Other ways to tell if someone is rich: they have nice shampoo, conditioner, and face cream. Rich people don’t like to be too grandiose anymore, so most of their money goes into the small details. Visit a rich person’s bathroom and all their secrets will be revealed to you. Their couch may say recession, but their medicine cabinet is still living high on the hog. Lastly, someone is rich if they have a name like Scoop, Muffy, Mitsy, or Scooter. The more made-up a name is, the richer they are. Nothing says “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK BECAUSE I’M RICH, BITCH!” like naming your daughter Acorn.
Even though I technically grew up middle class, I’ve been around rich people since I attended St. Paul’s on financial aid. While all the other mothers dropped their kids off at school wearing their tennis outfits and stopped in the parking lot afterward to leisurely chat and gossip, mine was always like, “Get the fuck out of the car, sweetie. If I’m late to work, I get fired and we lose everything!”
My family did have occasional glimmers of wealth. For a few years, we lived in a nice house in the hills, and at one point my father even owned a BMW (which he later couldn’t afford, so he traded it in for a piece-of-shit Buick that eventually broke down in a Taco Bell drive-thru). But as soon as we’d start to feel cozy, as soon as things would get comfortable, we’d lose it all. When my parents divorced and filed for bankruptcy, my mother had to buy a much smaller house in a less desirable part of town. My father moved into a two-bedroom apartment where I took up residence in the walk-in closet. (To this day, my father doesn’t think it was weird for his son to live in a closet and insists it was the size of a small bedroom. It wasn’t. It was the size of a closet.) My father was offensively cheap. Whenever we would grab burgers at a fast-food restaurant for dinner, he would refuse to do something as simple as pay the extra sixty cents for cheese, insisting that he could melt cheese in a pan himself when we got home. We could also never order anything other than water when we were at a restaurant. Suggesting that you’d like to have a Sprite was basically like demanding that he send you to Sarah Lawrence for college. Whenever I asked him why he wouldn’t buy me a soda, he would say, “BECAUSE IT OFFENDS ME THAT THEY’RE EVEN CHARGING FOR SOFT DRINKS. IT’S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MATTER, RYAN!”
As I got older, my father remained cheap as ever, but somehow he, my brother, and I all managed to move up in class. When I was fourteen, my father remarried a sitcom writer and moved into her beach house in Malibu. When I was eighteen, I got access to my settlement money, and my parents were basically like “K, bye—no more money for you.” (One of the first things I did with my money was take my dad out to dinner and order a million Sprites just to spite him. It was a bittersweet moment because no purchase has ever felt as gratifying since.) After I received my lump sum of cash, my brother started his very successful porn website and bought a million-dollar house in the Hollywood Hills. Soon, the three of us were eating out at steakhouses and experiencing a lifestyle that was wildly different from the one we grew up with. We had reached financial stability thanks to second marriages, porn, and cerebral palsy.
I’ll never forget the day I got my settlement money. On my eighteenth birthday, I went into a Washington Mutual (RIP) and took out $300, which was the most amount of money I’d ever seen in my life. Holding those crisp $20 bills in my hand felt like being in possession of crack cocaine. I just wanted to use it until there was nothing left. So that’s what I did. I had Baby’s First Spending Blackout in the mall. I bought a few CDs at Sam Goody, an ice blended mocha at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a new wallet at the skater shop, and some T-shirts at Miller’s Outpost. I bought lemonades for all my friends at Hot Dog on a Stick and took a cab downtown to go to the movies. I was an instant nouveau riche teen nightmare. Growing up in a household that was dominated by financial stress, I’d never thought of money as a happy thing. It was the source of depression, anxiety, and fear—not a cause for celebration.
It felt strange gaining access to a world that was never meant for me. The switch reminded me of my car accident, when I had gone from being Ryan, the dude with cerebral palsy, to Ryan, the poor guy who got hit by a car. I was again wearing the personality clothes that didn’t quite fit. People assumed I came from a wealthy family and had a trust fund when it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Cerebral palsy, the source of all my major issues and internal strife, was the reason why I was able to order an $18 salad at [insert hot restaurant here].
