How to Be Happy

by David Burton

  I felt absolutely awful.

  Let’s pause for a moment. How on earth did it come to pass that a perfectly normal and healthy teenage boy came to experience his body for the first time with a pair of latex gloves and several heaped tablespoons of shame?

  It’s hard to describe the primal level of self-disgust I felt as I buried the latex gloves in the garbage in fear of one of my family members finding them. Without knowing it, I had caught the societal fear of sex that I had first encountered through the family next door.

  It would not be until I was in my early twenties, a decade or more later, that I could ejaculate without feeling like I had dirtied myself. In my teenage years, I would make cold-hearted assertions that I would not touch myself anymore. But I’d inevitably be drawn back to it, thinking myself no better than a drug-addicted no-hoper each time.

  I wasn’t addicted; I was a teenager. I had enough hormones pumping through my body to resuscitate a small deceased horse. Masturbation feels good, it raises immunity, and it helps deal with stress.

  My father had been amazing, doing more for me than many fathers do in teaching me about sex. The book he had given me was also incredibly advanced for its time. But neither of them had stopped what amounted to pretty ridiculous feelings of sexual shame.

  Sex can be scary, and untamed teenage sexual desire can be dangerous and hurtful and lead to some pretty dark places. But repressing it doesn’t do much good either. I certainly can’t see any reason why I should have been afraid of or disgusted by my harmless pubescent willy and my innocent self-exploration.

  For what it’s worth, masturbation, as long as it’s safe, private and you keep yourself well washed (no latex gloves needed), is completely normal. By the way, it can also help make you happy. But for me, as a teenager, there wasn’t a single masturbation experience I could say I enjoyed. I wish I’d been told more emphatically that it was okay.

  By year eleven, some four years later, things had become even more confusing. I had craved women, but that had ended in disaster; I had broken my best friend’s heart and lost her as a result. I felt awful about the way I had left things.

  So when it came to masturbation, I felt I was committing some awful sin. This wasn’t helped by my fantasies, which were beginning to seem more like a hall of mirrors in my mind, shifting, changing and warping in a confusing fog.

  Men started to show up. Naked, muscular, masculine fantasies began to run rampant. It was equal parts bewildering and alluring. Was I gay?

  I desperately sought male affection and deep companionship. I found it nowhere. My friendship with Simon was a frustrating dead end. It was a relationship built on competition, never veering into emotional intimacy. We would argue about politics until we had shouted ourselves into exhaustion, but talking about our feelings was out of the question.

  All my other friends were women, who were lovely, bright and wonderful, but I couldn’t trust any of them with the contents of my sexual mind. It was a pity, because all I wanted to do was compare notes with someone: to see if they were as lost as I was. I had no idea if I was anywhere near normal. I had very little idea of what normal was. I couldn’t escape the almost certain conclusion that no one was like me. All around me, my friends were dating, hooking up and dreaming of marriage and children. I had these dreams as well, but I also had an insatiable curiosity about the male body.

  The question came again.

  Am I gay?

  I convinced myself that I wasn’t. I was just curious. It was just my head playing tricks on me. I’d spend very quiet and shy hours looking up porn on the net (a more difficult task back in those days), and I watched men masturbating ‘to see if I was doing it right’. I just wanted to know. With no one to talk to, porn became my only companion, one that I visited only in the dead of night and in desperate secret.

  In the porn world, sex seemed to happen easily, and men were called upon to be aggressive, domineering and confident. I was none of those things. I found myself attracted to the more colourful range of men that could be seen in gay porn. It felt like I had a better chance of fitting in there. ‘Bottom’, ‘top’, ‘twink’, ‘bear’—I was learning a new language for how to be a man.

  The potential liberation that came with homosexuality was overshadowed by an anxiety that it meant I was a deviant. I didn’t know anyone else who was gay and I assumed I would be outcast if I were to ever ‘come out’. I was convinced my father would disown me and that my friends at school would ostracise me.

  Plus, I wasn’t repelled by women, and I still clung to a romantic idea of marriage and children, something I was in no hurry to give up. I just didn’t have any idea how to link the romantic ideal of the man that populated sitcoms and movies with the sexually confident aggressive man that I saw in hetero porn.

  All of this was happening inside my head. In reality, I was still yet to kiss someone, or even ‘go out’ with anybody. At sixteen, this was deeply unfashionable. By some bizarre accident, Simon had had a girlfriend for a few months now. I felt as though everybody was having sex but me. Couples seemed to spring up everywhere, and news of their sex status was updated frequently through the gossip circles. Some were holding off. Others were diving in. Some had said it would be a ‘schoolies’ thing. In my mind, everyone was shagging everywhere—a quickie beside the bunsen burners in chemistry, or a fondle underneath the desks in maths. Meanwhile, I was playing with my protractor and wondering what the hell was going on.

