Wednesday 24th May, 1989.
‘I’ve grown wary of men over the last few weeks since that awful evening when Stephen told me he had got back with David. I still remember that smirk on David’s face as they held hands after announcing the news. It was that kind of smirk that I wanted to wipe off his face. How I resisted not punching him that evening, I’ve no idea.
My love life continues to cause me problems today when I bumped into Stephen again, and he asked, ‘Would I see him again?’ after telling me he’d made a dreadful mistake returning to David.
To say I was somewhat taken aback is an understatement. I was gobsmacked and didn’t know what to say. Ultimately, I asked if I could have some time to think about it. He’s handsome, but the fact that he went back to his partner over me rings alarm bells.
But worse was to come when Bob walked into Bromptons* tonight. Butterflies immediately started fluttering around my stomach.
Bob was with the guy I’d been hearing about. I’d heard rumours weeks ago that he was seeing somebody but didn’t believe them. Now I know that all I wanted was ‘NOT’ to believe them.
I don’t know who he is, but he looked miserable with Bob like he didn’t want any attention from him or, for that matter, anybody else in the bar.
So, here I sit tonight writing this entry, knowing that Stephen and I both seem to be heading for unhappiness. Stephen, because I’d be a fool going back with him (wouldn’t I?), and me? Because Bob completely ignored me. It’s as if the relationship we once had never happened. I still do not know why he ended what we had.’
*Bromptons was a gay bar in Earl’s Court, London.
Notes from the author.
That was the last entry in my diary from 1989. It was as if my life ended that day. But, of course, it didn’t. I simply stopped keeping a diary after that day, but I don’t know why.
As a very close friend from the time of this final diary entry once said to me – ‘There is no such thing as an ending. It’s just the point where we leave the story.’
After reading this entry, I’m still determining who Stephen is. I can’t remember him, but he obviously made an impression on me in the late 1980s.
Nor can I remember who the guy was with Bob.
However, I still remember Bob, what he looked like, how he talked, how he smiled, what he did for a living, and the address he was living at the time. I still remember what he wore the last time I saw him, what happened on our first date, and the first time our eyes met.
People enter and leave our lives daily. Some travel with us for a long time, whereas others swiftly cross our paths, never to be seen again. Do those who stay around and engage with us and who impact our lives do so for a reason? Do they protect us, warn us, guide us? Or do they enter our lives to put a stop to something?
Even though some people take us on journies to Hell and back when they enter our lives, those journies are probably life lessons that we should never forget. Unfortunately, we do because we end up making the same mistakes.
Fast forward to today, reading the diary entry took me back to my days as a young gay man living and working in London. What scares me more than anything is that I referred to Stephen going back to his partner as ‘alarm bells.’ Whereas I didn’t seem to think that alarm bells accompaned me when I started dating somebody who was already attached. Now I wonder how many people who entered my life back then heard those alarm bells.
At the time, London seemed like the safest place to live in the UK for a gay man. I felt a protective wall built around it kept us all safe. It was like a big comfort blanket. That’s why, in 1986, I chose to go and live there. But it wasn’t always safe. Nor was it always comfortable and protective.
Next month: – Jobs. Some jobs were easy – you could be yourself. But other jobs came with a warning if you were different.
If you enjoyed this entry, you may also enjoy reading, ‘True Stories: Gay Memories – The Day My Life Changed.’
Please feel free to ask me any questions by leaving me a comment.
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What if you don’t find it all your life… I’m speaking for myself… I couldn’t make an addition
Don’t try looking for it. It’ll happen when you least expect it.
I will take your advice. Thank you
Great post Hugh. I’m so pleased you shared it. I think its reassuring to see that we all can relate to the trials and tribulations of being young and in love regardless of our orientation. 1989 seems like a lifetime ago – it was the year I got married, so very different experiences up here – but I moved from a coastal town to Glasgow – not as big as London, but still a change and an adjustment.
Regarding your comment about the influence people have in our lives – I think its probably a mix of all of the factors you identified and as others said, sometimes we have to make the mistakes multiple times before we’re ready to learn.
