Then Comes Marriage Read Free Page A

lesbianism intensified, even though I still did not have the nerve to actually go out on a date with a woman. If only I could have worried less about what others, even my mother, thought of me and more about learning who I was. If I had expended half the energy on dating women that I did on fearing what my mother might say about it, I would have had a much better time in college. But I was paralyzed not only by my own shame but also by a realistic assessment of the consequences that could result when a gay person was honest about who she was.
    There was one story going around campus that epitomized my fears. I knew a sophomore who had lived a seemingly charmed life, attending Manhattan’s best private schools while growing up in a wealthy, sophisticated New York family. Yet during her freshman year at Harvard, when she told her mother she was a lesbian, her mother (with whom she had been very close) responded by disowning her, cutting her off both emotionally and financially. Several people told me this story, and each time it intensified the sick feeling that I had in my stomach whenever I thought about telling my own mother. I also heard of other students who had been forced into so-called reparative therapy by their parents to “cure” them of their homosexuality. Most of those people had not chosen to come out, had not shoved their “lifestyle choice” into other people’s faces. They had hidden, like me, and still they had been found out. In other words, there were very real reasons to be afraid.
    In fact, my anxiety during college became so acute that I was not sure I would ever tell anyone I was gay. I wondered whether it might be possible just to marry a nice man and make do. But in my heart of hearts, I knew such a false marriage would not only be terribly unfair to my theoretical husband but also doomed to failure.
    I could not think my way into a solution, my first and favorite way of dealing with problems. And following my feelings to solve the issue was completely unacceptable. The trade-off of certain social jeopardy versus possible emotional fulfillment and love was simply not worth it for me. Instead, I chose my familiar habits of caution and repression. I just boxed up my feelings and hoped they would somehow disappear. They did not, of course. Instead, I fell in love with a classmate I’ll call “Kate.”
    Kate and I met freshman year, and there was an instant connection between us. We spent hours together—talking, studying, arguing politics, and figuring out the world’s woes. By the end of freshman year, we knew that we wanted to room together as sophomores. I was falling hard for Kate but could not admit it, even to myself. Instead, I would lie awake at night thinking, If only Kate were a guy, everything would be so much easier . That is as close to self-awareness as my mind could manage.
    Throughout my sophomore year, my feelings for Kate deepened as we lived and studied together, becoming almost inseparable. In the spring of my junior year, having declared Russian history and literature as my major, I spent a semester studying in Moscow. Being in the Soviet Union at that time was an incredible experience. Perestroika was just beginning and I had a front-row seat to history in the making. I was lucky enough to become friends with extraordinary members of the Russian intelligentsia—dissidents, artists, and Jewish refuseniks. It was heady stuff for a young woman who had grown up in the Cleveland suburbs.
    When I came back to the States, I could not wait to see Kate. I was so excited to reconnect with her, but when we met again she broke my heart. That first evening as we sat on the roof of her building, Kate told me she was dating someone. And that someone was a woman.
    I listened to Kate’s news and felt my heart shatter. And the worst part was I could not even let myself, much less Kate, understand that my heart was breaking. Yet even if I did not