"Tim, why do you always stare at the waiters here?"  I squirmed.  I had no answer for my dad.  I was about thirteen or so,  I was staring at him because he was cute, and I was full of hormones.  I think I muttered something about being amazed at how hard they were working, and left it at that.  It was quite an uncomfortable moment in my youth, which is most likely why I remembered it.

Okay, to be fair, I've always had a FEELING that I was different, and singing Bette Midler's The Rose while accompanying myself on the piano in the junior high talent show probably isn't something most STRAIGHT boys do, but I still didn't admit it to myself.

When I first went away to college, I saw an ad for the Gay and Lesbian Student Association at my university.  I don't know why I called, I felt like it was something I had to do.  I remember my hands shaking as I dialed the phone, but I made up my mind I was going to go to a meeting, if only to prove to myself that I WASN'T gay.

I sat through that meeting, listening to what these people had to say, and the whole time, I have an inner dialog going on in my head" "What the hell are you DOING here?  That guy is really hot.  Brazilian guys must ALL be hot, I should go to Brazil some day.  Of course, I won't need to go to Brazil because I'M NOT GAY!  Still, if I were gay, I'd definately sleep with that Brazilian exchange student.  He's really hot. You know, if I were into guys." Stuff like that.  Denial, denial, denial.

The meeting ends, and people begin talking about where to have dinner.  They all decide on a place up the street, and the Brazilan guy says, "Marco's is a GREAT idea tonight, because they have great margaritas, and the WAITERS... they are SO HOT there!"

BOOM!  CLICK!

"Hmmmm... I LIKE waiters.  He likes waiters... I must be GAY!"

I SWEAR to you, it was exactly like that.  From that point on, I never doubted for a second that I was gay.  And I'm glad of it.  I have faced many struggles in my life, but ascertaining my sexual identity wasn't one of them.  I'm a gay man (who likes waiters)  There you go.

And I found that many of the men in Brazil WERE sexy.  Seriously, it's worth a trip.  Go during Mardi Gras.