Welcome to My World

by Johnny Weir

  I left my bravado in the dressing room when it was time for me to compete. Skating around in a little dazed circle, I had my eyes wide open but couldn’t see anything. Priscilla tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, either. I had come down with hysterical blindness and deafness. I fought to stay calm and got into my starting position.

  Which Johnny was it going to be?

  Good? Or bad?

  I started out feeling shaky and too aware of my body. A loose sequin at my neck scratched and the nail on my left big toe pressed slightly into the skate. My breath caught in my chest, flittering about like a caged bird. Then I started to pick up speed in my program. The sound of shearing ice and the visual whirl of the arena drowned out the small discomforts my nerves had produced. The speed, music, and flow combined to give me that rush of great skating. Suddenly I was flying and before I hit the last forty seconds of the program, the crowd had started clapping and hollering.

  When I finished, the entire audience leaped to its feet. I couldn’t even hear the announcer say, “And again, ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Weir,” because people were screaming so much. Everyone was excited over this comeback, me included. A year before I had been lying in the center of the ice with television cameras broadcasting my fraudulent, injured self to countries across the globe. Now I stood in the center, healthy and whole. I didn’t care what place I was going to get; this was my victory.

  Even though I was clearly the emotional favorite of the audience, sitting in the kiss and cry area waiting for my scores I didn’t think I actually had a chance at winning the title. The judge at sectionals had put it plainly: “We aren’t going to do anything for you, Johnny.” I had said I wanted to win, but the truth was I felt happy to the point of tears at the prospect of earning my first senior national silver or bronze medal.

  My technical scores came up, and they were all 5.9’s, and 5.8’s, higher than Michael’s. My pulse raced. Then the second round of scores for artistic merit came up, and I had a perfect 6, 5.9’s and one 5.7. All but two judges gave me first place. Now I was really crying. I had won my first national title just as I’d promised myself and everyone else I would.

  When you go on the ice to do anything, you’re totally alone. You can have the best, most expensive coaches in the world and an entire team of people behind you, but once you’re actually out there, it’s you that has to do it. I had done everything myself, and I did it my own way.

  6

  Razzle-Dazzle

  I hadn’t felt anything even close to love at first sight since watching Richard Gere in Pretty Woman at the tender age of six. That’s when I first realized there was something different about me. Seeing Julia Roberts get swept off her feet by her rich and handsome client, I wanted to be her so badly because he did something so special to me. Kissing seemed like a weird thing to do, but I knew if I were going to do it, it would be with Richard Gere.

  As a small child without many inhibitions, I immediately quizzed my friends about the movie. Had they seen it? Did they want to be Julia Roberts like I did? All I got were a lot of funny looks. Nobody understood where I was coming from—especially the boys. “That’s just weird,” one of them said.

  At that age, you have no idea what gay or straight is or any of the ramifications of being different. By puberty, however, I started to get a clearer picture. I came to understand what gay meant, and that many people didn’t like it. I also knew that sexually I was gay. But I didn’t worry about it much. Perhaps realizing the core truth so young made it easier to accept as I went along in life.

  I also didn’t feel the need to make my sexuality much of an issue, since at thirteen, I was nowhere close to having any kind of physical contact with anyone, other than hugging my best girlfriends. I didn’t wrestle with being gay or let it change my life in the slightest; it simply became a fact of nature, albeit a private one.

  Being a serious ice skater was a big part of the reason my “way of life” didn’t trouble me too much. I had a job and objective upon which no entanglements could infringe. When you are that young and driven, life isn’t a series of random occurrences. Rather, it is a single track shooting toward one thing, and for me that was the Olympics. I didn’t bother talking to my friends or family about my feelings, not because I was ashamed, but because it wasn’t important to me. Skating was the only thing that had any meaning. And I talked about that all the time.

