When did you first know?

Image via WikipediaI'm sometimes asked by people "When did you first know you were gay?" While I didn't have my first boyfriend until my senior year in high school and didn't come out to my mother until the following year, I can't really remember a time when I wasn't a big old homo. I always thought that I was a late bloomer because I waited so long to come out. When I see kids coming out in their teens now and fighting for the right to bring their girlfriends and boyfriends to the prom, I can't believe their courage at such a young age. I could never have done that.

I remember having a crush on William Shatner as Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series when I was about eight or nine years old. I was never any good at sports or other more traditionally male things, but if I had to pick a time when I could say I was definitely a queer kid, it would have to be when I was ten and had a huge crush on David Cassidy.

In the summer of 1970, ABC released the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" as a single to help  promote the fall premiere of the now iconic TV show. Like preteens everywhere, I liked it a lot. But when the TV show, based on the real-life singing family The Cowsills, premiered and I got to actually see the dreamy Keith Partridge for myself, I hate to admit it, but I think I swooned a little.

Back then, The Partridge Family was a guilty pleasure for most of America. Nobody wanted to admit that they watched a show about a musical family that didn't actually sing their own songs, but the show was always in the top of the ratings every week, so somebody was watching it. Somebody was buying and listening to their music too, they just weren't talking about it publicly. So in a sense, that was the closet I really found myself in back in the day. Even David Cassidy, who had to convince the producers to let him do his own singing, was a little ashamed to be doing the bubble gum music the networks produced for the show and wanted to pursue a career as a serious rock musician.

I guess you could consider this my second coming out. Yes, my friends, at the age of 50, I am no longer ashamed (well, sort of) to admit that I like The Partridge Family and had a huge "boy crush" on David Cassidy.

Wow. I really had hoped I would feel better about getting that off my chest. Is there a support group I can join?