Moving Into Uncertainty: Blake + Jonathan

D: How did you guys meet?

J: At a dinner party.

D: What happened at the dinner party?

J: I met Blake’s roommate when I was single and he (the roommate) and I just didn’t connect in a romantic way. I guess months after that Blake broke up with his boyfriend at the time and was crying and I guess Blake’s roommate thought of me and set us up at a dinner party. We met and connected immediately.

B: It wasn’t even a dinner party. It was just you. But we were on the patio and were just talking about how similar our dads were and then eventually everyone left and we didn’t realize everyone else was gone. It was just us and we talked all night. I wasn’t so sure about him at first to be honest.

D: What made you sure?

B: Honesty.

J: Yea, we made that connection and I was the most forward. I’d never tried that with someone else. So I gave Blake my phone and told him to slip his number in and that happened.

B: I’m not aggressive either. So I needed what he brought that day for it to work.

J: We went on another date to the cemetery. There I told him I struggled a lot with Christianity and being gay. I was very upfront with him about everything I was going through at the time. I felt like he was very ok with all of it.

B: I’d just had many awful relationships in my life and thought if that’s the worst thing you got then I can handle that. I think I came from a really accepting and understanding place of what pain is. I wanted that openness. He gave me the world I wanted and the world I envisioned. He’s taught me so much, even through his Christian background.

J: I think what I saw in Blake, even the first night, he was so helpful and thoughtful. I saw what I would think Jesus to be. I saw those qualities in Blake. Like even though Blake…

B: …is a psychopath sometimes…

J: …. I didn’t know if he believed in God at that time, but just me seeing that, I was really drawn to that.

D: So is that what made you sure?

J: I think so. Yea.


D: What do you feel has changed from the beginning up until today? Like what are some pretty prominent changes in the relationship both good and not so good?

J: We’re more intimate with one another. He shares more with me. He didn’t really before because he was very independent. Because I struggled so much at the time we met with if God loved me and all that, that maybe I wanted Blake to fill the void I was trying to figure out with God and so I wanted to be way more codependent upon Blake and expected way more at the beginning of our relationship. And so we’ve been together 8 years but I do feel like I’ve grown in a way where I’m not like that anymore.

B: And I’ve changed in the way of my independence. My fear of needing someone has allowed me to realize that I do need him and there is value in having someone else. I’m definitely my mother’s child in the sense where I won’t allow myself to need someone. I can pack up and leave and do it again. I will be fine and figure it out. I think that that mixed with worrying about not be able to be accepted as a gay person really isolated me. It made me very independent. He’s changed me in the way where I’ve allowed myself to trust people. I think we balance each other out really well. We also allow each other to Be. We don’t really have bad things. I think we can frustrate each other, but we respect each other enough for it not to be a problem.

J: In a way I think that’s what love is. You getting to be yourself with someone, or even a friend or in your family. It’s respecting the person for who they are, but also learning that you exist together and learning the ways to exist together in a more balanced way. Not changing each other but you’re learning the balance of how you can push and pull.

D: Blake what is your definition of love?

B: I think it is dangerous. I do. It’s to allow yourself to be that honest and vulnerable. I feel like that’s what love is. It’s like opening every corner and you put it on bright lights. However you wanna say it. It can hurt you if you lose it. It’s forgetting about the potential pain because it’s worth it. Because they’re worth it. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s worth it in the end. It’s worth being alive with someone else. I think we need to know that someone sees you, someone hears you, someone holds an essence of your spirit.

J: I think that people can find that in a family member, a friendship. It doesn’t have to be a romantic coupling for people to experience what love is. I feel like love requires freedom.

D: It’s kinda like love requires full surrender of your fears in order to truly flourish

J: Yea and they die! Like the reality is that we do lose each other. We’re with ourselves in the end.

B: I can’t believe how supportive I was of Christianity in the beginning. It’s wild for me to think of myself in that way.

D: Why?