  When I did think about sex, which (and this will probably shock a lot of people) wasn’t that often, my ideas were very much formed by Pretty Woman, hold the prostitution. I have been a romantic forever and even as a young teenage boy knew I wanted sex to be special. I didn’t want to be one of these people you read about in sex ed, getting disgusting-looking diseases from casual encounters. I wanted to wait to be in love to have sex. I figured I would be old, say seventeen or eighteen, by the time I gave it up and by then life would sort itself out.

  It took me a long time to actually feel really physical. Sure, there were those late nights when, staying up to watch Oz, I would feel a strange stirring. But in general, I didn’t have any interest in fulfilling my sexual urges. I was way too busy.

  Then I had my first kiss with a boy.

  I was sixteen at the time, and he was twenty-one—really, there was nothing boyish about him. A pairs skater I knew from the rink, he was very tall and strong, manly aspects I found sexually attractive. But the thought of the two of us hadn’t crossed my mind because I didn’t scope out guys, plus he was dating a girl at the time.

  Late one night he IM’d me and the chat went in a surprising direction.

  “Have you ever kissed a boy?” he wrote.

  “No, I don’t know if I’ll have time to,” I responded.

  My flirting style needed a little work.

  “Maybe it’s time that you did. I’m having a party. Come and practice.”

  I got all dolled up for the party, which was filled with older kids from the rink. It wasn’t my first drinking party, but I was feeling it. In the few parties I had attended in the past, I would walk in and watch the other kids, guzzling beers or wine coolers in various corners of a house, slowly getting trashed as if I were a chaperone noting everyone’s bad behavior. I wasn’t a tattle, but I’ve always felt much older than my peers. Tonight, however, what would normally have seemed stupid to me became exciting.

  At six feet tall, my friend usually towered over me, but that night he leaned down close to my face so that I could smell from his hot breath that he’d been drinking.

  “It’s time to practice,” he said, pulling me into a dark corner.

  In the darkness of some den, he put his big hands on my narrow hips.

  “This is just so I can teach you how to kiss,” he said.

  Whatever. I was kissing someone for real and it was sexual, dirty and naughty and French. I loved every second of our twenty minutes in heaven. It totally and unexpectedly lit me up.

  It might sound naive, but I was surprised by how much I liked exploring the sexual side of myself. With my complete focus narrowly trained on skating, I hadn’t given myself much latitude to daydream, let alone experiment with the real thing. Now I had a man, with hair on his chest, no less, who wanted to “practice” with me on a regular basis.

  Even though our situation was far from romantic, the pairs skater became my first real crush. The guy was so at war with himself that he would barely talk to me or even look me in the eye, unless it was “practice time.” But I was always up for practice.

  About once a week he would pick me up at my house under the ruse that we were going to the movies. Instead, we would just make out in his car. Then he would disguise the whole event to himself so he didn’t have to face facts. I knew our relationship didn’t have a future, but I enjoyed the make-out sessions. I had no trouble divorcing the sexual from the emotional because It looking for this guy to validate my existence. I was so overly confident in my future: that I would be a champion, make money, be a succes
s. I didn’t care what anyone else thought of me. If I had discovered I wasn’t too busy for kissing, I was still too busy for a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, for that matter.

  After I turned eighteen years old and had officially become an adult, I decided to tell my mother about these feelings. It just seemed like the adult thing to do and I’d vowed that I would be an open and honest adult with the people who mattered to me.

  I waited until late one night after my dad had already gone to sleep (my dad is a cool guy but homosexuality is completely foreign to him and not something I was ready to throw in his face). My mom had fallen asleep, curled up on the couch with the cats, while watching Law & Order. I shook her awake and looked her in the eyes.

  “Mom, I have been eighteen for a week. Adult to adult, I need to tell you something. I’m gay.”

  Although I knew full well that she had nosed around the rink for years, trying to find out the very information I was telling her, she still seemed shocked to hear it. She couldn’t speak and her shoulders went way up around her ears. Suddenly it felt like I was sitting in the room with a stranger, and this was my mom, my best friend. The energy around us dropped as she started to cry.

