Being Gay in a Small Town (Part Two)

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After Graduating High School I spent alot of time on the internet, but i also made sure to not be using my real name istead I went by Scott Smith, i spent alot of time in Yahoo chat, the reason i did not use my real name is i was araid someone would find me in the Gay chatrooms and i would be forced to come out before i was ready. Things went on like this for some time i would go in to chat rooms and would talk to much older men, i would never meet up with anyone or so i thought but there was one time during the summer after graduation i talked with a guy from Portland, i even told him my real name, sent pictures to him and planned with to meet up with him, i had been spending time at my old high school anyway as i had volunteered to help them build there sets. Anyway i planned to meet at the old supermarket in our small town and i walked there, i remember my heart beating a million miles a minute, i remembe being warned about exactly this thing c ountless times i had seen horror movies start out this way, being to trusting of someone and meeting them. At the last minute i turned around and walked back i was having a full on panic attack, i was crying my eyes out and then i amazingly ran into a old friend from school, they asked me what was wrong, i just told them i was upset because i did not have my cell phone on me and my original ride home had bailed, truth is i had told my family i was staying at my friends Jarek's house when in reality i was going to meet up with this guy, and since i did not go with him i had no planned ride home, luckily my friend gave me a ride home. I cried myself that night, thinking the absolute worse what if i had met up with this guy, what if he wasn't who he said he was, or worse what if he was but what if he pressured me into doing something i was not ready to do. The next few weeks things we're back to normal i stayed out of chat rooms and just spent time with my cousins James and Audrey, and my cousin Jesse's wife Kim whom happened to be living with us, we all lived at my Grandparents house and we spent alot of time playing Nintendo 64, drawing pictures out of magazines, and just goofing off. One day my cousin Audrey who was still in school left her binder in my room, what was weird is there was a piece of paper that seemed to be printed from facebook lying on top of the binder, i thought well this isn't homewprk so i investigated. It was a MySpace Blog written by someone in her grade i did not know them but there name was Franky. I read the blog and i cried my eyes out, this teenager at 17 was out and proud, and although it was incredibly hard for him he was out and proud in a small town, my small town!! he even wrote a weekly article in the school's newsletter, i was so surprised. I never thought there would be anyone so brave to just be themselves at our mall town high school. Anyway eventually i decided i had to meet him, so i got on myspace and i looked on my cousins page and looked at her friends till i saw him! I wrote and wrote the longest message i've ever wrote, i shared my every feelings, what it felt like to still be closeted, i wrote about how it made me feel he could be so open and proud, i even told him how cute i thought he was..... And then he wrote me back!!! I will continue on in Part Three sometime tomorrow. Photo is of me at 19 years old.