T.M.I.

     My boyfriend and I have come to that disgusting part of a relationship where nothing is too disgusting to discuss. This, at the very least, surprises me.
     In college, an acquaintance became engaged and when we were talking about how close they were she said, “We’re so comfortable around each other. Like, we can poop with each other in the room, even diarrhea.”
At that point in time I had absolutely no interest in getting married.
     Here I am, 5 or 6 years later, and I’m engaged. To compound the situation, we talk about our poop. We don’t call it poop, though. We have our own term for that.
     One of my favorite thinkers is Margaret Cho. In “Notorious C.H.O.,” she tells a story of when she went to get her first colonic at a place in Santa Monica called “Water’s Gift.” Margaret Cho rolled her eyes at the name and continued, “I don’t know that I’d call it a gift. I don’t sit there and think, ‘Oh, I’m making a little gift.’”
     So whenever we have to go number two we say, “I have to make a gift.” It’s so dumb, like we even need to be that specific about the reason we’re heading to the restroom.
     More than anything it is our habit of quoting lines from movies and songs constantly. It’s our own private language, a shorthand way of making ourselves laugh all the time.
     Gifts don’t seem so graphic a thing to talk about. We tell each other when we’ve made a good gift and when we’ve made a bad gift; last night my boyfriend used not one, but THREE adjectives to describe his gift, to which I responded, “T.M.I.”
     Most often this much information is unnecessary to verbalize anyway. Our bathroom door is not at all soundproof, no matter how much one runs the water in the sink.
     We laugh from the next room at the noises each other makes. We tease each other’s poor giftmanship by running to the door and saying, “Oh my God! Are you ok?!?!”
     This is evil. How did this happen to me? I’m the one who smacked my lips at the notion that there would ever come a day when I would understand what others in relationships had known all along. It implied there were things I did not know– unacceptable.
     So, here I am, caught off guard and I have only one question: was it being gay that made me not consider the revelations of breeders for myself or was I simply not the kind of person to get this close?

     During my whole coming out process and adopting a lifestyle for myself, I guess I was so distracted with everything that involved I didn’t stop to picture another level.
     To work up the nerve to walk up to the clerk in the video store with gay porn in my hand was an achievement. It was as though to say, “Woo Hoo! I just came out to the porn counter chick!” To walk down a street holding hands with my boyfriend was a breakthrough. To tell every person who knew me that I was gay was a triumph. It seemed all I needed or could have hoped for as a teen.
     While all those things happened I always knew marriage wasn’t in the cards for me as a gay American. I always accepted that because that’s just the way it is. I thought, “Well, what do I need to get married for anyway? I can always just live with whomever I want and it’s not like we will have kids.”
     I’m not so sure now any law was responsible for train of thought. Was it simply too much to fathom because I had never been close enough to someone that I would want to marry them? Or was I just squeamish?
     It’s true, my fiancée is my first real relationship; before him, I had never lasted more than a couple months with a guy. Likewise, I have never been able to admit I was human enough to poop, let alone get diarrhea. Ew.
     Oh, I never denied it, but it was never a subject of conversation either. I’ve always required the utmost privacy to even perform such a task.
     If the horror that is suspecting, realizing, denying to myself and then accepting that I am at the mall and REALLY need to make a gift, I will sit in the stall until every person in the room leaves. If the last person exits just as another person walks in then damn it, I will squeeze my cheeks together until all possible witnesses are gone.
     Public restrooms make no sense. Why anyone would make it possible for multiple people to shit next to each other is beyond me. A whole row of single occupancy restrooms would simply make this world a better place.
     And while I’m at it, I hate sensor flushers too. You can’t even courtesy flush for others who walk in, mid-gift-making, without standing up and taking a step forward to trick the sensor into flushing.
     Once, I had just finished setting my paper seat cover on the toilet seat perfectly, took a step back to unbutton my belt and the sensor thought I had walked away and flushed, taking my seat down with the water. I had to set it up all over again much to my frustration, but I’ll let it go.
     That was definitely a tangent but the point is: I’m neurotic anyway. I feel like even if gays were allowed to marry, I still wouldn’t have imagined marriage for myself and I certainly wouldn’t have found myself reminding my boyfriend to make a gift early enough in the evening so he will be ready to accommodate my advances by bedtime. This is just too familiar. It’s too much information. But this is where we are.
     An important thing has happened, however trivial the topic may sound. We know each other’s humanity.
     Like the day you realize your parents are human and do some really fucked up things, I’m not sure you ever truly love someone until your shame is gone. As a people, the information about ourselves we keep most guarded is what we are ashamed of. And to think, the thing I’m most ashamed of is being a human being.
     I realize how silly it seems to make the leap from talking about bowel functions to evidence of true love. Am I so delusional?
     Everyone I am sure has their own version of this. For some it may be the mess they keep hidden behind closed doors. For others it may be kleptomania or pathological habits. Perhaps it is excess hair in weird places? Whatever it is, we all have things we’d rather just keep to ourselves for fear of how others will react.
     What makes this fear unnecessary is there is nothing one person experiences on this earth that someone elsewhere in the world hasn’t as well. Nothing. We are human and not as individually unique as we would like to believe.
     If you keep the things you are ashamed of from the person you love, you keep them at a distance. You prevent them from knowing you completely, of understanding you and ultimately, accepting you. To allow them to do that you must trust them. To give them that choice is scary, but that is love, no?
     Does it seem like such a better idea to be so without flaw you are admirable to all those around you? Or, do you reach a point in life when what is admirable is a man who not only acknowledges his irregularities, but shows no shame for them?