Paternal feelings, legacies and becoming a (gay) role model
I never thought I wanted kids, I’m still not sure if I do.
I am having more paternal feelings these days though. I think being a man, especially a young man, can be tough and lonely at times.
I remember what it was like for me and I think the challenges today can be just as profound, whether gay, straight or somewhere in between. I have a yearning to help them, guide them, support them. Maybe this is the way I can leave my own legacy without having kids of my own? It has taken a long time for me to come to this way of thinking.
My first job after arriving in the United Kingdom was for a training company. I was lucky to land a job so quickly. I had plenty of responsibility in this job and it was a real opportunity to become embedded into UK life. My salary wasn’t huge but it seemed to go a long way back then!
I learned quickly that the company was pretty dysfunctional although most of the people who worked there were great. I wasn’t ‘out’ when I started but I gradually got to know my colleagues, one of whom became a really good friend. She and I were always chatting, lunching and complaining about the company. After a few months, I plucked up the courage to come out to her, sitting in the car outside my house after she had dropped me home from work.
She was surprised but took it quite well. Our friendship was sustained and we quickly adjusted and continued as before. Her son, who was about 14 or 15, used to come into the workplace when it was school holidays. She often left him with me to ‘babysit’ during the day. He and I got on brilliantly. Although I was about ten years older we clicked instantly and always had a good laugh. In truth I probably spent too much time chatting with him and not enough time working on the days he came in.
Sometime later my friend’s older brother joined the company. He was one of those people who would be nice to your face but in reality was a deeply religious homophobic bigot.
I never warmed to him but tolerated him at work. I started to notice over a few weeks and then months that my friend started distancing herself from me. It was weird, I didn’t know why at first, but a frosty atmosphere started to pervade the workplace. Her son stopped coming in during the holidays.
Eventually through second-hand information and then an acknowledgment from her I found out that her brother had warned her off me. You see I was gay. This was wrong in and of itself. In addition though, and I’m sure you know what is coming; he saw all gay men as predators and he didn’t think his nephew should have contact with one. She, evidently, agreed.
I was shellshocked. I never saw it coming. I withdrew back into myself.
I was made redundant a few months later (totally unrelated, the company was going bust!) and came to the conclusion that he was just an asshole and that was the long and short of it. I never spoke to my friend ever again. I never gave it much thought, not until I joined the cricket club.
I had successfully avoided teenage boys for 15 years. Looking back I’m sure this was deliberate, at least subconciously. The scars were still there; that incident at work came flooding back after joining the club.
I felt awkward. I wasn’t out and was concerned how it would be received, especially by the parents of the boys at the club.
Thankfully the world has changed, even in the short space of 15 years, and my coming out was fairly uneventful and in many respects very positive. My relationships were only strengthened through the process.
Fifteen years ago I saw myself as a good role model (despite my lack of work some days!) but that was shattered very quickly. It is only through a sustained period of relationship building that I am starting to believe that I am a good role model again, even to young straight men.
For me being a role model now is closely associated with the paternal feelings I have. I want these boys to succeed. I want them to grow into young men with strong morals and a clear sense of duty and respect both to themselves and others. I think cricket is a sport that can help to teach them that. I now believe I can be a positive influence.
When any of the boys gravitate to me now I am better at accepting it and seeing it as an opportunity to be a positive influence as well as a friend in their lives. I know I feared others would see it as a sexual thing, my memories are still vivid, but that is down to my own insecurities, previous experiences and lack of confidence.
Jeremy Helligar has written about a similar experience for him which is worth a read. It has helped me think differently about these relationships and why they may gravitate to me.
I’m finally believing, after many years of sitting on the sidelines, that being gay shouldn’t and doesn’t preclude you from having healthy and strong relationships with young men, where ever they may sit on the sexuality spectrum. I’m open and upfront with these boys and they seem to respect that. I also listen to them, something we should all do a little more of. That is part of being paternal for me. It may just be my legacy.
