Ticket in the Thames

I feel like I’ve written lots about my uncomfortableness with the gays lately. I stumbled upon the fact that the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is going on this week and it triggered this little memory and figured I may as well share.

My decision to study abroad had nothing to do with academics. The International Studies advisor lobbied hard for me to take advantage of our partnership with Oxford and take an intensive course there. I declined. I didn’t want to spend my time abroad with my nose in a book. While the boyfriend tells me the libraries in Oxford (he took the Oxford route, being far more responsible than I) were fantastic, I wanted to see more than just that.

I’d also got it in my head that I needed to get the heck outta Dodge. I was feeling so much pressure. My family seemed to have a lot of expectations about who and what they wanted me to be. I was just starting to come to grips with being gay and realizing that I wasn’t ever going to be what they wanted. So, I decided I would take a semester, leave the country and get away from all of the pressures. I figured that if I could strip away all of the expectations and be somewhere where literally everything was foreign, then I could see how I reacted, see what I felt and thought and then, figure out who I am.

Before I left, I was out to one person. I wasn’t out to the friend who went to England and shared a room with me. My best bitch didn’t even know. However, as part of my learning process while in London, I decided that I was going to do something “gay”. I didn’t really even know what that meant. Every week we were there I bought the “Time Out” and instantly flipped to the “Gay” section to see if I could find what my gay event would be. It finally showed up.

The front page said “London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival”. I decided I would go. The only night I could make it work without anyone else in the house wondering where I went was the night they were showing “Queer as Folk”. It was even the American version. They were basically saying “look at how the Americans screwed up our show”.

I made up some excuse about why I was leaving the house and took the Tube into Central London. I remember actually starting to shake from nerves when the train was at the Hammersmith stop (about halfway into Picadilly Circus). I forged on and walked to the National Theatre and got in line to buy my ticket. I felt flushed. I was alone in a crowd of people who would assume I’m gay just by virtue of my standing there. The line was about 100 people deep.

It sounds dramatic, but I swear it’s true. I was the next person in line to buy my ticket when the guy on the other side of the glass said they were now sold out. I was both relieved and pissed off. I’d gotten my courage up and now all for nothing. Just as I was about to turn and walk out someone yelled, “Hey, do you need a ticket?” I turned around and there was a man extending a ticket out to me. I said yes and he handed it to me and walked away. I didn’t pay him and I don’t even remember what he looked like.

But I wondered inside, took my seat and watched 6 back to back episodes of “Queer as Folk.”

I’d saved all of my tickets from the 30 something plays I’d went to in London and wanted to save my ticket for going to this. However, I didn’t want to risk someone finding it. So, given my flair for drama, I let it fall from my hand down into the Thames as I walked across the bridge back to the Tube station. Given my Mom’s flair for drama, she called my pay as you go phone as I looked over the bridge and watched the ticket fall. She heard the choke in my voice and asked if i was ok. I told her I was fine, I’d just left seeing a sad movie.