growing means...
Rory Maguire
Rory Maguire
It means no longer being a child, which is bad in a different way for us. Because that’s what everyone wants apparently. They want you to be a child. I was only a child, but everyone loved me. Everyone within the confines of that wonderful, exciting app anyway. Of course, I had no intention of hooking up, I was still a romantic then, still an idiot. I suspect I had watched too many episodes of Glee. Sadly, at the age of sixteen I had not yet found a dapper young man who took a shine to me. I would spend hours dreaming of this man, this amalgam of white teeth, a strong jaw, and dreamy eyes. His name would probably be ‘David’ or something and he would swoop in and dry my tears and tell me he loved me. But he wasn’t coming, why wasn’t he coming? The years for me to have the sugar-sweet, teenage romance I was promised were slipping away. It wasn’t fair. Why did the definitely-not-sixteen-year-olds in movies get the guy and I was left behind? It was then that I became aware of my own impermanence, a little earlier than most. Earlier than the other, straighter kids who got their teen dream. Then what was I left with? An app of course. A silly little app that shows you other men closest to you who are ready and willing and apparently, at sixteen, I had come of age.
“Ur fit asf x”
“Beautifulll”
“Omg your gorg!!”
“U free??”
“Looking for a reliable sugar bby, add on Whatsapp”
I had begun to think I was conned. Was every little gay boy dreaming the same things as me? Did they ever? It didn’t seem like it. No, they were giggling about all the snapshots and screenshots and pictures and selfies and mirror pics they were receiving like little gifts through the mailbox. I joined in too. How could I not when everyone, and I do mean everyone, not only had it but boasted about it? This secret, hidden world that made us feel awfully grown up. We bragged getting the attention from those creepy old men but turning them down like we were in control. We weren’t. We were sixteen, and suddenly that romantic ideal I thought we were all aiming for was shattered, as if someone had wiped Vaseline from the lens in my mind. Now we were in the real world, and the real world had no room for childish things like love.
“What you looking for?”
“Hi where you from”
“Up 4 threesome??”
“Accom?”
But the thing is, it wasn’t the real world. None of those conversations we had in that place were going anywhere. Not really. It was make-believe. Fantasy. Nevertheless, I must admit that being in the “real world” was fun. Dipping your toe into this sexy landscape full of hypothetical hunks with your other foot safe on the shore. We would scroll through these hordes of men while our parents slept a few feet from us, but we thought we were grown-ups, it was normal. We started watching other shows; darker, edgier shows where the sassy gay best friends with their one liners and Hawaiian shirts were always, always on Grindr and could we even say we were gay if we weren’t like them? You couldn’t be gay, not really, not unless you slotted into every trope the CW and HBO had to offer. Still, I understood why everyone wouldn’t stop going on about it. I would feel my heart racing with every tap and every message and every view. Someone wanted me. Someone really wanted me. It was being wanted, that was the high. That still is the high. Someone, it doesn’t matter who, wants your body. That’s all that occurred to me. If growing meant getting this feeling all the time, then I was ready to sign up. My skinny, smooth, untouched, uncharted form joined the others on that grey, desolate hellscape. I slotted myself into one of hundreds of squares, of advertisements, and I quickly found that I was of high market value. Hundreds of boys advertising themselves couldn’t possible compete with the fresh meat. “Look at me! Look at my chest! Look at my face! Look! Look! Look!” As if I had never thought otherwise, the idea of a romantic, dapper young man, kissing me at the climax of our own little rom com repulsed me. Who wanted that when you had this?
“Heyy x”
“U bttm?”
“Looking for now”
It never stopped. But then, I never wanted it to. Suddenly an army of blank profiles were begging to see me. Me! Once, I decided to humour one of them. The faceless horde. We actually had a nice conversation which baffled me considering how bad their grammar usually is. I made an effort to be smart and sarcastic and charming. I thought I was so clever, and he said I wasn’t like the others. He was in the closet, but handsome, with white teeth and a strong jaw and dreamy eyes. Toned, vers top, looking for relationship, says “yes please” to NSFW pics. Maybe I could still have that rom com, golden-hued fairy-tale. What if this was just the way I had to do it? I never knew his name, but it didn’t matter because he said I was pretty and special. I learned the best angles to take pictures. The kind he liked. The kind they all liked. I thought this was how I could make him love me, because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Making someone love you by any means necessary. One guy turned into two, then three, then a baker’s dozen of others who would enthusiastically comment on my tight, young skin. Tight. Young. Perfect. My paranoia increased with my virtual lovers as they reminded me in their own special way of my own mortality. I was made for their viewing pleasure, and one day I wouldn’t be tight, or young, or gorgeous and then… what the hell would I be? A malfunctioning automaton that had long since served its purpose.
“Hi”
“Fun?”