  In retrospect, this was the greatest trick. We all played it on each other. I realise now that there was far less debauchery than any of us realised. We were incredibly celibate. The amount of actual sex was tiny compared to the amount of pretending we all did.

  But I was determined to get a girlfriend, to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I was capable of being straight and sexually active. My crushes were about as constant as a revolving door, but at the beginning of year eleven, my heart belonged to Tiff. And I had somehow become sensitive enough to realise that her heart belonged to me.

  Tiff had only been at the school for six months. Her enthusiasm for drama quickly made us companions in class, and her overall bubbly attitude was a salve after the troubles with Mary.

  Tiff was a petite girl going through a goth phase. The strokes of eyeliner made her blue eyes all the brighter. Her jet black hair fell in loose bundles onto her shoulders. She was quiet. She wasn’t looking to impress anyone. But she impressed me. I fell into the deepest infatuation I had known.

  The group Simon and I sat with at lunch was now larger and more fluid. Rules about social structure were less intense than they had been when we were all starting out. Tiff was a part of this larger group, and we had become close enough friends to warrant our own outing.

  By ourselves.

  With each other.

  With each other, by ourselves.

  It looked, felt and smelt like a date, but we both vehemently denied it was one.

  We went and saw Chicago.

  Yep.

  Chicago. The musical.

  But I wasn’t gay.

  Tiff and I both loved musicals. We were enormous fans of Moulin Rouge, which had come out a few years earlier.

 
There was something about the bigness of it all that I liked. I was repressing so much of my true self, believing myself to be fundamentally unworthy of any kind of love. It was my belief that I was an awful friend and a generally awful person. These movies, in all their theatricality, provided a dizzyingly attractive freefall of emotional release. I suspect Tiff felt much the same. And in that darkened movie theatre, outside school and with a taste of freedom, we began a very quiet conversation.

  ‘Is there anyone you like?’ I asked. ‘At school?’

  She smiled slowly, and a light grew behind her eyes. ‘Maybe. What about you?’

  I concentrated on making sure my voice didn’t break. ‘Maybe,’ I croaked. ‘But what about you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied, shyly. ‘What about you?’

  I giggled. ‘Maybe.’

  Silence for a while. And then I replied, ‘What about you?’

  She looked down. ‘Maybe,’ she said quietly. ‘What about you?’

  As gripping as this conversation was, I’ll skip past its true length and get to the point.

  ‘I might…like…you,’ I said quietly.

  I looked up.

  She was smiling.

  ‘You too,’ she said.

  We both laughed. I felt elated.

  ‘Do you maybe want to go out with me?’ I asked.

  She giggled again, her eyes growing brighter.

  ‘Yes.’

  I’d won. I had a girlfriend. I’d done it. Finally. It was official. Tiff and I were going out. I was over the moon. Yes. Amazing.

  Okay. Cool.

  But now what?

  With this quiet agreement of mutual attraction, I had expected something to kick in. I had expected my horniness to spin out of control. After all, didn’t all teenage men want sex? And now that I was in a relationship, shouldn’t I somehow be pursuing it pretty much relentlessly? I presumed the proud male aggression and confidence would just turn up once I was with someone.

  But it didn’t kick in. In fact, my libido plummeted. The thought of sex filled me with dread. I couldn’t even kiss her. My entire body would tense up at the thought, and I would be incapable of speaking, let alone gallantly picking her up in my arms and depositing her softly onto a bed.

  But we needed to kiss. And soon. The days were ticking past.

  I was paralysed with fear. How is this meant to happen? What am I supposed to do? Do I just close my eyes and move in? Should I hold her head? But won’t that be weird? Should I lick my lips? But won’t that look friggin’ creepy?

  I had wanted a girlfriend for years. And Tiff was perfect in every way. You’ve got to listen to me on this point: there was nothing wrong with Tiff. Her startling blue eyes and gorgeous laugh made her wonderfully attractive, in every way. She was permanently energetic and full of humour. We made each other laugh. In her, I had found a kindred spirit. She felt somewhat out of place in her family and underestimated her own potential for greatness. I was drawn to her.

  It was clear that I was supposed to initiate physical affection. That was something that the guy was definitely supposed to do. When we said goodbye to each other at the end of the day, or found ourselves alone somewhere, she would look at me, expectantly, and there would be a silence that seemed to last an eternity.

  ‘Okay,’ I’d say. ‘Bye.’

  She’d give a half smile. ‘See ya.’

  We’d look into each other’s eyes, and I would hear her brain telepathically screaming at my mine, demanding I take action. ‘KISS ME.’

  But I couldn’t. I’d just nod and smile and leave.

