I remember standing with Alexander on that cliff above the quarries. I envied the way he fearlessly flew through the air, hurling himself into the seemingly endless and obscure depths of the icy water, which I looked at with pure terror. But he eventually grabbed my arm and demanded I jump, and sure enough he shattered my fear of heights as we leapt off of the precipice together.
Flash forward to the second semester. It was time for the junior ring ball, which is a huge event at Norwich second to the annual regimental ball and I had just landed the date of a lifetime. Have you ever felt so excited about someone that you actually tell your friends about them? That is how this tragedy-turned-success story all begins and how my inspiring roommate redefines what it means to be an accepting, straight friend.
One morning at breakfast, I couldn’t contain my excitement and proceeded to tell a few of my friends at the table. My roommate, Alexander, sat across from me and seemed less excited. On our way back from breakfast he told me to “guard my heart,” but I just assumed he was in disbelief of my excitement over this guy, or that he didn’t care. Strangely enough, it turned out that his pessimism, in reality, was him caring about me enough to tell me what I may have not wanted to hear and a premonition of what was about to unfold.
I returned from the gym that night to an iMessage that felt like a cold rush of air was blowing through me. My next instinct was to just drive on and keep my composure, while I quietly coped with the rapidly encroaching realization that I had just been stood up by the ball date of my dreams.
Morning came and the soreness of my heartache wore upon me with the weight of a mountain — perhaps the one that I could see from my window which was so conveniently named “Mount Paine.” My life resumed as I cycled through the day in such a transient-autopilot mode that I barely recognized my own roommate, Alexander as he passed by me on the upper parade ground.
“You’ve been really down lately what’s up with you?” He asked me and to which I replied with the restrained words “you were right…”
“Right? — Oh, it didn’t work out with you and…?”
“No,” I shot back at him and instead of going on about how he had seen this coming he looked right at me and said so nonchalantly or without hesitation “bro, I’ll go to the ball with you.”
I knew immediately that those words embodied such a selfless act that was from a place of true friendship and that he knew how humiliated I’d feel to have to tell everyone that I wasn’t going anymore.
One of my many goals at Norwich is to show everyone there and the world that it is a safe and caring environment for openly gay people now and that I will not have to succumb to being stigmatized into bringing a date of the opposite sex in order to “go along.” Even though Alexander is as straight as they come, he was comfortable enough with his sexuality to be enough of a bro to help me in my time of need and wasn’t worried about coming off as gay in the slightest.
It takes courage and true acceptance of one’s sexuality to put societal perceptions aside to help a brother out. Sometimes we all fall down, but it is why we have friends who will extend their hands to do anything they can to help us, and even if that means a hand in dance.
