You

(The last of three parts)

I knew I had a lot of walls. I was conscious of them, the way I kept people at a certain distance. Deflecting any interest to me with sarcasm or a nonsensical answer. I pushed people away, not for any particular reason, but for the accumulated reasons that have happened.

For one thing, I felt different and quite unsure of where I was going or what I was doing. I wasn't very comfortable with the world and I needed the distance so that I could easily pull myself away if I have to. I needed a separate life that was different from the one I was trying to inhabit.

My past relationship also burned me. It may not have been enough to make me straight, but it was enough to stop myself from falling. I became disillusioned almost to the point of cynicism. It almost ruined my view on gay relationships and made me realize that maybe what I want was too much of a fantasy to be real. Like falling into a rabbit hole to get into some wonderland.

It made me realize a hundred things that I didn't want in a relationship. And those hundred things were the ones I saw in the gay world. It was hard to reconcile what I want from what I was witnessing. I know what I wanted but it felt like it was something I would never find in this world. I know what I could give, but I found it hard to find someone who would be worth that.

My past delivered exactly what our culture told me lay in store for every gay person--lies, heartbreak, deceit.

So you were a turning point in my life. Because no matter how hard I pushed in the beginning, you would not leave me (even if I had left.) Your persistence told me that you were not like my ex or any other I had gone out with. More importantly, you established yourself as someone I could trust. That was important for me. Slowly, you broke through, chipping away the walls that I had built around myself. And for that I thank you. And for that I love you.