Having money meant I dodged a crucial aspect of your twenties: being broke. In college and beyond, you’re supposed to have a hard time financially. If you don’t, it’s a strike against your character. Many of my friends take pride in their working-class roots and have told me that they wouldn’t date someone who’s rich because the class inequity would make them too uncomfortable. Once, a friend of mine who’d ended up with a wealthy boyfriend accompanied him and his family on a shopping trip to SoHo and watched them drop thousands of dollars in two hours. Afterward, she was so traumatized that she had to excuse herself to go cry in the bathroom. I don’t blame her. Money is depressing. Gallivanting around with rich people when you yourself don’t have much money can lead to secretly sobbing in bathrooms because you’re being faced with the cold, harsh reality that no matter how alike you are, there are always different upbringings, different reference points, different values placed on the dollar.
Most of my friends were raised in middle-class households and no longer receive any help from their parents. At least I don’t think they do. Getting a postgrad to talk candidly about their financial situation isn’t easy. I think I’d have a better chance getting one of my girlfriends to share the story of her second abortion. It seemed like whenever I tried to talk to one of my friends about how they get their money, the conversation would go like this:
Me: Hey, babe!
Friend: Hey, hon! What’s up?
Me: Nothing. I was just wondering if I could ask you some questions.
Friend: Sure. What about?
Me: Um, I want to know how you afford to live.
[DIAL TONE]
Perhaps people are so reticent to talk about money not because they all have a secret trust fund but because they’re ashamed of their spending habits. No matter how “broke” a twentysomething claims to be, they will always be able to afford the things they “need”—even if that thing is something as superfluous as a bottle of wine or an organic five-dollar latte.
It goes back to the reason why I blow all my money on candles, lotions, and potions. In your twenties, you are constantly aspiring to be something—a girlfriend, a young professional, someone with health insurance, a person who knows how to cook—and in order to get from point A to point B, you feel like you have to drop some serious cash. Take the simple desire of wanting to get laid. To feel sexually attractive, one believes they have to work out at the gym, buy clothes that make their body look amazing, and spend extra money on healthy locally sustainable, hormone-free, very expensive food. So they do it. They go to Whole Foods, they buy a gym membership at a place like 24 Hour Fitness, which is cheaper than, say, Equinox, but is still a lot of money for someone who considers themselves broke, and they splurge on the occasional shopping trip to Forever 21 and H&M. This is what “living paycheck to paycheck” looks like for a lot of people: delicious groceries, a lot of throwaway dresses, and maintaining a gym body. They’re seen as necessities instead of luxuries, though, because Millennials need to look good and feel good, no matter what their paycheck says.
To get further insight into the troubled delusional minds of my generation, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten things “broke” twentysomethings buy and the rationale behind each purchase:
1. Alcohol: I need to buy this orange hibiscus cocktail because I’m sad and I’m sad because I don’t have any money and I don’t have any money because I keep spending all my money on orange hibiscus cocktails.
2. Cabs: It’s late and I don’t want to walk home because I’m scared of getting raped. Do you want me to get raped
?
3. Dinners at expensive restaurants: My friend suggested this place and I feel too embarrassed to tell her that I can’t afford it, so I said yes and now I’m having heart palpitations. I better not get too nervous and vomit up this $24 chicken breast I charged on my credit card.
4. New sheets: My old sheets were only 250-thread count, which just isn’t okay because I’m twenty-six now and twenty-six-year-olds deserve a higher thread count.
5. The expensive organic cereal: I need to eat healthy, okay? I haven’t been taking care of myself lately, so I’m investing in this organic cereal in the hopes that it will minimize the damage alcohol has wrought on my body for the last five years. Besides, it’s only $6.
