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I was in love with gay man

Women describe their relationships with guys who preferred men

Once, when I was 20, my dear grandmother asked me, “Tell me. Why don’t you marry that guy that you’re always hanging out with? You seem so right for each other.”

 

“But, Grandma,” I protested, “he’s gay.”

 

“Nu, so what,” she shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”

 

In the movies and on television, the single girl with the gay best friend has become somewhat of a cliché. But in real life, things are not always so simple.

 

The man of my dreams

“We met in the lawyers’ office where he worked,” recounts Ofrah (not her real name), 37. “I was waiting there for someone, and he happened to pass by. He looked amazing: Tall, very masculine, blue eyes and light hair. Very sensitive and intelligent. I remember that I thought that he was too thin.

 

“We started talking about opera, because it’s something that we both love. One day he called, just like that out of nowhere, and said that he needed to speak with me. I remember that the conversation put me in a good mood. I wanted to get together with him.

 

“At the coffeehouse, he shared some problems that he was having at work. Only later did I realize that he was actually looking for an advisor.”

 

What happened next?

 

“That same evening, we got home very late. We sat in his car and listened to wonderful arias by Pavarotti on a CD. It was like I was back in high school, coming home with butterflies in my stomach from a date – although I didn’t define it that way then.

 

“Two days later, I received the CD as a present, all wrapped with the words ‘with love’ on it. From that evening on, we were inseparable. We were always on the phone. We would go to all kinds of places together. Without noticing it, I had fallen in love with him.

 

“He acted like a man in love from the storybooks. Not like an Israeli guy, who can sometimes act without consideration. He was polite, tender, a gentleman, and amusing.

 

“When we got caught in the rain one night, he took off his jacket and put it over my head. He cooked me a romantic dinner by candlelight and slow danced with me, cheek to cheek. He invited me on a romantic trip to the North.

 

“One night we went salsa dancing, and I almost went crazy with jealousy. All the girls came to dance with him and started hitting on him, and he of course really enjoyed all the attention. After the salsa, we stood for an hour on the rocks overlooking the sea in Jaffa, and we quietly embraced under the moon.

 

“He was the embodiment of every romantic dream that I had ever had. He was also so handsome, so sensitive. He loved me too.”

 

But nothing happened?

 

“His mother wasn’t Jewish, and he told me some story about how he couldn’t sleep with a girl before marriage due to his Catholic upbringing. Physically, there was a lot of contact between us from the beginning. But we didn’t sleep together, and we didn’t kiss. There were a lot of hugs, caresses, massages.

 

“After about a month, it started to annoy me. Never in my life had I felt so frustrated. Usually, men really like my body.”

 

So when did you discover that you were in love with a gay man?

 

“First of all, there was the physical aspect. But there were other indications. He was ridiculously afraid of gays. I have close friends who are gay, and he really didn’t like that.

 

“With all his masculinity, he was very ‘feminine’ in many ways. He was a gourmet about food, and he had wonderful taste in jewelry and clothes. Every Monday and Thursday, he would get insulted by something I said. In short, I discovered that he had many of the same characteristics as my gay friends do.”

 

Living a lie

Dalia (not her real name), a 25 year old from Tel Aviv, underwent a similar experience. Although she was deeply in love with her former boyfriend, he would always apply the brakes when things would begin to heat up. Today, he remains in the closet and continues to date women.

 

How do you feel about in retrospect?

 

“Like it was all fake. It was a game. The entire time he lied to me, and I was his guinea pig. The experience destroyed me. I lost weight. I couldn’t eat, drink or sleep for months. I was literally physically ill.

 

“When you’re feeling weak, you think that maybe you were wrong and that maybe you should’ve acted differently. Only now do I understand that he was the one who was messed up, not me.”

 

I thought he was a tzadik

“He came from a haredi family, and I came from a traditional religious family,” recounts Rachel (not her real name), who is newly-secular and has been divorced for ten years. “On our first date, I was already head over heels in love with him.

 

“He was so different from all the mousy yeshiva guys that I would see, and I wanted him desperately. At that time, I kept the laws of negiah (refraining from touching prior to marriage), and he made a point of not pressuring me. So, I was convinced that he was a tzadik (a righteous individual), as we say.”

 

How was your wedding night?

 

“I was so much in love that I didn’t notice that on that first night he didn’t consummate the marriage as accepted. He said that his head hurt and that he was tired, and he fell asleep.

 

“Looking back, I simply can’t believe that I managed to escape. During the entire first year, he never touched me – not even once. And later, when I called him on it, he started sleeping on the couch. I was even afraid to tell my mother, because I thought that something was wrong with me and that maybe I wasn’t attractive enough.

 

“The entire first year of marriage was hell. I wanted to die. I would see all the young married women, and they would all look so calm and happy. Only I would go back to my private nightmare.

 

“One day, I went through his pockets when he wasn’t home, and I found an engraved gold watch together with a love letter. That was it for me.

 

“In order to get a divorce, I had to pay him off. He refused to grant a divorce until he received an apartment, and we finally gave in. Today, he’s married to a girl from Bnei Brak. He even has two kids, but all the gays in Tel Aviv know him very well.”

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.09.07, 18:18
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