About a week after my newfound love was beginning to settle we went to see a movie that had just come out: MAKING LOVE. It was the first movie about gay people to hit mainstream cinema that portrayed gay love in a somewhat realistic light. It had such an emotional impact on me I was overwhelmed with all kinds of feelings, most of them not so good. In the movie a doctor, who is married, discovers that he has a strong attraction to a young writer who can’t seem to connect to anyone emotionally. It goes exactly as predicted; the doctor falls for the writer, they engage in some activity, which at that time amounted to some on screen kissing of two men. The writer withdraws because he only wants sex. The doctor becomes hopeless and the wife is left out in the cold to remarry and have children with someone she doesn’t really love.

Was this what I had just made a life jump into. It wasn’t very optimistic and left me feeling rather cold and empty. I was so rattled by watching this movie that I had to leave the movie theater and I walked home alone. I remember a lot of sobbing as I wandered my way home through the night streets of Missoula feeling colder then I have ever felt in my life. When I got home my partner was waiting with a warm reception. We made love and I felt him hold me close all night. And thus had begun a new existence in a strange new world that knew would be difficult to navigate.

One thing good did come out to the movie a great song by Roberta Flack called Making Love that became a bittersweet anthem for my new found life.