It was an unusually quiet night at the bar, Morgantown’s only gay bar, the Double Decker. I was 19, and a nice young man who was about 23 or 24 asked me to dance. When the song ended, we had a beer. He might have been the kindest person I ever ran into at that bar, and I thought I knew where things were headed. But he surprised me. He said he wanted to take me home, but there was a party he needed to go to first. Would I like to come with him?
A party? It was like one o’clock in the morning, and I had intense social anxiety. It had been hard enough to talk to him, and now he wanted me to get in a car, go to some unfamiliar place and meet strangers. How many would be there? Why did he come to the bar if he was going to a party? Was it a gay party? This was the mid-’80s, and coming out to straight people was still a big deal, especially in West Virginia. The party was too much for me, and I declined his invitation. Thankfully, he didn’t seem annoyed with me. He accepted that I wasn’t in the mood to go to his party and left. Now I wish I had gone. He was so thoughtful and considerate. Maybe it would have only been a one night thing, but maybe we would have become friends or even more. Who knows? Anxiety can rob you of so much.