  I wasn’t angry. In fact, I had a Freaky Friday moment with my mom where I was suddenly filled with maternal impulses. No mother wants to hear her son say he’s gay, no matter how wonderful his life is and how well he treats her. Those two little words rip the picture of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren into a million little pieces. I felt sorry for my mom and wanted her to know everything was going to be all right.

  But of course, my mom, the superhero, didn’t give up her role just because I’m gay.

  “I don’t really care, Johnny, as long as I know that you are going to be happy,” she said. “I want you to be healthy and I want you to have someone in your life.”

  My mother’s reaction, rare coming from a parent, showed me something I already knew: she loves me unconditionally. It doesn’t matter what I do; she would never love me more or less. While I continued to maintain that being gay was such a small part of me, it was still a part. So I was greatly relieved that my mother accepted it, because she is one of the few people whose opinion of me truly matters.

  Suddenly I felt this great freedom to be out there now that my mom knew I was gay (she was the only person I have ever come out to officially in my family. It’s not an issue for the rest of them and they don’t ask any questions, which I consider a blessing). For my entire life up until that point, my best friends were all women. But now that I could flounce around and have limp wrists if I wanted to, I began to make friends with a few other gay guys whom I met through skating.

  It wasn’t easy for me. I am a solitary person who does well in family units and small groups of people. In large groups, like at parties, I shut down and get extremely bashful and cold. The problem is that in general I don’t trust anyone, but especially not strangers. As a kid I always thought someone was going to try to kidnap me. As an adult I always think someone is trying to use me.

  I definitely didn’t trust Paris when I first encountered him. In fact, we hated each other for a long time. Paris was a recent implant to the University of Delaware training facility and to the university itself. Aside from skating, I felt like I had nothing in common with this creature from the dirty South. On the ice, we would exchange nasty looks—two bitchy queens locking crowns.

  So when one of my girlfriends invited Paris to the movies with us, I was deeply offended. Not only was he my workplace nemesis (even though I didn’t know him), but as den mother of our group, I was the one who made our plans and extended invitations.

  After the movies, we were all hanging out, and Paris sat down next to me to make small talk. His rapprochement went off awkwardly at first—he loved Madonna, while I loved Christina Aguilera—but we eventually found common ground in an unlikely subject: the Hilton sisters. Yes, we bonded over Paris and Nicky Hilton. We both thought they were incredibly tacky yet oddly enthralling. He and I fell deep into a discussion of entitlement and the existential meaning of being famous for absolutely nothing. That kind of conversation was totally refreshing.When you come from a small place, a lot of people don’t have big dreams or aspirations (like when I’d mention a Birkin bag, not a lot of people got it). But Paris got it, and by the end of the evening nicknames had solidified our friendship: he became Paris, as he was the fun, sociable one, and I became Nicky, the subtle fashionista.

  We never called each other by our real names again (Paris’s nickname took so well that when the paparazzi shoot him, he’s labeled “Paris” in the photo). In Paris, I found a kindred spirit, someone cold, rude, and abrupt on the outside but soft and shy on the inside. After our second time hanging out, Paris was family. In college, away from home for the first time and running all over the place and partying, he needed taking care of, and I love going into that mother hen role. Beyond our love of the Hiltons, that’s how we jelled: I found fun in his world and he found stability in mine.

  Paris fit into the worldview I had developed in my short and inexperienced life that the physical and emotional were completely separate realms—at least for me. Paris became my closest confidant and constant companion but I wasn’t in the least attracted to him. When I came out to my mom, I told her I might still marry a woman. I wasn’t talking about sex. Forever and ever and happily ever after doesn’t necessarily pertain to sex. I have loved so many women in the way that every husband should love his wife. And you can have sex with a total stranger. I just didn’t know if I would ever find sex and love in one person.

