Kirk Read is a god. Kirk was the first person I ever came out to — I met him in the spring of our first year of college. I knew who he was, and I knew he was gay, and I basically maneuvered myself into meeting him because I’d never had a gay friend before and I needed to tell someone. He was a mentor to me over the following year. (Unfortunately, it was platonic; I wasn’t his type.) I knew back then that he’d be famous someday, and he’s well on his way; his first book is coming out this spring.

Back then, I wasn’t ready to learn everything he had to teach me. I came out to him in April 1992, when I was 18; over the next year I came out to a handful of other people. In the summer of 1993, I came out to my parents. But my parents didn’t want me to be gay, and I didn’t want to make them unhappy, so I went back into the closet and rarely spoke to Kirk again. It wasn’t until 1998 that I really began once again to come out to people.

In between — from the time I was 19 until I was 24 — I considered myself asexual. I think of all I could have done in that time: the sex I could have had. The boyfriends I could have had. The gay friends I could have made. The community I could have joined. But I wasn’t ready.

In August 1999, I came out to my parents again, and this time, I stayed out.

Thanks, Kirk — you did what you could. You were teaching; I just wasn’t ready to learn.