“Y

ou’re really cool, man, but 
I’m looking for a straight 
roommate.”

I wasn’t too surprised. The search for 

the perfect freshman year roommate was 
now nearing its fifth month, and this had 
been the third person I had connected 
with that had changed their mind about 
living with me after learning that I was 
gay.

But this one felt different. I thought I 

had checked off all the boxes. We had 
maintained a 20-day Snapchat streak, 
exchanging daily pictures that displayed 
how much fun our senior years were. We 
had talked about rushing a fraternity, 
what we wanted to major in. We both 
even agreed that we would — of course — 
attend every game at the Big House, but 
that our studies were “for sure” equally as 
important.

So when John (whose name is changed 

for privacy reasons) from California told 
me the day before the roommate request 
deadline that he could no longer live with 
me, I felt defective, as if I were a toy with 
compromised packaging. I still worked, 
but my torn label, nonetheless, meant I 
had to be returned.

“I think my roommate just broke up 

with me??” I half-jokingly texted a friend.

I did laugh at first. The process one 

had to go through to find the person you 
will be crammed into a room with for the 
next eight months was pretty strange. 
Yet, with no one prepared to make the 
“brave” sacrifice of willingly living with 
a gay person, the fate of my first dorm 
experience was left in the hands of the 
University of Michigan Office for Student 
Life.

Despite this uncertain start, my 

excitement about moving to campus and 
experiencing the “best four years of my 
life” remained undeterred. It was Ann 
Arbor, after all, and the reality of being 
known as my high school’s “funny gay 
kid” would soon transform to a place 
where I could simply become just one 
among many. And to me, that casual 
existence also meant the ease of finally 
being in a community I could fully call 
my own.

Soon, I thought, I could unreservedly 

be me.
“D

id you hear about 
how Matt has a gay 
roommate?”

“I heard. He needs to switch out ASAP,” 

a look of revulsion hardening his face. 
“I’m not kidding. It’s disgusting. If my son 
became gay, I would legit kill him.”

It was the start of Welcome Week, 

and the naive hope of belonging was 
replaced with a familiar, aching feeling 
of loneliness. With my parents gone, and 
the temperature of my 12x11, un-air-

conditioned 
room 
rising 
with 
the 

arrival of each eager freshman, I found 
myself sinking back into the hole I spent 
years digging myself out of. I came 
to Ann Arbor ready to embrace sides 
of myself that I never truly had the 
opportunity to explore. Now, I could 
finally take advantage of the resources, 
the community and the freedom that I 
had longed for. I had already come out in 
high school, so one of the top ten “Best 
Colleges for LGBTQ Students” was sure 
to only strengthen my confidence with 
my identity.

Yet, as the process of fraternity rush 

evolved and the pressure to find new 
friends mounted, I found myself falling 
back into the same patterns I had 
exhibited most of my life: Talk to girls, 
be as masculine as possible, but most 
importantly, do not let people know that 
you are gay.

“I’m not lying to anyone,” I tried 

convincing myself. “I just am keeping it 
to myself.”

For a while, this worked. Almost too 

well. While I had a few friends from home 
that were aware of my sexuality, in every 
other part of my college life, I simply 
“kept it to myself.” Maybe I thought it 
was a prize, an achievement when people 
came to believe I was straight. The more I 
could do this, I thought, the more friends 
I would have — and the rest I would figure 
out afterward.

But finally, this act began to become 

undone. Walking with five friends I 
had met from my dorm, the subject of 
roommates became the focus of our 
conversation. Recalling the struggle I 
had in finding my own, I remained silent. 
Soon, however, their words brought back 
the dreaded feeling of loneliness that I 
worked so hard to escape. I listened as 
they began to describe their disgust of 
gay people: How they shouldn’t be placed 
in “straight rooms,” how they would 
disown their children if they were to 
“make this choice.” I was then reminded 
of why I came out in the first place and 
the importance of finding my own 
community at the University.

As my time at Michigan unfolded –– 

while speaking with friends, volunteers 
and even strangers –– I became engrossed 
by the distinct sense of commonality 
embedded in the experiences of LGBT 
students. I listened to familiar stories 
of fear, of dejection, of sadness. Stories 
uniquely their own but still bearing 
patterns 
similar 
enough 
to 
thread 

together into one tattered quilt. Even in 
a post-Obergefell v. Hodges world where 
same-sex couples have been guaranteed 
equal standing before the law in America, 
beyond the closet, even on a campus as 
accepting as the University of Michigan, 
gay students suffer an inescapable sense 

of otherness.
“I 

think I was the last guy 
you were with before your 
girlfriend, so like, did I turn 

you gay?”