I look forward to your next post :)
Thank you, Brenda. I’m glad you enjoyed this snippet into my life. As you know, I don’t write about my personal life, so this series will be a door-opener for me and some of my audience.
1989 still does not seem like that long ago to me. But then, nor does 100 years ago when it was 1924. I’m glad I wrote a diary in 1988 and 1989 as much of what is in them will have been buried deep in my mind. These diaries act like keys in opening my mind up and releasing those memories.
I’ll be publishing one post a month for this new feature. So, stay tuned.
Looking forward to next month’s. Hopefully the positive feedback will help to encourage you to keep sharing
Firstly… Boooo Bob for completely ignoring you! Secondly, I’m glad to hear that you don’t even remember Stephen or the incidents surrounding him. Sounds like despite how much it hurt at the time you managed to put it behind you!
I did, yes, Battista. Whoever Stephen was, he did not have a lasting effect on my life, whereas Bob did. Why we are able to put some things behind us, while others stay with us for a very long time, I’ve no idea. I wonder if ‘love’ has anything to do with it?
I wonder that myself too, I have a lot of trauma from my past and people ask me why I can’t just leave it behind and the only thing I can think to say is that because I’m not over it… Maybe somewhere deep down you’ve still got a lingering feeling for Bob whether it be resentment or fondness.
It can be hard to let some things go, can’t it? I also still have a photo of Bob. Even though it’s in a scrapbook, I often think ‘what could have been.’ But life decided Bob was not to play a long part in my life. And besides, I have a partner who I have recently celebrated 30 years of being together.
Congrats on your recent anniversary! :D
Thank you so much.
‘Because Bob completely ignored me. It’s as if the relationship we once had never happened. I still do not know why he called an end to what we had.’
Reading that I felt the feeling of dread you felt from those words and can also relate to that feeling of insignificance being pushed aside like nothing had ever happened.
I kind of wish I’d kept a diary, closest I ever got was keeping a travel diary reading my experiences of Canada which was useful to read when writing a post about one of my experiences.
Funny thing is re-reading I have no memory of what happened, and many people I came across where a blur I never remember meeting. Again it made me wish I’d done that diary as there is so much I won’t have remembered.
I have two diaries, one from 1988 (which is compete) the other from 1989 which I only completed until May. It’s nice re-reading them, James. So much comes back to me. It’s as if the diaries are a key that unlock memories buried deeply.
As for that reaction of feeling rejected by Bob, it was one of the worse feelings I had at that time of my life. Yet, as I mentioned to Paul, I didn’t seem to care rejecting other people. There are names in the diary that I have no idea who they are. yet other names bring back lots of memories. I see faces in my head of those people, and even what they were like in terms of the type of person they were and what kind of life they led. I can also recall what their voices sounded like.
How difficult this must have been for you, Hugh. Thank you for sharing the challenges you faced then and still today.
Not so many now as back then, Eugi. However, some of the scars from those days are still with me.
Understood, Hugh. It seems some bad memories linger forever, unfortunately.
How did a nervous straight guy living just south of you at Cremorne Road not bump into a nervous gay man? I think I’ve mentioned the sinister threat I felt when Linda dragged me into an Earl’s Court pub her needing the loo desperately and I was surrounded (it felt that way) by leather clad hunks. I definitely needed a safe space then!! I enjoy hearing about that times, how London looked to you – no doubt very different to me, the staid lawyer. Looking forward to hearing how it functioned for you!
Yes, I recall you telling me that story, Geoff. It reminds me of a work colleague who did the same thing. She was on her own and needed to use a public phone. (These were the days before mobile phones). The phonebox near her in the street was out of order, so she ventured into a bar to use theirs. It was only after making the call that she saw that all eyes were on her and that the bar had gone very quiet. And then it clicked that she was the only woman in the bar.
When I read 1986, it still doesn’t sink in that it was almost 40 years ago. I wish could have made more progress in that time. I still don’t think there are enough places that are comfortable for everyone – the way it should be.
Time flies when you’re having fun, Dan. And time is like a toilet roll as we grow older. The nearer we get to the end, the quicker it runs out.
