure. Maybe I look drunk or tired or depressed. But I don’t seem heartbroken all all. It’s in none of my micro-gestures. Lacey’s studied them with harsh brutality for hours. And she’s actually quite good at reading people. Possibly no worse than anyone. …If my happiness was so complete and sincere in those photos of me with Jack…why wouldn’t I be heartbroken?

Oh! Because we had something arranged? No. That’s…naive. People lie, but weddings do matter. Marriage is meaningful. …And it was very much Jackie’s day. She was the star that day. She and Jack were the couple. Everyone was vehemently celebrating them. And that night was the wedding night. I should have been sadder, at least about the intensely admiring attention she was receiving from tons of people including Jack but what about the wedding night ahead? Why wouldn’t the thought of that be on my mind? A lot of emotionally devastating stuff was happening that day if I loved him in any sexual or romantic way ever. It’s preposterous that I wouldn’t be heartbroken a little at Jack’s wedding. You can fake a smile but it’s very difficult to completely mask genuine sadness. You can deaden your expression but you can’t look so serene and carelessly thoughtful and filled with happiness. I was happy for them.

At Lacey’s wedding I would have looked serious. In almost every photograph. Red Fay looks serious in at least one photograph of Jack’s wedding. He’s the one who wrote The Pleasure of His Company. Not me.

People question if I was even gay. Red Fay described me as being bisexual. My family felt my life spent “being Jack’s best friend” was a tragedy. They believed I’d wasted myself. But I didn’t waste my life…I came close to destroying my soul.