Cootie Catcher

“Maybe there won’t be marriage, maybe there won’t be sex, but by God there’ll be dancing.”

MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING (1997)

Coming out is, I hope, much easier now than it was even just ten or fifteen years ago when I did it, just as it was easier for me than the older generations of gay men. I consider my official out-of-the-closet moment to be Thanksgiving weekend 2009. I was living in Chicago and dating men—specifically a cute cowboy I started throwing around I love yous with—so when I went back to Ohio for turkey and family time, I sat everyone down for a dramatic monologue on the Monday after the big dinner to let them know. Dad was easygoing about it, Mom struggled a bit more to accept it, but everyone came around and supported me over time. The cowboy and I didn’t work out, but I’ll be forever grateful that he gave me the push I needed to be honest with my family. I’ll never forget that it was raining that November day and I had to pick up something from a nearby Walmart. When I arrived and got out of my parent’s car sans umbrella, I stuck my arms out and had a moment with the rain, washing away the pain of living inauthentically for so long. My shoulders felt lighter than they had in years, and I smiled knowing I was finally in my truth. I felt like Tim Robbins on The Shawshank Redemption poster, but in reality I probably looked like Danny DeVito as the Penguin floating in water at the end of Batman Returns. Regardless, it was a cathartic moment.

Most gay men I know have multiple coming out moments. There’s the family convo, the time you tell your closest friends, and, of course, the moment you sneak your first same-sex kiss. My first kiss with a man was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when I was eighteen on a spring break trip with friends. Technically, he was the first person I ever voluntarily came out to (via my tongue in his mouth), but after that I went back in the closet and tried to date women until I was ready to admit to myself and my loved ones that I am attracted to men.

All these coming outs were emotional for me, but there’s one moment with a friend that forever sticks out as the most impactful. It’s not a time I chose to disclose my sexuality. Unfortunately, it was a time I was abruptly outed.

My friend Anna invited me over to her house to hang in middle school. We were buddies, and I tended to gravitate toward friendships with girls in school over the boys. After my traumatic and humiliating streaking sleepover, I wasn’t interested in hanging with guys on a platonic level. Plus, the girls did all the fun stuff. I wanted to play M.A.S.H. or FLAME and talk about movies like The Parent Trap and Practical Magic. Twelve is hard enough, but it’s made easier when you can be around people who have similar interests.

Anna invited me over and into her bedroom, where we decided to make one of those cootie catchers. If you’re not familiar, those are the little paper fortune tellers that you fold up a bunch of different ways. Parts are labeled with colors and others with numbers, and the inside has predictions or messages written on them. Anna made one that she would use on me, and I made one to use on her, and we were convinced they would forecast our future. I wrote silly predictions about money and boys in our class. When we were all done crafting, I put my index fingers and thumbs in mine and asked Anna to first pick a color out of the four listed on the top of my cootie catcher.

“Red,” she said.

“R-E-D, red,” I repeated, moving my fingers as I called out each letter so that the paper fortune teller showed numbers.

“Pick a number,” I instructed.

“Two”

“One, two,” I counted, again rhythmically moving my folded paper.

“Now pick another number,” I said, knowing that her choice now would be the fortune that she received.

“One,” she told me.

I unfolded the flap that was labeled one and read, “You will find lots of money in the near future.”

“Omigod, I’m gonna be rich!” Anna exclaimed.

“Now I wanna do it!” I said to Anna, ready for her to grab the cootie catcher she made.

Just as she put her fingers in it, there was a knock at her bedroom door. It was her dad.

“Hi, Danny,” Mr. Burles said.

“Hi, Mr. Burles!”

“Anna, I’m sorry, but no boys in the bedroom,” he told his daughter.

“But—”

Before Anna could finish her sentence, Mr. Burles looked me up and down, noticing the pink and purple crayons I used on my origami. He saw the limp of my wrist and asked…

“You made that yourself, Danny?”

“Yeah, it’s a cootie catcher,” I told him.

“Maybe it’s okay for you two to hang out in here. Have fun,” he said as he began walking out the door, assuming I wouldn’t be making a pass at his daughter.

