Life for gay youth in the Heartstopper universe is generally reasonable. The protagonists, Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring—Nick is bisexual, and Charlie is gay—find each other and become boyfriends despite elements of antigay prejudice that linger. They initially feel the need for discretion in their relationship. Naturally, they yearn for privacy also. The scene where Nick’s mum walked in on them as they got close and personal in Nick’s room illustrated the point. It made me think of what life was like for me as a young gay man in the 1980s. I was a student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in the first half of the 1980s. It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and gay men were the most affected. There was a moral panic; people did not know for sure how HIV was transmitted and feared exposure to the virus. It was seen as a gay plague, something that gay men brought on themselves for their unprincipled ways. Trust me, it was not a good time to be a gay man. Discretion was necessary because the consequences would be dire if you were outed.

I met a man named Fabio through a former resident of the student housing co-op I lived in. Fabio and I were students at Queen’s University. Once Fabio and I met, we formed an acquaintanceship. For some reason, I confided in him about my recent romance with another student (a man named Mike) that ran its course quickly. Fabio was understanding. I assumed that Fabio was heterosexual. November 10, 1985, was a turning point in my friendship with Fabio. He had two friends (a man and a woman) from Toronto visit that weekend, and he invited me to join them for a night on the town. After our evening on the town, we returned to Fabio’s house–he shared it with a few students. It was late, and they asked me to stay the night. I told them I was due the following day to serve as an usher at the University’s Remembrance Day service and that I lived nearby. They insisted I stay, so I relented. Fabio put two mats on the living room floor: one for me and one for his friend from Toronto, Paul, who volunteered to share the floor with me. “Oh great,” I thought, “I’m reeling from my failed romance and lying next to a man.”

We settled on the mats, which were made of bubble wrap. The slightest movement on the mats made an audible sound. As I tried to settle in, making myself comfortable and trying not to think about Paul lying next to me, I heard rustling from his mat. “Is he reaching out to me,” I wondered. I thought I was imagining things, but it quickly met his when I extended my hand. I do not know what we were thinking with what followed. I should have asked if he would return to my room in the co-op house with me–although we would need to be discrete as I had housemates, too. Instead, we kissed, and as I drew nearer to him, he reached to slip off my underwear. We took no notice of the sounds coming from the mats. Passion overruled common sense in the moment, and discretion was the least of our concerns. However, our tryst was interrupted by the sound of Fabio flipping the light switch and illuminating us in our intimate pose. Busted! There stood Fabio in his red briefs. I offered to bring Paul back to my room, but he refused. I stayed the night, and there was no more hanky panky between Paul and me. The following day, I went home and kept my appointment as an usher at the Remembrance Day service.

Fabio asked to see me later that week. We met at a campus pub where he told me, to my surprise, that he wanted to bed me. I asked if he was sure about that. He assured me that he was. We returned to my room in the housing co-op and had our first intimate encounter. It started a relationship that lasted through our last year as students at Queen’s University and several months following our graduation. We shared a two-bedroom apartment during our last year at Queen’s. Fabio left me for another man and eventually chose to marry a woman with whom he had two children. The memory of that night–getting caught in the act with Paul on the living room floor at Fabio’s house–remains. It was the turning point in my relationship with Fabio when we went from being friends to becoming boyfriends. Had it not been for my brief indiscretion with Paul, I wonder if Fabio and I would have ever become an item. If you find this reminiscence hard to believe, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

Posted by Geoffrey