What if I really didn’t like guys and that was why this whole thing felt so difficult to navigate?
As soon as the thought popped into my head, I had to investigate further. I opened Safari on my phone and typed in, ‘am I gay’。
A bunch of links popped up, mostly useless internet quizzes that I already knew would be unhelpful and inaccurate. But one thing caught my eye – the Kinsey Scale test.
I started reading about the Kinsey Scale. Wikipedia explained that it was a scale of sexuality which went from zero, ‘exclusively heterosexual’， to six, ‘exclusively homosexual’。
Curious, and frustrated with myself, I took the test, trying to just answer the questions instinctively and not overthink anything. When I finished, I clicked ‘submit answers’， and waited.
And instead of a number, the letter ‘X’ popped up.
You did not indicate any sexual preference. Try adjusting your answers.
I read and reread those lines.
I’d … done the test wrong.
I must have done the test wrong.
I went back to my questions and started to look for where I could change my answers, but couldn’t find any I’d answered inaccurately, so just decided to exit the browser.
It was probably just a faulty test.
‘You look nice!’ was one of the first things he said to me when we met outside the Gala cinema on Saturday afternoon.
‘Oh, er, thank you?’ I said, looking down at myself. I had selected some khaki overalls with a Fair Isle jumper underneath, though most of the outfit was hidden by my giant coat because Durham was already dipping below ten degrees and I did not deal well with the cold.
Jason, on the other hand, was wearing his teddy-bear jacket and black jeans, which was his look pretty much all year round.
‘I was thinking,’ he said as we walked inside the building, ‘the cinema was probably a terrible idea for a – for, like, a meet-up.’
He’d been about to say ‘for a date’。 He knew it was a date too, then.
It was on.
I chuckled. ‘Yeah. Let’s meet up and ignore each other for two hours.’
‘Basically. I mean, it sounds pretty relaxing, to be honest.’
‘That’s true.’
‘I think the perfect marriage would be made up of two people who can sit in comfortable silence with each other for extended periods of time.’
‘Steady on,’ I said. ‘We’re not married yet.’
This made him let out a spluttery, somewhat scandalised laugh. Nice. I could flirt. I was acing this.
We were half an hour into the movie when the fire alarm went off.
Until that point, things were going rather well. Jason had not attempted to hold my hand, put his arm round me, or, thank God, kiss me. We were simply two friends watching a movie at the cinema.
Obviously I didn’t want him to do any of those things because they would have been terribly cliché and almost kind of sleazy.
‘So, now what?’ he asked as we stood in the cold outside the cinema. Nobody else seemed to know whether the fire was real, but it didn’t seem like we’d be getting back inside any time soon. A staff member had just come outside and was giving out cinema vouchers.
I pulled my coat a little tighter round me. This was not how I’d hoped this afternoon would go. I had hoped we would sit next to each other in silence for two hours, watch a nice movie and then go home.
But we couldn’t end the date now. That would be awkward. That would not be date-like behaviour.
‘Erm … I guess we could just go back to college and have tea, or something?’ I said. That seemed to be the thing people did to socialise at uni. Tea in our bedrooms.
Oh wait. Bedroom. Was going to a bedroom a good idea? Or would that mean – ‘Yeah!’ Jason smiled, slotting his hands into his pockets. ‘Yeah, that sounds good. D’you wanna come to mine? We could watch a movie in my room, or something?’
I nodded too. ‘Yeah, that sounds good.’
OK.
It was OK.
I could do this.
I could be normal.
I could go back to a boy’s room on a date and do whatever was usually involved in that. Talking. Flirting. Kissing. Sex, maybe.
I was brave. I didn’t have to listen to my own thoughts. I could do all of it.
I actually don’t like tea, which obviously Jason knew, and he automatically made me a hot chocolate instead.
He had his own room, like Pip and most students at Durham, which meant it was small. It was probably a third of the size of mine and Rooney’s, with one single bed. The décor was much the same though – a crusty old carpet, yellow breeze-block walls, and IKEA furniture. His sheets were plain blue. He had a laptop and some books on his bedside table, and a few pairs of shoes were tidily lined up underneath the radiator.