He, the special one, stopped speaking to me after a while. I wondered why. Had he found someone younger, tighter and prettier than me? I couldn’t stand the thought of someone coming in out of nowhere, some cute boy who was better than me in some way and stealing everything. I couldn’t stand the thought of being replaced. I had worked so hard to seem like I wasn’t like the others, but I was seventeen, and why would he want that when he could have sixteen with just a tap? My suspicions all came grinding to a halt when he sent me a video. It was of him, with some skinny blonde twink while they cuddled in bed together. He was laughing and joking at the camera like I was his buddy and he was bragging about this amazing hook-up he’d had. Like I was nothing to him. I was seventeen. Seventeen and I didn’t want to grow, because growing meant wrinkles. Growing meant less taps, less messages, less love. Growing meant sagging and fading and being tossed aside for someone newer. If this could happen to me now, then what would it be like in a decade? When I matter even less… Is this what growing means?
“U up?”
The madness of it all still hasn’t gone away. I’m still haunted by that stupid boy. It’s only been a year and I’m still waiting for him. It’s always about him, the elusive man who would ask me out on a date instead of tapping me at 2am, but that is what we settle for because that is all there is. I sit here wondering where the hell he could be. Other couples my age exist. I see them all the time so where on Earth is mine? When is it my turn? When is it our turn?
And through it all I am still all too wary of what growing means in the “real world”, the only world any of us know now. Growing means another day where you aren’t as loved. Aren’t as important, until eventually you’re nothing. Because you’re nothing if no one wants to touch you. What is the point if no one wants to touch you? If no one loves you? Growing means growing past 17, then 18, then 19, each year meaning so much more than it does for them.
“Hey, I don’t want to seem to forward but I saw you getting coffee and was wondering if I could take you out sometime? To a different coffee shop maybe, unless you have a preference for this one.”
Maybe “the real world” shouldn’t be the world we live in, because “the real world” is nothing more than a smokescreen. A beehive of blank profiles and binary codes that could transmogrify into a trustworthy, exciting “real world.” Growing in the “real world” means lots of things, none of them good. Perhaps we should stop thinking about what growing means and start finding means of growing, ideally means of growing that don’t involve old men who ask for your bank details. The rom com fairy tale that the other kids had, and the dark, cool “real world”. Both opposing sides of the pole, and yet, neither of them true. Neither of them can be our means of growing. It’s the in-betweeny bit that’s real and, somehow, we’re going to have to wade through the smoke and mirrors until it finds us. Stop trying to find, start trying to wait. I hope to God it’ll get better.
“Ur fit asf x”
“Beautifulll”
“Omg your gorg!!”
“U free??”
“Looking for a reliable sugar bby, add on Whatsapp”
I had begun to think I was conned. Was every little gay boy dreaming the same things as me? Did they ever? It didn’t seem like it. No, they were giggling about all the snapshots and screenshots and pictures and selfies and mirror pics they were receiving like little gifts through the mailbox. I joined in too. How could I not when everyone, and I do mean everyone, not only had it but boasted about it? This secret, hidden world that made us feel awfully grown up. We bragged getting the attention from those creepy old men but turning them down like we were in control. We weren’t. We were sixteen, and suddenly that romantic ideal I thought we were all aiming for was shattered, as if someone had wiped Vaseline from the lens in my mind. Now we were in the real world, and the real world had no room for childish things like love.
“What you looking for?”
“Hi where you from”
“Up 4 threesome??”
“Accom?”
But the thing is, it wasn’t the real world. None of those conversations we had in that place were going anywhere. Not really. It was make-believe. Fantasy. Nevertheless, I must admit that being in the “real world” was fun. Dipping your toe into this sexy landscape full of hypothetical hunks with your other foot safe on the shore. We would scroll through these hordes of men while our parents slept a few feet from us, but we thought we were grown-ups, it was normal. We started watching other shows; darker, edgier shows where the sassy gay best friends with their one liners and Hawaiian shirts were always, always on Grindr and could we even say we were gay if we weren’t like them? You couldn’t be gay, not really, not unless you slotted into every trope the CW and HBO had to offer. Still, I understood why everyone wouldn’t stop going on about it. I would feel my heart racing with every tap and every message and every view. Someone wanted me. Someone really wanted me. It was being wanted, that was the high. That still is the high. Someone, it doesn’t matter who, wants your body. That’s all that occurred to me. If growing meant getting this feeling all the time, then I was ready to sign up. My skinny, smooth, untouched, uncharted form joined the others on that grey, desolate hellscape. I slotted myself into one of hundreds of squares, of advertisements, and I quickly found that I was of high market value. Hundreds of boys advertising themselves couldn’t possible compete with the fresh meat. “Look at me! Look at my chest! Look at my face! Look! Look! Look!” As if I had never thought otherwise, the idea of a romantic, dapper young man, kissing me at the climax of our own little rom com repulsed me. Who wanted that when you had this?