“Wait, Mr. Burles? Do you know if the Cavs won their game tonight?” I asked before he walked out the door.

He paused and then slowly turned his head in my direction.

“You like basketball, Danny?”

“I do love to watch basketball!”

Mr. Burles turned back around and said, “You know what? I think I’ll hang in here for a few more minutes.”

Anna’s dad pulled up the only seat at his disposal, one of those inflatable chairs that were all the rage in the late ’90s and early 2000s. If you had anything sharp on you, you were fucked, but they looked cute and they were see-through. Not sure why we needed to see through our furniture, but I digress.

“Omigod, we should do my dad’s fortune!” Anna said.

“How does that work?” he asked.

“You’ll do great, Mr. Burles. First pick a color,” I instructed as I put my hands back into my cootie catcher.

“Blue.”

“B-L-U-E,” I repeated.

“Now pick a number.”

“Six.”

“One, two, three, four, five, six. Now pick another number,” I said.

“Four,” he replied.

“Omigod!” I said as I lifted the flap to reveal Mr. Burles’s fortune.

“What does it say?” he asked.

“It says be careful who you trust because someone is going to trick you tonight,” I replied.

His eyes furrowed as anger washed over him. He felt bamboozled.

“Someone is trying to trick me?! Okay, Danny, you need to leave. No boys in Anna’s room,” Mr. Burles said sternly as he got back up and headed for the door.

Anna looked so disappointed, and I was too. I knew her dad was just being protective, but I wasn’t a threat like the other boys who might have spent time at their house trying to make out with his daughter. I just wanted to hang out.

“Fine, I’ll pack up my stuff and get out of here,” I said.

“Let Danny stay! We’re having fun!” Anna shouted back at her father, hoping to convince him to let me stay.

“No boys in your room. You two can go play in the basement or the living room,” he said.

“But Dad, you let Cousin Marc play in my room.”

“He’s your cousin and he’s… No other boys in your room, Anna.”

“But Danny is…just like Cousin Marc,” she replied.

At this point, I had no clue what exactly they were referring to regarding this alleged Cousin Marc, but I did sense something off about the coded language these two were speaking right in front of me, and it felt very uncomfortable. What did Anna mean when she said her cousin Marc was just like me? Was cousin Marc Italian? Was he tall like I was?

“He’s…just like Cousin Marc?” Mr. Burles asked his daughter.

Anna explained, “Yeah, I think so. Danny likes basketball, but he also likes M.A.S.H. and plays with my Polly Pockets.”

“I like all sorts of stuff,” I told them, finally speaking up for myself, feeling like I suddenly needed to defend myself for enjoying the simple pleasures of a Polly Pocket.

Mr. Burles looked so confused and not quite ready to give up on his quest to figure me out.

“How about I hang out with you both for just a few more minutes? I can try to read Danny’s fortune,” he said as he sat back down on the balloon that was Anna’s bedroom furniture.

Anna handed him the origami she made, and he placed his index finger and thumb inside and looked me dead in the eyes.

“Pick a color,” he said with the kind of intensity usually reserved for interrogations.

“Green,” I said.

“G-R-E-E-N,” Mr. Burles said, suddenly an expert in cootie catching.

“Pick a number.”

“Three,” I replied.

“One, two, three. Now pick another number.”

“One,” I said.

Mr. Burles lifted up the flap of the paper fortune teller that Anna made and read it aloud to me, “You will get to third base tonight—”

“Omigod,” I said to myself, uncomfortable with the implication I was somehow going to go to third base with his daughter. When Anna crafted that prediction, she wasn’t referring to me and her, it was just a silly thing she wrote on the flap.

“Okay, that’s it, Danny, time to go! NOW!” Mr. Burles yelled in my direction.

I knew nothing I would say or do would matter in that moment because the origami said I was going to get to third base, and he took that as fact. I stood up and gathered my art supplies, stuffed them into my backpack, and got ready to head out the door as instructed.

