Since my childhood I felt the difference. It was strange as I did not like football, while all the children of the same generation loved this sport. I knew I was not bold, strong, and I’m afraid of violence and fighting.

At the age of 14 years, I knew that being gay would create a dilemma. In terms of society being against me and against my thoughts, and religion does not approve either. I stayed in a struggle with myself until I was 17 when I joined the Palestinian Association called “Alqaws” and that made me young and more self-confident.

When I was 18, I achieved a great achievement. I told my family I was gay. It was very difficult because I have a very close family. I decided to break the news in a new way. My family loved to read so I took advantage of it and I told them through an article explaining the subject of homosexuality scientifically.

Praise be to God, my family was understanding about me being gay. This is helping me as I do not feel I’m alone, especially in a society that does not accept different sexual orientations.

I find five being a constant number in my life. Five months since I met and broke up with him. Fifth boyfriend (Well, some of them don’t really count). And five times the pain in the ass. So what’s the deal? Why am I writing a story about it? Well truth is, what happened in the past five months seems so surreal that I can only turn it into a story.

So our story, as many do nowadays, began with a text message. Hey. How’s it going? “Well that’s original”, I thought. So I said something equally as suave and sophisticated. “Nuthin much. U?” And so back and forth we text, me all the while attempting to drag information at of my new friend. “What’s your favorite movie?” “What kind of music do you like?” I’m lucky if I get one word answers. One night he asks if he can call me. I, of course, oblige. We talk. The conversation is sparse and forced. Yet still we persist at the notion that we have something in common. That we are compatible in any way.

Well the date night comes. We have Mexican food, his favorite. Like the phone conversation the talking is rare and I shift in my place. Well after that we have some private time and pretend that we’re a real couple. A few days later he invites me to his friend’s house. When we arrive I am met by a very loud, very annoying girl. And here in lies the real story. Everyone around me at this house is on some type of drug. Some of them can deal with it (when I say that I mean they are mentally stable, as drug users should be). Others, however, cannot. Others like my “boyfriend” and his friend.

What I saw that night… was his soul. I saw that he was new to this earth. Therefore still young in its ways. So here is this innocent soul (or as innocent as they come), thrust into a shallow world full of drugs, a lot of sex, and the amazing ability to not give a shit about anyone but yourself. This dark dank rabbit hole was not how I conceived I’d live my youth, or any part of my life for that matter.

I see a pattern emerging. No, not a pattern, an obsession. THC, LSD, PCP and most likely many other mind altering acronyms. All of which he coveted. It started to worry me. A tortured soul can always recognize one of their own. And I saw his tortured soul. His mother was a drunk, he hated his father. He was so confused about who he was and where he was going in life.

I found all of this out when he was drunk. And believe me this little man got drunk quite easily. He no longer used drugs to alter his mind, but to alter his reality. A reality he never wanted to go back to.

After five months of the same old song and dance (it felt like a dance marathon), in a mass of his self confusion we broke up. Now I check on him every once in a while to make sure that he hasn’t gone and done something rash. All through these five months that was my duty. I was to babysit and make sure he was alright. Little good it did though.

So as Paul Desmond’s sweet and smooth saxophone notes flow into my ear like air, I know that my life is once again on a smoother more beautiful path.

When I was 22, I was in a really horrible auto accident. I lost my dad, and ended up in a wheelchair for almost a year. When I got out of the chair, I started dating the daughter of one of my grandfathers’ friends that preached in a nearby town. I feel really bad about this part of my story. She was a sweet, beautiful girl, and she fell in love with me. I asked her to marry me, trying to do what was expected of me. In the meantime I collected a rather large sum of money from the auto accident, and moved to Lexington, Kentucky. On the nights that I knew that she was in church, or prayer group, I started to go to local gay bars. She followed me one night, and of course the cat was out of the bag. It broke her heart, broke my family’s heart, and I cut myself off from my family. As I got more confident, and comfortable with who I was, I reconnected with some of my family. Some good reunions and some bad. I learned that I could be who I needed to be, and that the families you create from friends and loved ones are the ones that sustain you. I have a wonderful relationship with my extended family, and after a really long painful process of growth, I am a happy, fully out, and confident gay man.

At a very early age I knew I was gay. My oldest brother explained matter-of-factly that there were men who fell in love with other men called homosexuals and women who fell in love with other women called lesbians. This was when I was about 9. I knew right then and there the group I belonged to. I was very precocious sexually. By the time I was 12 or 13 my friends and I would “mess around” — not really sex but engage in something close to mutual masturbation.