  Then, a month into working with Tatiana Tarasova in my attempt to undo the mistakes I had made the previous season, I met Alex at a small party after the Liberty competition in Delaware. He was gorgeous—a pairs skater (yes, another one) with clear blue eyes—but I didn’t go right to sex in my mind. I’m not an overly sexual person and the possibility of it is never my main attraction. Instead, I was drawn to his mysterious combination of contradicting qualities. He was at once warm and a concrete wall. He gave me his entire life story, but it didn’t include the fact that he was gay—which of course he was. He was forthright but uncomfortable with himself. I became immediately infatuated with this sweet, awkward, and fashionably unfashionable boy.

  Unfortunately as a skater trying to claw my way back to the Olympic level, I could only pursue one thing at that point: skating. We texted each other a lot of innocuous messages the first twenty-four hours after meeting, but the flame quickly died out. He lived in New England, and I was way too young and naive to know the meaning of long distance.

  Still, when Alex sent me a text that he was going to be at the Eastern sectionals in Lake Placid where I was competing to qualify for the Nationals, those small characters, which appeared on my phone, lit my heart on fire.

  After the event, I got dolled up in my room at Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn and picked my way through the quiet, dark streets covered in snow and ice to the official hotel where a couple of skaters were hosting a party in their room. At the sectionals, the room parties were way more exciting than the actual competition. Skaters packed themselves into one room like sardines and filled the bathtubs with liquor and ice. This was their well-earned time to get loose. I had gotten all decked because I knew Alex would be one of the warm bodies there.

  Outside the hotel room, I could hear the muffled but distinctive sound of drunken voices. When I opened the door, the muted fun turned into the kind of full-on din that normally had me turning on my heels and heading for my pajamas. But tonight adrenaline, some left over from winning the sectionals and more in anticipation of seeing Alex, coursed violently through me in an Incredible Hulk moment.

  Almost as soon as I set foot in the room, Alex appeared right in front of my face. His eyes were bluer than I remembered and staring directly into mine with a level of anticipation that matched my own. I had turned this moment over and over in my mind, but now that we were here, I froze. How should I greet hi
m? Alex and I hadn’t touched each other before. I couldn’t shake his hand—that would be ridiculous. But was a hug too much? I remained frozen, caught between a hug and a shake.

  Alex moved in and relieved me of the tension with a big hug. It seemed that someone had become more comfortable with his sexuality in the past few months. When he came in close, I could smell a special mixture of vodka and Gucci’s Envy cologne. Why not? Having won his competition, he had his own celebrating to do. Or perhaps he was looking for a little liquid courage.

  We sat down with the rest of his friends, but pretty much all my attention went to Alex and reading the signals coming from him. He sat so close to me that our thighs pressed together—that had to be a sign, right? Then there was the faux drunken move where he went kind of boneless and draped himself near me.

  The greatest sign, though, appeared to me when Alex went up to get another drink. There was something different about him, which I couldn’t pinpoint at first. Then I realized: his clothes! When we first met in Delaware I teased him (kind of how the boy in elementary school pulls the hair of the girl he likes) because none of his clothes fit. All of it was in Extra Boy size, that horrible boxy look usually favored by straights. In Lake Placid, my heart leaped when I saw his fitted pants contoured his legs and his shirt didn’t blouse out: he hadn’t forgotten me and I didn’t forget him.

  When he returned, I gave him a few signals of my own.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Alex led me out of the bustle of the party and into another hotel room, this one quiet and dark. The boldness of this previously shy boy surprised me. But as soon as we got inside, his confidence seemed to disappear into the darkness. Our first moment of true physical connection was clumsy and tense in the way of most meaningful encounters where both parties want so much for everything to go right. The pressure of hoping this might turn into something added weight to every part of my body. When we kissed, I felt the vaguely familiar physical warmth from previous explorations, but layered below was a tenderness that squeezed my heart so hard I thought it would pop. The physical and emotional parts of me collided for the first time.