“Danny’s gay!” Anna yelled. “GAY,” she repeated, sounding like Brittany Murphy in Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Like a bullet straight into my heart. It would be a whole decade until I would actually accept the terms and conditions of being homosexual myself, so I certainly wasn’t prepared to be outed just so I could play M.A.S.H. in my classmate’s bedroom.

I ran out of the room as fast as I could and hopped on my bike to ride home, horrified, crying the entire way, not because I was kicked out of my friend’s house, but because maybe Anna was right. Facing the truth can be much harder than ignoring it. From then on, every single time I’d have feelings for another guy, I would do everything I could to stop them, remembering the tears that fell to the dirt road on my bike ride home from Anna’s house. Even during my senior spring break when I snuck off to that gay bar and kissed my Myrtle Beach man, I hustled back to my hotel room and cried alone in the bathroom, those same middle school feelings flooding back to me. I worried that being gay meant I would never fall in love or have kids. I worried that everyone who did love me would stop if they knew I had been lying to them about it, even though I didn’t exactly know who I was myself.

Those years when you’re figuring it all out can be mental torture, but if you can get through them, you can have your moment in the rain, when all that self-loathing and confusion washes away, and you realize that life doesn’t stop when you come out. In fact, life begins because you’re finally living it authentically.

Once everyone knew I was gay, I stopped caring about what I liked or didn’t like and how it was perceived by others. If I want to memorize the spoken word intro to Monica and Brandy’s “The Boy Is Mine” song, I will. If I want to go to a solo matinee of the Little Women remake, I’ll go. There are things that society still considers masculine or for boys, things like sports or cars, and then there are things like dresses and dolls that are still considered only appropriate for women. These labels can be so harmful, and it’s time we rid ourselves of the stereotypes. Like what you like, and know that if it isn’t harming others, it’s okay. I know men who love to play with makeup, women who like football, and nonbinary people who like both. Some of those people are straight, some are gay, others bisexual, and many who identify as something else.

A family friend recently told me that his seven-year-old son wanted a Barbie, and he was afraid to buy it for him. He said if his son never has the doll, he won’t know what he’s missing, but it’s the dad who is the one who is going to be missing something. He’ll be missing who his son really is, and he’ll be missing the tears that will be happening on those bike rides home.

FLAME GAME

M.A.S.H. is a classic, and I HIGHLY recommend that you partner up with a buddy to play, but in the meantime, FLAME is a game that can be played with a friend OR solo, so let’s all take a moment to have some fun, shall we? For this example, we’ll determine what your relationship with Idris Elba should be. You can substitute Idris Elba with any of your favorite leading men. I chose Idris because I just watched the movie Molly’s Game, where he’s looking flawless in a suit, and I honestly cannot stop thinking about it. If you’re someone who is not into Idris Elba (seems impossible, but whatevs), substitute his name with someone to your liking, physically. It’s a fantasy, so get creative. No judgment here.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Write your name above Idris Elba.

Example:

Danny Pellegrino

Idris Elba

Cross off the common letters. (Remove any letters that are shared by both names.) For this example, we are left with:

D A N N Y P E L L E G R I N O

I D R I S E L B A

Count the remaining letters (the ones that haven’t been crossed out). In this case, there are 8 because the only letters that aren’t shared between the two names are the three N’s, the Y, the G, and the O in my name and the S and the B in his name.

Write down the word FLAME.

FLAME stands for Friendship, Love, Affection, Marriage, and Enemies.

Count through the letters in the word FLAME, and when you land on the number of letters you had remaining, cross out that letter. In my case it was 8, so every time I am counting and get to 8, I cross out that letter. Begin counting again with the remaining letters. Continue until all but one letter in FLAME is crossed out. In my example, I’m left with the letter F.

Whatever letter you are left with, that is the relationship you are destined to have with Idris Elba. In my case, sadly, I’m destined to just be friends with Idris. Looks like I’ll have to play again using my legal name, Daniel Pellegrino, until I get what I want.

HERE IS YOUR LETTER GUIDE:

F = Friendship

A = Affection (sex)

E = Enemies

L = Love

M = Marriage