As I entered my teens I had a little more freedom and would go to either Fort Lauderdale or Miami by bus. As a gay teenager there were very few places to go but I learned there were parks where gay guys cruised, including one in Hollywood right downtown called Young Circle (named after the founder of the town). I came out to my parents who went through a brief phase I call “We know, but we don’t want to talk about it”, but after a while they were supportive. When I was about 17 my dad would drive me to gay bar for a social event sponsored by the mostly gay Metropolitan Community Church in West Hollywood. On another occasion my father went with me to hear Rev. Troy Perry, who was in town, speak (Dad was impressed with Rev. Perry). By the time I was in college - Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton - I was president of the student gay group. In my senior year Anita Bryant was active in her anti-gay rights campaign in Miami. My parents came out with me to a pro-gay rights demonstration. They were as supportive as parents could be to a gay child. Recently I returned to Hollywood, Florida to visit friends and relatives even though it is now nearly 30 years since I lived there. Oh, I have been back since, but just a few times over the years. I love my hometown and take pride in the fact the town has a much more lively downtown area now and there are some luxurious high-rise buildings on the beach like Donald Trump’s building. But many residential areas have gone down hill I am sorry to say. My best friend and I drove around town and it’s still boxy single floor ranch houses block after block baking in the hot sun and nobody walking around. It looks dead. On Facebook I am a member of the “I Grew Up In Hollywood, Florida” group. I want to underscore the point that Hollywood is not as elegant or glamorous as some of the other towns on South Florida’s “Gold Coast” but I do love it. It is my home town.

I’m From Laingsburg, MI. I cried when I saw the movie Prayers for Bobby. I felt so much like Bobby, and because I was almost at that breaking point, I tried to get my parents to watch it, but they wouldn’t have it. My dad had to get up and go for a drive when I told him what it was about and my mother just lit a cigarette and sat in the recliner, crossed her arms, and said, “So what, you like it up the ass?”

I’m From Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico. I knew that I liked men since I was very young, probably around 11 or 12 years old. But admitting that I was gay from such a young age in a country that still holds a lot of homophobia — even though things are beginning to change with gay marriage recognized in our country’s capital — would have presented a lot of problems.

I’m From Vanceburg, KY. The only thing that amazes me more than the mind’s ability to hate is the heart’s ability to love. I grew up in a very rural and isolated area of Kentucky. Racism was open and prevalent as was homophobia. As a young gay man I felt that the only way I could live my life was to move away and that is exactly what I did. I am now an open, out and happy man living and working in Washington, DC.

I’m From Dayton, OH - Video Story. And I moved to New York City to become a designer; a fashion designer. That was my dream and looking back, it was my dream and I didn’t become a fashion designer but instead I discovered a way of living I don’t think I would have ever discovered or found if I had stayed in Dayton, Ohio, or stayed where I was from.

If you’re interested in being in a Video Story, just let me know and we’ll set up a time and place to meet.

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For the transcript, Continue Reading.

My name’s Troy Chatteron, I’m from Dayton, Ohio. And I moved to New York City to become a designer; a fashion designer. That was my dream and looking back, it was my dream and I didn’t become a fashion designer but instead I discovered a way of living I don’t think I would have ever discovered or found if I had stayed in Dayton, Ohio, or stayed where I was from.

I moved to New York and I was engaged and probably would have been married in a couple years but my girlfriend broke up with me. And about a year later is when I really came out and had my first boyfriend, and then we broke up and somehow my 30s just almost got away from me and I didn’t really have a significant relationship in my 30s. So I was 39 years old in the summer of 2008, and it was a summer night, like around this time, and I went out for a drink close by and met this guy and we really hit it off. And I’ll never forget, it was about a month that we had known one another and he asked me if I wanted to go to Hamlet, Shakespeare in the Park, and we did. It’s outside and we’re right in the middle of the crowd and all of a sudden he just reaches his hand and holds my hand, and I’ll never forget it because for me, it was…it was like my heart was going to explode. And it’s not like it was the first time I’d ever held a guy’s hand before, it was that combination of really kind of liking someone and it just being this kind of unusual moment. And right as it happened, this firefly kind of flew right between us and its light went on, and we both looked up and we both looked at one another, and then it whoooosh it left, but that firefly…I’ll be 100 and I’ll remember it because it kind of marked that moment.

I’ve often thought of this story because he and I never became real boyfriends. We’re close friends now. But it came after a real long time of thinking that I hadn’t fallen in love or I really hadn’t fallen for someone, and I really wondered at 39 if it was ever going to happen to me. And I know that’s kind of an irrational thought, but it didn’t feel irrational. It awakened something in me that…that I wasn’t even sure was still there.

I grew up in a very rural and isolated area of Kentucky. Racism was open and prevalent as was homophobia. As a young gay man I felt that the only way I could live my life was to move away and that is exactly what I did. I am now an open, out and happy man living and working in Washington, DC.

About 5 years ago I was visiting my family when my brother motioned for me to follow him from my parents living room. I followed him to the bedroom we shared as children. After we entered he closed the door and took a moment to look at me before he spoke “Are you gay?”