While things are better for the LGBT community than they were 40 years ago, there is still a lot to do. I still can not believe that in some parts of the world people are sentenced to death for being gay. Knowing that my partner and I can not visit some parts of the world as a loving couple is something that still makes me very angry. But I am thankful that I live in a country where being gay or bisexual is no longer frowned upon by the majority of people.
We still have a slew of hate crimes against gays every year, Hugh. It makes me sad and angry. It makes me more sad to see elected officials targeting groups of people – human beings – their constituents, solely for political gain. Some have even changed their ridiculous rhetoric from what it was years ago, because now, hate is fashionable where they live. They refuse to lead. They simply follow the votes. Sorry, I’ll stop ranting.
I see the same people directing their hate towards woman, disabled people, and anybody who looks or talks differently, Dan. I agree that it’s very sad that some politicians chase votes by way of hate rather than try and make all of society a caring place for everyone to enjoy and to feel safe. Fortunately, I do not see that kind of hate where I live, but I do hear about it happening.
1989 was a particularly bad year for me as well. It was the year of my divorce and I had no idea how my children and I would survive. You’re right – somehow we do make it.
And how we make it is often a mystery. Bad experiences can often teach us good things and make us even better people than we already are.
Dating for most of us is dodgy when you look back, unless you meet ‘the one’ at school or are in a culture of arranged marriages, we mix and meet with strangers and people who are Strange, fall for people who haven’t noticed us or get irritated by by someone who’s fallen for us and try to avoid them. I would not want to go back to those days. My forty three years of happy marriage until I was widowed suited me much better.
Good to hear. I wouldn’t mind travelling back to the 1980s to be an observer because there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life, not just my love life. However, I know I could not live like I had to back then where acceptance of the LGBT community was rare and you feared almost daily that somebody would attack you simply because you didn’t live your life like them.
Even as a straight man your entry resonated with me, probably because in the end it’s about relationships. We make mistakes, we suffer from other people’s mistakes and we take our experiences and scars into our next relationship. I think we’re always looking for the next person to somehow set things right.
I wouldn’t imagine being gay would make it anything different, but the pressures society put on you must have made it harder than I could imagine. Thanks for opening up and sharing with us Hugh.
Having to hide the life I wanted to live was very difficult, Paul. At first, I thought I was the only gay person in the world and I felt very lonely. But I agree with you that relationships and what happens in them will certainly be the same regardless of sexual orientation. Rejection was something I feared a lot, although it did not seem to affect me when it was me rejecting somebody.
Well I think we’ve all been guilty of that Hugh.
What you describe is universal in its feelings but of course, you needed to be in a safe place. Your angst resonates. But just a part of life’s learning. Thanks for the share!
I’m glad you enjoyed reading it. It’s strange, but some of the scares of those days are still with me, even though society is far more accepting of the LGBT community now.
I can imagine. As Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at a medical school in the 90s, a student apparently took heart in hand and came out in a discussion with me about her future. She had spent a clerkship in San Francisco and it gave her courage. I loved her to bits and she got a good internship.
How good to hear that she did come out to you. Working and living in San Francisco, even if only for a short while, will have undoubtedly helped her to live the person she was rather than try and hide it. Even in the 1990s, things could still be difficult for the LGBT community, although towards the end of the 1990s things gathered pace to bring in many changes so that an LGBT lifestyle was much more acceptable in society.
I felt honored that she considered herself safe with me.
Isn’t that wonderful? it must have been such a big relief for her. And she choose you to tell.
this was such an engaging post, Hugh and I believe something most of us can identity with, if not all, then at least a part of it. like you, I’ve stumbled through relationships in life, and I do think that some people aren’t meant to stay, but to teach us something, (doesn’t mean we are ready for the lesson yet), or were something we needed, or thought we needed at the time. the lesson is only helpful when are ready for it, and perhaps when we’ve made the same mistakes more than once. it is so interesting to look back and wonder what in the he’ll we were thinking, but no regrets, I think it all needed to happen. but did it have to be so awful? )
Thank you, Beth.