6. Student loans: This isn’t actually a superfluous purchase, but LOL at people who are like, “I’m deferring my loans because I have no money. Can we talk about this later, though? I’m late to yoga.”
7. Nice jeans: Um, they last forever, and anyway it’s smart to invest in classics like a good pair of jeans and shoes. Plus, they make my ass look amazing, so bye!
8. iPhones: If a homeless person can have an iPhone, so can I!
9. New computer: My computer is so slow that I can’t even check for jobs on Craigslist. You want me to be employed, right?
10. Cable: JK—who actually has cable anymore?
All my friends are in such different places financially. I know people who are still living with their parents in my hometown because they can’t afford rent, people whose parents pay for their $3,000-a-month studio in Manhattan, people who make $45K a year and support themselves completely. I even know someone who is homeless and has been crashing with friends in Los Angeles for the past year doing the occasional odd job. The idea of “struggle” is completely relative, and even though I’m friends with everyone from trust funders to people who don’t have a place to live, they all seem to be doing okay. They all manage to make it work and live lifestyles that aren’t so night and day from one another. Sometimes I wonder how this could be possible. Does this mean that everyone I know is just living beyond their means and spiraling into credit card debt? No. It means we’re operating under the assumption that everything is going to work out. We have a crystal clear vision of what our life is supposed to look like. We will be able to go on vacations. We will be able to afford nice bath products. We will be able to go out to a nice dinner. And we will work our ass off and do whatever it takes to make sure that happens. If for some sick, strange reason it doesn’t work out, our financial bottom isn’t really a bottom at all. We can just move back in with our parents until we land on our feet again. In previous generations, you had legitimate pressure to get your shit together, because there was no bailout plan. Millennials are different. Whether you’re rich or poor, most of us have the safety net of our parents’ house, and that allows us to live the life we want. That’s our secret. It’s not credit card debt. It’s not trust funds. It’s having parents who don’t want to see us fail.
My mom would love nothing more than for me to move back into her house and live unhappily ever after, but that would only happen if hell freezes over and/or Vanessa Hudgens is considered a legitimate actress. Even if I did manage to blow through all my money and my TV career turned to dust, I’d still never go back to sharing a roof with my parents. My days of being a closeted teenager who lives in an actual closet are over.
Being Gay Is Gay
BEHIND EVERY SUCCESSFUL TWENTYSOMETHING gay man, there is an ashamed thirteen-year-old boy jacking off to Mark Wahlberg under the covers. I remember the moment I realized I was gay. It wasn’t when, at the tender age of seven, I wore a T-shirt around my head and pranced around the house pretending I had long luxurious blond hair à la Kelly Taylor in Beverly Hills, 90210. Nor was it when I noticed that my best friend in the third grade, Todd, had a remarkably cute butt and would stare at it for hours in class. All of that seemed like normal behavior to me. What guy didn’t pretend to have long hair and check out his best friend’s ass when he was younger? Okay, maybe there were a few.
My first inkling that I might be just a smidge homo came when puberty hit and I began to spend approximately 80 percent of my waking hours in the shower masturbating. At first I would fantasize about men and women, convincing myself that I was only thinking about dudes for logistical sex reasons, but after two weeks of engaging in that heterosexual nonsense, my brain started to slip up and kick the girl out of the fantasy. Now that I was faced with only an image of hot, hunky male parts, all pleasurable hell would break loose in my body.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I screamed to myself in the shower, shortly after climaxing to my first male-only fantasy. This couldn’t be happening. I did not want to be gay. Not because I thought my parents and friends would disapprove—no; I knew they wouldn’t care, thank God. I was pissed because the chances of an average-looking gay guy with cerebral palsy having a fruitful sex life seemed slimmer than a thirty-inch waist. Gay men are superficial. Well, everyone is superficial, but for some reason gay men are allowed to embrace their judgmental behavior and take pride in their elitism. How could a gay like me ever make a splash when hot able-bodied guys were getting denied?
