My gay prom date

~ MaryG

I went to my junior prom with my friend John, who was gay. He was a year older than me and we were good friends and I needed a date, so I asked him. I think I probably knew deep down that he was gay, but hoped he wasn’t. He was so cute!

Back in the early 80s, nobody was out in high school. I had lots of male friends from choir, marching band, church and plays who later came out as gay. Thinking back, John, Jonathan, Adam, Benji, Jamie and Tommy made high school way more fun. One thing they all had in common was their ability to talk to girls. There was no awkwardness. We had so much fun and so many laughs.

I remember going into Newbury Street (Boston’s fanciest shopping street) with John and pretending we were very rich kids (like the Trumps or the Hiltons) and acting like we were about to hop into all the high-end cars. Then we would use our pathetic fake IDs to get served frozen strawberry margaritas at TGI Friday’s. I remember sitting with Jamie & Adam at the local ice cream stand blasting Bruce Springsteen and singing along. Adam was an incredible singer and always got a lead role in the musicals. John was also a fantastic dancer. We had a ton of fun dancing to 80s pop hits. We all liked to dress up and go to screenings of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in Boston. We’d dance The Time Warp in front of the screen and throw toast at the appropriate line. Benji and I played a husband and wife (Mr. and Mrs. Squires) in The Music Man and we had a lot of fun with it. We named one of our diminutive fellow cast members “Billy” and pretended he was our son throughout the show. Billy Squires—get it? (It was an 80s thing.) Tommy was less flamboyant. He was from a large Catholic family and took church very seriously. He wanted to become a priest.

These guys were some of my best pals in high school, but there was a bit of a necessary separation after graduation. I’m sure their journeys to being who they really were wasn’t easy. Benji died in some sort of unexplained accident shortly after graduation and we all saw each other at his funeral. It was awful. Sadly, I heard that Jamie died of AIDS in the later 80s.

I reconnected with Jonathan at our 20th high school reunion and went to visit him in Chicago. I still see Adam and Tommy on Facebook and they are both married to wonderful men and doing well.

Fortunately, my romantic crush on John was short-lived. I think he tried to like me back, but it quickly became apparent that making out was just not working for us. I have no idea where he is now, but I do hope he’s alive and well and still dancing. God he was a good dancer.

16 thoughts on “My gay prom date”

  1. What a cute couple, even if you both liked guys 😉 In all seriousness, what a lovely heartfelt piece filled with compassion and understanding. I, too, had gay friends in high school, and they are doing well. But in the 70s in high school, few guys came out. I didn’t find out they were gay until much later.

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    1. Thank you Laurie. I’m glad your old friends are doing well. I think having so many friends who were girls may have protected them from some of the awful bullying that went on back then.

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  6. You both looked great. One of the best prom photos I’ve seen. 🙂 How sad to lose friends so young. Still feel so much anger re the AIDS crisis and late importance shown. Did you read The Great Believers?

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    1. I did read The Great Believers and loved it. I related so much. I began working for arts organizations in 1987. I feel like I experienced the AIDS crisis and related activism in a very personal way. (I never thought I could hate any president as much as Ronald Reagan. Who knew what was coming 30 years later)

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      1. Could have never gotten here without him.

        Hm, in 1987, I was seventeen and our whole neighborhood was gay couples, some of whom I was really close to. It was confusing for me at that age, but when one of the neighbors deteriorated very quickly, the deeper conversations came to the surface.

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  7. Thank you for continuing to share their stories and keep their memories alive. The LGBTQ+ community now would benefit so much from hearing from the GenX queer “elders”, but unfortunately, so many of them have passed. As a gay man in my twenties, I can’t believe where we are politically today…

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