This American Life - 268: My Experimental Phase

Broadcast on: 25 Jun 2004

- How exactly is it that a person who is not gay comes to believe, really believe that they are gay for two years? Well, one of the contributing editors to this very radio program, Nancy Updike, had that experience herself. And she says she did not just turn herself into any kind of gay person. No, no, no. In her case, it was total, complete, full-hearted, unambiguous commitment. - Completely, completely and utterly. I worked at a gay newspaper. I only hung out with gay people. In my spare time, I read about gay history. I dressed like a dyke. You know, my hair was, I mean, you know me now. As kind of a femmy person. - Yeah, kind of a very femmy person. - Yeah. I cut my hair short and I didn't wear any makeup and I sort of dressed to hide my body. And I had male friends that I called Mary and... - And so was there any kind of limit to your gayness? - Yeah, the limit was that I really kind of couldn't bring myself to actually sleep with women. - So that seems like that would be kind of a problem. - It was. It was. I mean, at the time it was sort of like, well, I'm in this difficult transition and you know, and I'm sure I'm just about to do that. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that. - Right. - You know, it was like a loose end. I hadn't tied up yet and it was like, oh, it's like that, you know, that squeaky door to the shed. You keep meaning to fix it and every weekend, it's like, oh, I guess I forgot to fix this squeaky door. And, I mean, I just didn't want to. - I just didn't want to. - So how does somebody who feels that way come to think of the gay in the first place? When Nancy had just gotten out of college, she moved to a new city. Her parents were going through a bitter divorce. All her college relationships with boys had been disasters.

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