Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 17:51:36 -0800 (PST) From: h_a_r_v_e_y@yahoo.com Subject: A Typical Love Story This is my first time to submit to Nifty. It doesn't have any sex scenes. Why in the world did I decide to write a story without sex and then submit it to an erotic sex archive? Well, because I love writing stories and I wanted to write about gay relationships. No one knows I'm gay so I can't show this to anyone around me. But I would love some feedback on my story. That's why I'm submitting this. I hope you like it. I've never done this but I'll include all the usual warnings and disclaimers. Don't read this if you're not appreciative of gay relationships and if you're not allowed to read this in your area. The story is also just a story, completely fictional. A Typical Love Story I hate being stereotypical and predictable. I hate being ordinary. I guess it's ironic, then, that I found myself in a typical love story. I met a great guy completely by accident. No, I didn't bump into him in the corridor and let him pick my scattered stuff from the floor. That would be too much! Instead, I saw him at the pizza place across the school. I was eating by myself, out of choice and not circumstance. He was sitting quietly, staring off somewhere, while his friends were noisily joking among themselves. I watched him for a while until he snapped out of his reverie. Then, he made a small, adorable smile and I knew I was hooked. He didn't notice me looking at him back then. Scott told me that later on. But he was flattered when I told him of how I had developed a crush on him. I really think it was too much of a coincidence that in the next semester, we ended up in the same Psychology class. I didn't stalk him and his friends to find out what section he got. It just happened. And it also just happened that we grouped together for all the projects in the semester. I was overjoyed when we first got to talk that first day of class. To be frank, he didn't seem interested at the time. He casually left the class without even talking to me, his new groupmate. But I wasn't disheartened. I mean, I didn't want him to know yet that I was interested, so why would he? But all the way home that day, I just kept on thinking about our brief conversation and I just somehow knew that the feeling was mutual. We had a bitch for a Psych teacher, someone who gave us a group paper to write every week. It was the first week of class and we had to write about Freud's oral, anal, genital, and phallic stages. The next week we had to write about gender-typing and gender roles. The very next week we had to write about Kohlberg's stages of morality. I would have thought it was hell except for two things - Scott, who turned out to be really smart and perceptive, and my other groupmates, who all turned out to be lazy free-riders. I was happy with that arrangement. That meant that just the two of us would be meeting in the library every week. We got to know one another better. So much so that I decided to take the first few steps. After submitting a requirement in the Psychology Department one day, I asked him if he wanted to come with me and get some coffee. He thought about it for a while, then smiled his wonderful smile, and agreed. It was the first time we were together without the pretext of working on a project. It was perfect timing. The requirement we submitted earlier that afternoon was a timeline of the five most important events in our lives. Because of that, we had so much to talk about. He told me about joining the soccer team and how he was "kicked" out of it. We laughed at his stupid pun but I saw some of his pain behind the laugh. Something bad must have happened between him and his teammates but I didn't want to pry. I then told him about my childhood. I told him how I almost died twice, once from an allergy to Paracetamol and another from falling into the pool. He laughed at that. We were comfortable with each other, at that point. So I decided to tell him about my grandmother who died last year and how she was the only one in my family who had understood me. He responded by telling me that he envied me. According to him, at least, I had been close to someone in my family. It became our routine to go for some coffee after class if we didn't have to work on a project. I'd ask him if he was interested in getting coffee and he'd easily agree. After a while, I stopped asking Scott and we just automatically gravitated towards the coffee shop. We'd order coffee, sit down, and chat for around half an hour before he had to go back to school and I had to go home. I was feeling really happy then. He had to have been interested in me to be going out with me that often. Well, it wasn't exactly going out. It was more like hanging out. But he had to like me. He just had to. I waited for him to formally ask me out for two months. Of course, it never happened. I guess this is the part of the love story when the seemingly smooth road to bliss gets its first bumps. I grew more and more frustrated. Some nights, I'd make an iron resolution to take another first step to get the relationship moving along. But I couldn't. It just wasn't that easy. By the next day, that resolve would be nothing but a melted pool of scrap metal. But I also couldn't keep on seeing him as just another platonic friend. I had to do something. One fateful day, a Wednesday, I just asked him. I looked him in the eye and said, "Do you like me?" He just stared at me with eyes wide open. Oh no, I shocked him. It was too much. I scared him away. I just felt so bad, and something seemed to be squeezing my chest. I tried to add "as a groupmate" to my question but my original meaning was obvious. I felt shame, foolishness, guilt, and embarassment in a span of a few seconds. I had to get out of the shop so I just said goodbye, got my coffee, and ran out of the store. I jumped into my car and just sat there with some tears in my eyes. I wiped them away, getting angry at myself. What was I thinking anyway? Of course, he'd react that way. I buried my face in my hands and just leant my head on the steering wheel. All the pain replaced the embarassment and anger. It wasn't just squeezing my chest anymore. It was crushing me. I never knew that I could feel like that. I thought the love stories were exagerrating the pain. I sat up and wiped at my eyes again. I knew this would happen. There's always rejection in the stories. Why wasn't I prepared for it? Then, I heard a knock on the window of the passenger's side. I looked out through the tinted window and he was there. Scott was there with a sad look on his face, asking to be let in the car. I unlocked the door and let him in. He stared at me some more before finally smiling. I couldn't help it. I had to smile back. Then, he said the words I've been waiting to hear since I met him. "Yes, I'm gay too. And I do like you." Love stories usually end there. Right after the big fight and the big reconciliation, the guy and the girl have sex and the story just ends with them expressing undying love for each other. You never know what happens next. Did the guy cheat on the girl? Did the girl become a nag after they had kids? According to my Psych book, chances are that they're divorced or unhappy. But sometimes, there's a sweet epilogue that tells how they raised wonderful kids then grew old together. We don't know ourselves whether it's all going to work out for Scott and me so of course, I can't tell you that. But we ended up telling each other about our true feelings. And that usually is enough to give me a good optimistic feeling at the end of the love story. End When I wrote this, I wanted the ending to be a surprise. At that point, the reader should compare and contrast gay love stories with heterosexual love stories. But I guess reading this on the Nifty archive totally destroys that desired effect. Oh well, write me anyway at h_a_r_v_e_y@yahoo.com. Please, I'd love any form of feedback. Thanks.