For a moment my heart stopped beating in my chest. Although I lived openly in DC back home I was still in the closet. I never lied to my family but we had our own version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

When my heart started beating again I looked my brother directly in the eye “Yes. Yes I am.” This was the one question I always had promised myself I would never shy away from because if they asked they are ready to know and deal with all that comes with knowing.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts “Is that why you never come home? If it is, I don’t care! I just want you here to be part of my children’s lives!”

I was awestruck. Never in a million years would I think I would ever hear that from my brother. With tears in my eyes I hugged him. We held tight for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was just a few seconds. We broke apart with the promise to talk more later.

To this day I am a part of my niece and nephews life. Safe in knowing that if some day I ever find that man that makes me want to move heaven and earth to be with him, that he will be part of their lives as well.

Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in college in another city and decided that I would write my mother a letter. It was a rather large letter, and I wrote everything that I could get out of my chest at the time, and it ended up being a really emotional letter, with my apologizing for lying to them for so long and asking them to be comprehensive. When I went to visit my parents back home, I took my mom for coffee and told her the news, as well as handing her the letter. At first she seemed to be okay and told me she would still love me, but the next morning she just started crying, apologizing for allowing me to feel so lonely for so long, and then she said that she couldn’t keep the secret from my father, and so I had two options: either she tells him, or I do so. Crap.

Two days later, I sat my father down at the living room and broke the news to him. That was the first, and so far only time, that I ever saw my dad cry. I think I could see his heart shattering right in his eyes. After that, he said that I was sick, that they would find me help from a doctor, that I was confused, and then he finally said that I would grow up to be a lonely man, with no one there left to support me. My mom then joined him, supporting him in what he said.

And now I understand why: she was just trying to support both her son and her husband, but didn’t really know how, and she thought this would be the best way, by agreeing with her partner. And now I know that my father said all those things because that’s what he was taught about homosexuality, that’s what he grew up with, and deep down all he wanted was to avoid his son getting hurt by other people. Now I understand that, but back then, it was one of the most emotionally painful and tiring nights of my life. My dad didn’t speak to me or look at me in the eyes for the next three days, until my holiday was over and I had to return to college.

After seeing two doctors, with both of them agreeing that there was no way to change my homosexuality and that there was nothing wring with me — the second doctor even congratulated me for coming out — my parents were still not comfortable about me being gay, but at least they were not saying negative things anymore.

So far, the process has been slow, but positive. Three years later, I call my parents and let them know that I have a boyfriend, who is the greatest man I’ve ever met. My mom is okay with that now, asking every now and then about him, calling him by his name, and she even knitted a scarf for him and sent it to him as a Christmas present, saying “thank you” for loving her son.

My dad didn’t react so well. He called me the next day and said “Come on, son, don’t do that, why can’t you just marry a woman?” to which I answer: “Dad, poor woman, I would cheat on her all the time, and I mean ALL!”. And I will never forget his response: “Okay, okay, you have a point, so I just had an idea: why don’t you marry a lesbian?”. I have no idea how I managed not to burst out laughing right there on the phone, but I managed to keep myself together. I know my dad still has issues with my being gay and that is going to take him a lot more time to come to terms with it than I imagined, but I’m willing to wait. I want him to accept it on his own terms, just like my mother did. After all, they are my parents and I love them.

I was told something the other day that was rather hurtful and I suppose untrue, yet there are many times I wonder if that is so. A stranger, upon learning of my “condition” felt it his duty to tell me that I had a lot of balls to think that I should ever have sex again. That apparently I had given up my right for human affection, human contact and sexual gratification the day I failed the most important test of my life; who was I to try to have sex and infect others. Now of course the initial knee-jerk response is that this guy was obviously an ignorant, uncaring moron and that I should pay him no mind. But sadly he is not the first, and I am sure he will not be the last, to tell me such a thing.

I don’t look for pity or even empathy for who I am. Like I said, I made my bed and in it I must lay. But at a time when the country is at a crossroads in determining just how “equal” we as gay men are, can we really expect them to understand if we as a sub-culture can’t even find respect and compassion amongst ourselves? I mean it’s not like I don’t tell guys my status; I don’t try to hide it or deny it. Yet over half the time upon revealing it you get the look; the look that makes you feel like a modern-day leper. I made a mistake, albeit a rather stupid and severe mistake, but who among us havn’t? Do I suddenly become less of a person because of this? Do I no longer have the right to the same happiness as any other man?

Now I know these stories aren’t supposed to be tirades or rants or whatever about social injustice, but I think sometimes we as gay men need to just take a step back. We want to be treated as equally as our heterosexual counterparts, yet we are always quick to discriminate against other gays who are “less than ourselves”. When does it become right for the “victim” to become the “victimizer”? Never…it never does. We are all human and deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. Just try to remember that the next time you complain about how you are treated by another. Think what it would feel like if the shoe was on the other foot. Would you degrade someone just to make yourself feel safer, all because of your own fears and misunderstandings?