I spent most of my adolescence in the closet, hoping that one day I’d find the urge to jack off to Buffy and all would be right again. That day, of course, never came. But I still did! I came all over the place. In my usual favorite spot, the shower, in the living room when I was home alone and watching Queer as Folk, which I had explained to my mom that I only watched for the captivating storylines, and in my room, which, as I mentioned before, was an actual closet. The benefit of spending all your time in a literal and figurative closet is that you become an expert at hiding your sexuality. You learn your way around anonymous Internet browsers that will let you look at gay porn on your family computer without leaving a trace and feign disgust when your best girlfriends talk about men. It’s a part that every gay man was born to play, at least for a little while. I lasted until I was seventeen, and then I couldn’t take it anymore. At the end of my junior year of high school, it dawned on me that telling my friends I had a serious crush on Parker Posey wasn’t cutting it. I needed to finally come out and taste the rainbow.
Instead of breaking the news slowly, however, I decided to tell everyone I knew by throwing myself a giant coming-out party. I sent out a mass text that said, “MOM IS OUT OF TOWN, SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! PARTY AT MY HOUSE SATURDAY! OH BTW, I HAVE A GIANT SECRET TO TELL ALL OF YOU. IT’S A BIG DEAL AND WILL CHANGE ALL OF OUR LIVES FOREVER. SEE YOU THERE!” My friends arrived at my house wondering what this big secret could possibly be. Did it involve the gift bags full of penis pasta and sex toys that were sitting on my kitchen table?
“Hey, guys,” I greeted everybody while wearing a hideous rainbow stripe shirt I had bought specifically for the occasion. “Sit down. I have something I’d like to show you.”
Earlier that day, I came out to my best friend, Caitie, and we filmed a little video for the big reveal. It opened with the two of us slow dancing in my room. The mood was romantic—candles were lit, and soft jazz was floating from the stereo. All of a sudden, Caitie started to close in on a kiss and my body recoiled.
“What’s wrong?” Caitie cried out.
“I can’t do this,” I sighed dramatically. “I wish I could, but . . . I just can’t!”
Caitie took me over to my bed, sat me down, and placed a reassuring hand on my knee. “My sweet rose, just tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m afraid this secret is too sinful to ever divulge!”
“You can trust me, honey . . .”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, fine. You asked for the truth, and I’m going to give it to you!”
The lens zoomed in on my face, and I looked up at the camera. After a pregnant pause, I finally screamed out, “I’M GAY, BITCHES!”
All my friends immediately cheered and enveloped me in a group hug. I couldn’t believe how perfect it had all come together. Not on
ly did people not care I was gay, but they were obsessed. When I told my mom and dad a few days later, they were both like, “That’s cute. What do you want for dinner?”
Now that I had everybody’s love and acceptance, my next order of business was to touch a penis. I’m what you call a gold-star gay—someone who has never bothered to take a dip in the pussy pond—so you can imagine how, at seventeen, I was salivating at the opportunity to hook up with someone. Unfortunately, my small town wasn’t exactly swimming with out-and-proud teenagers. It was just me and a sophomore named Julio who had severe cystic acne and liked to dance to Gwen Stefani at lunch.
Desperate, I called up one of my long-lost childhood buddies, Dan, who I had always suspected was a big ’mo, and said, “Hi, I’m gay now, so do you want to come over and hook up?” Despite swearing he wasn’t gay himself, he agreed to come to my house the next day to fool around. You know, because he was such a good friend.
When Dan arrived, I took his hand and led him to my room. It was in the middle of the afternoon and the sun was still peeking through the curtains. There was no Sade playing in the background or a dark night to hide our bodies. Years later, after having so many wasted hookups at 4:00 a.m. with a playlist blaring from my iPod, I realize now that my first hookup was actually pretty intimate. There were no excuses to make. No alcohol to place the blame on. I was, for the first time, being completely honest with myself about what I wanted.
I’m Special Page 8