Chuck Ranberg
Submitted as a
Narrative
I came out not long after arriving at Porter College as a
freshman in 1973. In that ultra-liberal climate it was a safe
place to finally exhale and try to become the person I'd been
repressing throughout high school. There were no gay
organizations on campus then, so I was still faced with not
really knowing how to meet anyone. It was very fashionable to
call yourself bisexual (who could forget the Sexual Ambiguity
party in B-Dorm?), but in truth, none of my "bisexual" brothers
were actually interested in more than friendship; they just
liked David Bowie. Eventually my gaydar improved, and by the
time I was a senior I had several good gay friends at the
college. Curiously, we were all RA's. And some of us were
sleeping together. Alex was dating Rick, I was dallying with
Bruce--until Alex and Rick broke up, and then I fell in love
with Rick, and meanwhile we all cried on Dan's shoulder. Having
a gay student union might have spared us a lot of drama. Or
maybe not. I'm happy to say Alex and Dan are still in my life
and when we talk about those times, we laugh.
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