Missing the Big Picture by Donovan, Luke (great book club books txt) 📕

the other two thousand students, so I enrolled in a small Catholic school. That was a disaster. In college, I was scared to even think of a life where I wouldn’t just have to wake up and go to a few classes and work a part-time job. I would have loved to have stayed in college forever. I had a degree in sociology and wished I could study social norms, gender issues, deviance, and crime. I went to graduate school just to get a master’s degree. That didn’t work out, and now I was facing my biggest fear yet: being in the real world.

At first, I was excited about my new job at the sheltered workshop. I had my own office. I had my own voicemail and extension. I had my own computer and e-mail address. I finally learned how to fax and how to make two-sided copies. It was nice. Since I was done with school, I still had my part-time job at the Center for Quality Living, but now I had more free time to meet people. I had never really tried to face my sexuality and would usually distract myself with work and/or school rather than dealing with it.

In April 2006, I finally joined a gay dating site. I had known that I liked men since I was fourteen, but I was too embarrassed and ashamed to act on my feelings. But, nine years later, I started to explore gay life. I took some pictures of myself, of course without showing my face, and posted a profile on a site called Adam4Adam.com. The site was very sexual. A lot of the profiles included pictures of the men naked, some with only a shot of the guy’s buttocks or penis. I had struggled with my body all my life, and when I actually looked muscular, I liked the attention.

In early April I started to chat with one man, Ian, very regularly—almost every day. He had just turned twenty-three and was bisexual and masculine. Meeting a masculine gay guy was so refreshing; I was ecstatic when we first talked. However, the more I got to know him, the more I realized he was just interested in sex—oral sex, more specifically. Ian went to SUNY Albany and was a graduate student studying education. He substituted at my old school district and was friends with a girl I’d been on the church retreat team with. I would take naked pictures on my camera phone just to please him. I didn’t mean to stoop so low, but the attention was like a dream come true. It was also strange that I could be developing strong feelings just from chatting online.

Ian frequently went out drinking, often to the point that he would pass out on a regular basis. He would drink many nights of the week, often binge drink, and then wake up and teach kindergarten or first grade the next day. I think he used drinking to escape from his sexuality.

I found out that in addition to being a substitute teacher, Ian was a server at a local steakhouse. Around this time, my co-worker Lydia asked me out on a date after strongly coming on to me. I didn’t want to tell her that I liked guys, so I went along. When she asked where we should eat, I picked the steakhouse where Ian worked. I told him online that I was going to visit the restaurant. We actually had a code word that I would say to him so he would know it was me. During the date, Lydia kept trying to get to know me, but I was just sitting at the table, trying to spot Ian.

It was June 2, 2006. On that day, I had both a woman and a man interested in me. I pretended to like women, but I couldn’t be somebody who dated multiple people at once or had multiple sex partners. I just couldn’t do it. For many years, I had wished I were heterosexual. But this is my sexual orientation for the rest of my life. Luckily, both Lydia and Ian kicked me to the curb the same day and I didn’t have to worry about hurting anybody’s feelings. The following morning, I talked with Ian and he said he didn’t see me at the restaurant the previous night. After that conversation, he blocked me on instant messenger so I could no longer communicate with him. I was hurt. I had talked to him for two months online and had thought I made a friend. Lydia thought I had led her on, and she finally picked up on the fact that I really wasn’t interested. It was bad what I did to her—not being honest and leading her on. I was confused once again about how to live my life honestly and how to actually have a love life that I was proud of.

One day when we got paid, there was a memo publicizing that our agency offered three free counseling sessions each year through the employee assistance program. I decided to make the phone call. It was actually a Christian counseling center. I had a 6:30 p.m. appointment, and the only people in the building were the therapist and another client with whom she was meeting. As I waited for her to finish, I noticed crosses and religious fixtures throughout the building. I was scared to tell her that I was gay because it was a Christian-based organization, but I did, and she was actually very gay affirmative. After a few sessions, I told her that I had difficulty meeting men. She then told me, “Why don’t you dress more gay?” I decided to end my therapy sessions with her; I wanted help accepting myself the way that I was, not help conforming to a stereotype.

I did speak to the therapist about how I would meet people from Craigslist for sexual purposes. There was no exchange of money, but I would go to