I like what you say about those who enter our lives coming to teach us something. I wonder a lot about why it is that certain people enter our lives, especially those who we may never actually engage with. Then I recall seeing somebody sat on a train once who was watching a movie on their laptop. I never actually spoke with them, but I saw the movie title and thought it sounded interesting. The name of the move was ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and that is how I then went on to discover the TV show. I fell in love with the twisted endings and soon found myself writing some stories with shock, twisted endings. When I cam to the blogging world in 2014, it was the ideal time to start writing more and sharing them on my blog.
The above is just one example, but doesn’t it make you think that everybody we encounter are there for a reason?
I really believe they are –
As always Hugh, a wonderful piece. Thank you for sharing your talent and yourself with the world. Reading your posts are often a highlight of my day and keep me inspired to try and continue writing.
Thank you. It’s good to hear from you, Pavanne. I’m delighted to hear how my posts inspire you to carry on with your writing. That’s a wonderful compliment, thank you. I hope all is well with you.
You captured the uncertainty and angst of young love, Hugh and how some people leave a lasting impression. And you’re so right about making the same mistakes.
Thank you. Yes, it’s interesting how some people can leave lasting impressions in our lives, whereas others we will forget about quickly. Mistakes happen all the time, but making them more than once can be a mystery. Unfortunately, I think we fool ourselves far too often.
When I read your lines I remembered my own struggles with love in my younger years. Everything seemed to be the center of the world. Then decades later, reading old letters, and diary entries, it all appears like episodes, looking at it from a distance. It’s like watching a movie. Of course, nothing of my episodes can be compared to your experiences as a young gay man. When even London was not always safe, you were lucky you had at least that kind of safety at that time.
Yes, I agree about the safety aspect back then, Erika. London was the only place I thought was safe to live as a gay man. And to a large degree it was, but there were times when I felt threatened for being who I was. More about that in later entries.
And you’re right about looking back and thinking how everything seemed to be like watching a movie. These periods in my life still fascinate me today, even though I lived them. If I could go back and watch, I would.
It was very difficult and even dangerous for gay people. I never thought about it when I was younger. But today, I see how brave you guys have been. Still our society has to go a long way but you have come a long way at the same time.
So, would I!!
The long journey has been amazing, Erika. But, as you say, there is still a long way to go even though much of society is more acceptable of the LGBT community.
Thank God, society is more acceptable. In the end, it must not need acceptance, since being gay is simply one of countless ways to be and that is a birth right.
Absolutely, Erika. One day, somewhere that will happen. May the ripples from that place spread far and wide.
This was both heartfelt and a learning curve. Beautifully written, Hugh.
Thank you, Jennie. I was only in my mid 20s when I wrote that diary entry. I don’t think I’d write as heartfelt today as I did back then. But I guess it depends on ones situation with life at the time.
You’re welcome, Hugh. Yes, it depends on the situation in life and stage in life. Here I am, 73, teaching preschool, and heartfelt is my everyday life with children. Interestingly, I would not have written or been so heartfelt when I was in my 20’s. Go figure!
I’ve always had a sensitive nature, Jennie. I think that’s why it comes out in that diary entry.
That makes perfect sense!
I enjoy reading these personal essays, Hugh, and I’m glad you are getting back to them. Have a nice week!
Thank you, Liesbet. I thought it about time I shared some more of these snippets from my life. I hope you enjoy the other 11 entries I have planned for the rest of 2024.
I’m sure I will! :)
Hi Hugh I remember reading these entries from your diary …if I recall you always asked us for a date and you’d highlight that day from back then . I really loved these stories and remember all the names and people. I was so proud of you when you made your way up to London and met the dishy bus driver on the way ….
I do hope you can take this forward as, as I said I truly loved the series. 💜💜
Well remembered, Willow. That was a feature and series I did quite a few years ago taken from my dairy of 1988. This time around, I’ll be sharing my experiences of everyday life as a gay man, mainly during the 1970s and 1980s. This first entry just so happens to start with that final diary entry of 1989. As soon as I read it, it got me thinking and pondering.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the series I have planned for this year. Next month is all about some of the jobs I had and how being gay impacted some of those I worked with.
I know I shall love it Hugh . Your insights are great …. I think it’s a book!! 💜
Maybe, one day, Willow. i’ll see how the next 11 entries go down on my blog. By then, I’ll have a good start for a book.
You will Hugh , you will 💜💜