B: He was like I don’t know if I’ll be with you in two weeks because I’ll have to choose Christianity and I can’t be in a gay relationship because I love God. I told him to do what you have to do because I wasn’t going to take him away from his relationship with God or spirituality. Which is pretty weird for me because I feel I’m rebellious and pretty punchy so I can’t believe I was understanding of religion in that way. I gave him a certain amount of time to figure it out, but I wasn’t going to be the reason he turned away from God. I don’t believe in making someone choose.

D: What made you so patient?

B: I don’t know. But I wanted to give him the opportunity to figure it out. It wasn’t going to be something I made him do though.

D: How did you end up figuring it out?

J: I kept living and realized that I was there. I guess in short, time. Also Blake being like “you need to figure this out”. I started to read things that said gay Christians exist. I think starting to know some of that slowly helped me. I never understood what was harmful about what I felt towards Blake. I knew it was the same love that I experienced with God. So I just trusted that it was pure and that I could. Even Blake saying he didn’t want to take that from me, I was seeing God in that. That freedom to choose. So yea I just leaned into the unknowing of the truth of what it would become.

D: After 8 years, what makes this love worth it to you?

B: I don’t know. I think that’s what’s good about our love. It’s always moving. We’re always trying our hardest. I think that’s something we love about each other. Even if there’s not a big goal in mind, I think that we both help each other with whatever we want to achieve and it makes us move really well together. I think that makes it worth it — having someone that can identify your wants and needs and not their own pressures or desires out of you. You can of course critique, but that’s a different conversation. It’s fun. It’s not challenging. I get it all. He gives me the world that I want.

J: I think for me is kind of to see another person grow. I’m growing too because of the things Blake challenges and supports within me, and I get to see that same growth in him. I’ve had moments when I’m alone where I have cried of joy because of things I’ve seen Blake grow through. Which makes it worth it to me — those moments where I’m like wow, our two lives are impacting each other for the positive..

B: … and for the people around us too. I think we make each other better for the world. Through each other I feel like we have been more effective in the people that we touch.

D: If you had to give advice to your younger selves, what would it be?

J: I would’ve told myself that I was normal. I know normal is relative. Or may be just that “you’re ok”. Because me believing that I was messed up is what led me to damaging relationships. It made me too dependent on Christian community which would end up rejecting me. I think I’d be like you’re ok, but at the same time I have no regrets moving through all of that because all of that made me more observant of the way I interact with people and myself. So I don’t regret that I never had that experience.

B: *quick 4 minute random coughing fit he refused to acknowledge was happening*

I wouldn’t have told myself anything. I think suffering is necessary. I think it’s fine that you’re gonna suffer. I don’t know if I’d meet myself and tell myself anything, because my new self would just keep on finding new problems. I don’t have answers for them either. I like where I’m at today. I find a new way every day. I love my life. I love him. I’ve found joy in this life and that’s enough. Somehow I found it through all of the people that’ve touched me and all the people I’ve met.

J: I feel like that’s probably why you’re in some ways drawn to me too. Because that’s something I developed as a kid too — seeking out joy in a way that sustains me. I feel we both share that.

B: I feel we both understood that about each other quickly too. We identified in each other how much we love life.

D: What’s one of your favorite things about the other person?

B: dat ass… He’s sweet. He’s just sweeter than me. I wish I could get him pregnant. He’d be so cute pregnant.

J: One of my favorite things is seeing or hearing Blake laugh. I get so much joy when he laughs because I get to see him smiling. He’ll be playing video games and he’ll get so tickled, and I just get happy knowing that he’s cracked up.

D: What has been one of the most profound lessons in this particular love for you? Something you’ll carry with you forever.

B: I think we do a good job of staying present enough to keep learning. I don’t know if I have an answer for that yet.

J: Maybe I’m realizing in this moment that the important lesson is to move into uncertainty. Because I felt like I couldn’t figure Blake out in the beginning. I couldn’t make our relationship permanent by being needy, and the more I leaned into just letting it be + the unknowing of what it could become, I think that’s been an important lesson for me. I can apply it to other things too. Like it’s ok to not know. You can step into that. I can step into not knowing if Blake will ever need me because when I let go of that, he shows me that he needs me. It’s not forced.