“Heyy x”
“U bttm?”
“Looking for now”
It never stopped. But then, I never wanted it to. Suddenly an army of blank profiles were begging to see me. Me! Once, I decided to humour one of them. The faceless horde. We actually had a nice conversation which baffled me considering how bad their grammar usually is. I made an effort to be smart and sarcastic and charming. I thought I was so clever, and he said I wasn’t like the others. He was in the closet, but handsome, with white teeth and a strong jaw and dreamy eyes. Toned, vers top, looking for relationship, says “yes please” to NSFW pics. Maybe I could still have that rom com, golden-hued fairy-tale. What if this was just the way I had to do it? I never knew his name, but it didn’t matter because he said I was pretty and special. I learned the best angles to take pictures. The kind he liked. The kind they all liked. I thought this was how I could make him love me, because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Making someone love you by any means necessary. One guy turned into two, then three, then a baker’s dozen of others who would enthusiastically comment on my tight, young skin. Tight. Young. Perfect. My paranoia increased with my virtual lovers as they reminded me in their own special way of my own mortality. I was made for their viewing pleasure, and one day I wouldn’t be tight, or young, or gorgeous and then… what the hell would I be? A malfunctioning automaton that had long since served its purpose.
“Hi”
“Fun?”
He, the special one, stopped speaking to me after a while. I wondered why. Had he found someone younger, tighter and prettier than me? I couldn’t stand the thought of someone coming in out of nowhere, some cute boy who was better than me in some way and stealing everything. I couldn’t stand the thought of being replaced. I had worked so hard to seem like I wasn’t like the others, but I was seventeen, and why would he want that when he could have sixteen with just a tap? My suspicions all came grinding to a halt when he sent me a video. It was of him, with some skinny blonde twink while they cuddled in bed together. He was laughing and joking at the camera like I was his buddy and he was bragging about this amazing hook-up he’d had. Like I was nothing to him. I was seventeen. Seventeen and I didn’t want to grow, because growing meant wrinkles. Growing meant less taps, less messages, less love. Growing meant sagging and fading and being tossed aside for someone newer. If this could happen to me now, then what would it be like in a decade? When I matter even less… Is this what growing means?
“U up?”
The madness of it all still hasn’t gone away. I’m still haunted by that stupid boy. It’s only been a year and I’m still waiting for him. It’s always about him, the elusive man who would ask me out on a date instead of tapping me at 2am, but that is what we settle for because that is all there is. I sit here wondering where the hell he could be. Other couples my age exist. I see them all the time so where on Earth is mine? When is it my turn? When is it our turn?
And through it all I am still all too wary of what growing means in the “real world”, the only world any of us know now. Growing means another day where you aren’t as loved. Aren’t as important, until eventually you’re nothing. Because you’re nothing if no one wants to touch you. What is the point if no one wants to touch you? If no one loves you? Growing means growing past 17, then 18, then 19, each year meaning so much more than it does for them.
“Hey, I don’t want to seem to forward but I saw you getting coffee and was wondering if I could take you out sometime? To a different coffee shop maybe, unless you have a preference for this one.”
Maybe “the real world” shouldn’t be the world we live in, because “the real world” is nothing more than a smokescreen. A beehive of blank profiles and binary codes that could transmogrify into a trustworthy, exciting “real world.” Growing in the “real world” means lots of things, none of them good. Perhaps we should stop thinking about what growing means and start finding means of growing, ideally means of growing that don’t involve old men who ask for your bank details. The rom com fairy tale that the other kids had, and the dark, cool “real world”. Both opposing sides of the pole, and yet, neither of them true. Neither of them can be our means of growing. It’s the in-betweeny bit that’s real and, somehow, we’re going to have to wade through the smoke and mirrors until it finds us. Stop trying to find, start trying to wait. I hope to God it’ll get better.
//
Rory Maguire is an 18-year-old writer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and a student at Rathmore Grammar School. Rory aspires to write queer and female-centred stories that realistically depict their struggles and unique experiences to subvert damaging stereotypes, hoping to go on to stage plays with similar narratives at university. He has an interest in journalism and has been published in his school magazine, Solas, and has written short plays for his A-Level Theatre course. He is passionate about writing, queer theory and feminism and enjoys reading in his spare time, as well as journaling, listening to music and performing with his local theatre company.
Rory Maguire is an 18-year-old writer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and a student at Rathmore Grammar School. Rory aspires to write queer and female-centred stories that realistically depict their struggles and unique experiences to subvert damaging stereotypes, hoping to go on to stage plays with similar narratives at university. He has an interest in journalism and has been published in his school magazine, Solas, and has written short plays for his A-Level Theatre course. He is passionate about writing, queer theory and feminism and enjoys reading in his spare time, as well as journaling, listening to music and performing with his local theatre company.