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Social anxiety may have saved my life.

Coming of gay age in the era of AIDS was obviously not without its perils. Just as I was awakening to my own sexuality, the world was awakening to the epidemic of AIDS, and suddenly sex might mean much more than pregnancy or STDs – it could equal death. That’s a bit of a boner killer, even for a teenager who could get it up at the wispiest breeze in the air. 

My years of adolescence took place at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and by the time I was old enough to start exploring sex with men, condoms were mandatory and routine, and the wild, hedonistic abandon that called deeply to my primal soul was studded with the prickly warnings and admonishments of how to safely navigate such a scene. Sex suffers when spontaneity requires planning and precaution. 

By the time I was old enough to date a man, I was aware of AIDS in a general sense, but for someone so young, it was still a scary time, and I had questions and concerns – all of which were not welcomed or even tolerated by the first man I would kiss. 

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Another journal entry from October 1994 that illuminates my innocence, earnestness, and foolishness:

We made it into Harvard and started to walk to the theater to buy tickets when Tom stopped to stare at a street musician. I just wanted to get the tickets, eat dinner, and get out of the bad weather. But Tom stayed and watched this old guitar player. We were getting along all right no. Mostly it was he and I bantering with sarcastic comment. It was fun. Finally I got him to get up and get the tickets. We were walking away from the theater, looking for a place to eat. I asked him a few more questions.

“When was the last time you were tested for AIDS?” was one of the last ones I dared.

“Yesterday, like I do every day.”

I laughed but asked again seriously. 

“When were you last tested?” he asked.

“I’ve never been tested.”

“Well.”

“But I haven’t been with over thirty people either. So when was it?” 

“Two years ago.”

I know it shouldn’t have, but somehow it surprised me. That would have been 1992. I thought of his current cold. What if…

“And how many people have you been with since you were tested?” I asked, somewhat afraid of what the answer might be.

“Umm… about ten.”

“Ten?! You’ve been with… how do you know…”

“Look, I told you,” he began sternly and loudly, “I didn’t want this education crap. Now if you have questions, ask someone else, do you understand? I told you that. I don’t want to be mean, but I told you this before and I don’t want any more of it.” And that was it. 

In that one moment my world turned form something over which I had some control into something that whirled and whisked me in whichever whim it had. The wind caught up. Before this year I would have been bawling in this situation. Now I just walked stoically with Tom. He looked back at me. It wasn’t a joke. Did he think I thought it was? I just looked back at him, giving him a slight ‘Well that’s that’ smile. And we went into Bertucci’s and sat down for dinner. Then the mending began. I almost hated him for what he had just done. But I didn’t.

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In the 90’s,  I was old enough to legally get into clubs and bars, I wasn’t the club kid that certain people thought for sure I would be when let loose in Boston. In fact, I went to Chaps maybe once every few months, for the occasional wild tea dance, and rarely if ever did I bring anyone back home with me. My social anxiety was too high for that, and if any guy did happen to make their way back to my place, I didn’t do much beyond oral. Usually it wasn’t much beyond kissing. And therein may have been the lifesaving bit of happenstance – my shyness acted as my protection, at a time when many gay men were falling sick everywhere. My inability to be the full-fledged slut I privately longed to be was a saving grace; by the time I really let loose, we had gotten safe sex down to a science. 

Whenever I wonder whether I made the most of those younger years, I think back to what our world was like, and I’m grateful to have been so shy. Sometimes social anxiety saves lives.