  I’d walk away feeling as though I’d failed a very important test. I couldn’t bare to look back over my shoulder.

  But Tiff kept giving me second chances. Each time, her face would shine up at me, full of optimism and hope for something I couldn’t bring myself to deliver.

  Friday came around. Our first week of being a couple had ended. I knew in my gut that this was a key time to make a move.

  ‘I’ll miss you this weekend,’ I said. Her hand was tightly gripped in mine.

  ‘Aw,’ she said, looking down, embarrassed. And then I saw her have an urgent thought, and she lifted her face up to mine, so it was only inches away.

  I felt as though I was about to collapse in a nervous puddle.

  ‘I’ll talk to you online?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, smiling.

  Silence.

  Long, horrible silence.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you next week.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  Silence.

  Again.

  Longer, more horrible silence.

  I walked away, trying to ignore the disappointment on Tiff’s face.

  Dammit.

  I was beginning to question this whole relationship thing. Because nothing else had changed. Tiff and I cuddled, but we still acted like we were friends. Was being a boyfriend just being a friend, but with kissing?

  The following Wednesday was Valentine’s Day. I gave her a flower and a deluxe edition of Moulin Rouge.

  Two weeks went by. In teenage-relationship time, that is close to a year. I hadn’t done anything except hold her hand, cuddle her and buy her a gift. My lack of action was making our friendship, which was once so easy, awkward and weird. I felt like an idiot every time I opened my mouth. I couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking.

  I attempted to talk to Simon about my confusion, but he was shocked at my complete lack of ability.

  ‘Why don’t you just do it?’ he asked, exasperated.

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  He shrugged. ‘You just do it.’

  ‘Yeah, but how though?’

  ‘You’re thinking about it too much. Just shut up and do it.’

  Right. Good advice, Simon. Just do it.

  Okay.

  We had a drama excursion to Brisbane. The production was hilarious, but I found it difficult to enjoy. Tiff and I were at the back of the theatre, our hands tightly clasped, her head on my shoulder. It was Friday again, and I had two options. Kiss her now, or make a date to see her privately over the weekend, which meant one of us visiting the other, and the idea of attempting to pash with either of our families nearby was pure torture. So it had to be today. We couldn’t go another whole weekend without something happening.

  This was it.

  On the bus ride back, Tiff’s head kept finding its way to my shoulder, and her finger tickled the inside of my palm, drawing neat little circles. This new threshold of intimacy was too much. The bus was hot and my deep-fried lunch suddenly felt unsettled. I couldn’t do this. When we arrived back at school, even the teacher gave me a wink and a nod. She had seen Tiff snuggling into me in the rear-view mirror. Oh God, everyone was about to find out I was a fraud.

  Tiff was beaming, but I was internally screaming. This all felt so wrong and weird. I was bound to let her down. I would inevitably be shit. In place of l
ust, I felt crippling fear.

  She looked up at me, smiling, saying goodbye. We had waited until the school courtyard was deserted, my stomach tightening all the while. We held hands and looked at each other, and the heavy, familiar silence opened up between us, the dim echo of my own failings reverberating between us.

  She was waiting.

  ‘Bye,’ I said, and walked away.

  Just as I had suspected I would, I completely buggered up. I was an awful boyfriend. I couldn’t even kiss her.

  On Monday, Simon advised me to break it off.

  So I did. I convinced myself that she must have been feeling very similar to me.

  ‘I just feel like we’re better off going back to the way we were,’ I said, trying not to look her in the eye. ‘I think we’re meant to be friends.’

  Tiff gave a short, silent nod. And then she smiled.

  We hugged.

  It was over.

  I felt instantly relieved. Now I didn’t have that to worry about. I breathed easy. I went back to being funny Crazy Drama Dave, and Tiff and I went back to being friends. I convinced myself she was fine, probably just as relieved as I was.

  ‘It’s great,’ I said to Simon one day. ‘I don’t know why we tried to be anything more. She thinks so too.’

  Simon was not convinced. ‘She’s devastated. I don’t think you realise. She’s really upset.’

  I shrugged it off. What did he know? I ignored any sense of failure, and just put my first dating experience down as an experiment that didn’t pay off. There’d be someone else soon enough.

  A week later, I noticed marks on Tiff’s wrists.

  6

  Yoo-hoo!

  My internal wrestle with love and lust was the tip of the iceberg in a time that would see my entire year level go mental. We were fast approaching the final year of school, and the pressure was on. Relationships were secured and broken up in a matter of days. Virginities were willingly given and taken. Alcohol-fuelled parties, I heard (although I never attended them), were abundant. But our blossoming sexuality was only one part of senior high school. Chaos abounded everywhere. There were rumours of other girls self-harming, and two or three students came to school with dark bruises and tales of family fights gone horribly wrong.