My 20’s or How did my life get so wonderful and so crappy all at the same time?

After high school I drifted, I was severely depressed, Mom was dying from cancer, we had no money for me to go to college even if I had the test scores, and worst of all, the D&D group had broken up leaving me with no life whatsoever. Eric was dating a chic named Sheila so I became a 3^rd wheel and I was inwardly starting to want to suck a cock for the first time. I still couldn’t get myself to say the gay word to myself. I was frustrated and needed something to distract me.

Enter an old school friend Shelly. She had gotten involved with a group of gamers that was connected with Temple University’s Ambler campus. Called the Adventurers of Ambler they were just what I needed. I instantly developed a crush on the gang’s main instigator named Jim. Eric and I were invited to a party thrown at one of the members houses and the first thing that happened as I walked through the door was Jim planting a big wet drunk off his ass kiss on me. I honestly thought I would pass out right then and there. At the party I wound up dancing with this beautiful woman and (I think) we made out a little but the night is very blurry to me now.

The A of A was the best group of people I could ever have hoped to meet. I still love many of them with all my heart and soul. Barb, Tom, Bob, Jay, there are a lot of people. I placed myself as a sort of yenta setting up members and helping others with their relationships. I figured it was the closest I would ever get to having a relationship of my own, I should have known I wasn’t fooling anyone when Kurt came to me one day and slyly said, “You know Joe it’s strange, they say 10% of people are gay and yet there seem to not be any in the A of A.” I should point out before I tell you what I answered that Kurt pressed so many of my buttons and all in good ways, Tall furry, bearded, yum! Anyway, I said to him “Yeah it’s weird” and left it at that. I really wanted to ask him if he was coming out to me but I was too chicken.

During this time Annabelle and I started working as Tarot readers at the Pennsylvania Ren faire. One year (1985) was the strangest n record for me. My sexuality was driving me crazy. I needed actual physical contact with some one. All of my friends were seeing people and I was so lonely I just couldn’t stand it any more. I had to come out of the closet. I called Annabelle, Eric, Tom and Barb and asked them to meet me at Barb’s house. I told them I had something to tell them. We all got together and after a lot of hemming and hawing I came out to them. I expected them to disown me, after all that what I heard would happen from movies like Boys in the Band and such. They all were very supportive and told me they all knew for a long time and wondered when I was going to figure it out. (They actually called each other after I had called them and figured what I was going to tell them ahead of time the bitches.)

Enter the newly out Joe Leven, not much different than the ‘straight’ one but relieved and happier than before. Trust me when my friends can tell you the closet door shattered on my way out. Of course the very first thing to happen to me was a woman fell in love with me. Mary worked at the faire and had developed a crush on me before I had come out. At the same time a really hot guy from New York named Marc started hanging around my stall and flirting with me. He just made me melt and the attention he lavished on me was needed at the time. Nothing happened between us that year during faire but after faire had closed down we met and I’ll not go into details as my family may be reading this but I lost my virginity with a male. (Once again I cannot use the term man with marc, he was an asshole as you are about to see). The relationship, if it’s what it can be called was one sided, I did everything and Marc just took. It was a massive disaster leaving me hating myself and all people. It also made me want to hurt someone, to USE someone, and there was poor smitten Mary. Now I never intended to hurt anyone. I just needed to feel loved by someone and Mary wanted to love me.

I should have known, my gut had told me to stay away from her from the first time I met her, but I was stupid and hurt from Marc, so Mary and I went on a date. That date became one of the worst nights of my young life as she decided at the end of it that we were going to get married. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Mary and I lived together for 6 months, in that time she was able to destroy my relationship with my Mom and many of my friends, she did this knowingly. I was caught up in a nightmare and not even Eric seemed to see it. I was so depressed that all I did was sleep and work, literally. Eventually Mary made the mistake of physically hurting a friend of mine to keep her away from me and I exploded. In the middle of a crowd I told her the wedding was off and I was leaving her. She accused me of sleeping with a male friend of mine and that was that. I lost many of my friends including Annabelle who had wanted me to marry Mary. I moved back home to my family with my pride and tail between my legs but just in time to be there for my mother’s passing. Yup, 26 was a bad year for me.

Years later I found out from a mutual friend that Mary, Annabelle, Tom and some other friend of Mary’s tried to curse me using black magic. Mary’s mom died that night out of nowhere.

After Mom passed I decided to try the Sterling Forest Faire for a summer and met Mike, Mike who it turned out wanted to use me to get in good with a family I was friends with at that faire because he was apparently a member of NAMBLA and wanted their preteen boys. Yes I had lousy taste in men. That was the end of my relationship attempts until I turned 30.

One very cool thing that happened during my 20’s was Jeff. He was a kid who had gotten involved with one of the games I played in at Lehigh University. One day one of the players made a really bad homophobic statement and I countered with coming out to those people who didn’t know already. Jeff looked thunder struck and asked me to come outside the room for a minute. He then at the tender are of 13 told me he was gay and wanted to thank me for coming out and standing up to the asshole. I became his mentor in many ways and even his mother liked that that he had a strong male role model as his dad had died a few years prior. Jeff was like my son and I love him dearly even though like all parents he can’t be bothered with me now that he’s an adult.

Ok next up is Moving to Philly, Jim and Meeting the love of all my life John.