It’s 8:30 p.m. at Espresso Royale, and 

Information senior Nicole Ackerman-
Greenberg is winding down after what 
she describes as a “pretty light day.” After 
two classes, an hour-long call with her 
peer advisor and a weekly meeting for 
her tech fraternity, she returns to her seat 
across the aging wooden table, gripping 
her drink tightly with both hands.

“Then he proceeded to do us ‘a favor’ by 

offering his ‘assistance if we ever needed 
a third.’”

“It was ridiculous,” she continues. “I 

felt like some foreign object — in need 
of his pity.” Steam from her freshly-
poured coffee obscures her face as the 
fluorescent overhead light illuminates 
her now-focused green eyes. This was 
not the first time people she considered 

herself close with had made comments in 
a similar vein.

“I think that’s what gets me the 

most,” she says, tracing her fingers in 
the indecipherable carvings of the table 
in front of her. “I’m surrounded by all 
these people who say they accept me, yet 
I constantly feel as if I’m not fully there.”

Born and raised in Oakland, Calif., 

Ackerman-Greenberg 
never 
dwelled 

too much on her sexuality. In fact, she 
had found no need to ever “come out.” 
Rather, when she first began dating her 
now girlfriend, she simply broke the news 
to her parents by letting them know she 
would be coming to visit the next week. 
So, when she found herself for the first 
time becoming truly mindful of her 
identity at age 20, the weight she had been 
able to avoid for most of her life began to 
gradually bog her down.

“I felt like I was an object.”
The societal objectification of gay 

A

urora is an invoker. By its 
definition, its implications and 
its pronunciation it invokes 

a sense of grandeur unlike any other 
word in the English language. It is my 
salvation, the conviction of all other 
convictions. It is that word that hangs 
over me during the starry night while I 
lay atop my vehicle in the middle of the 
field with a lover. It is a sweet song that 
plays, creating an ambiance of pure love 
that emanates into a halo around such a 
youthful and romantic desire. It is the 
sweet song playing now, as I write these 
words, driving my pen ever forward 
toward the love of it, whatever it might 
be.

The Aurora is completely pure, and 

is thus the greatest beacon of hope that 
exists. The only thing more pure is that 
which does not exist. It is a cold night. 
Snow is on the ground casting away 
and purifying the unique color palate 
of warmer times. It is cold to the touch 
of a naked body walking onward forever 
in the direction of his or her prophecy. 
There are dark trees in this snowy 
midnight. It is so dark that all that 
can be seen are the straight, defiantly 
vertical trunks.

We must walk toward the Aurora, for 

there is nothing else that can be done. 
Ages pass and misery and happiness 
are merely transferred to new souls, 
the illusion of growth persists always. 

And the notion of freedom is a poisoned 
and lost concept. If true freedom is to 
exist, then we must find the Aurora, 
and we will cry, for its beauty is unlike 
anything we have ever known. So much 
beauty to behold everywhere, if only 
our eyes were free to see it all.

The cold northern gale is a caress 

of the Aurora, it is a reminder to heed 
its call, the call of the wild, the call of 
the north and the call of life. Life as 
never before experienced. Life that 
has but one goal, one central desire, 
and whatever that might be, for it is 
irrelevant and different between each 
individual, it is more important to 
embark upon the journey of awareness 
and enlightenment; that one central 
desire is, for me, represented through 
Aurora. The journey itself very well 
might be the achievement of that, the 
panacea of ignorance, and the endeavor 
that changes forever a life. Getting lost 
to be found is never the goal. The process 
of truly getting lost is an arduous 
undertaking, and the reward of it is not 
getting lost, but being lost. Persisting in 
a state of perpetual lostness, with only 
the Aurora to guide me. That is what I 
principally desire.

A 
simple 
three 
syllable 
word. 

Au-ror-a, and yet I am ruthlessly 
deconstructed 
immediately 
upon 

hearing and experiencing it. It is an aura 
of raw power to be tapped into and used 

to build the newly aware’s confidence. 
The word rolls of the tongue elegantly, 
the syllables are all vowel rich and are a 
pleasure to pronounce, and all three in 
a row creates a sort of light, airy word 
easy to speak. Aurora. Aurora. Aurora.

The Aurora borealis can be seen in 

the northern realms. I have never seen 
them before, and yet I worship them. 
Perhaps I have associated Aurora with 
something more. . . evidently, this must 
be true. A fleeing into the northern 
kingdoms, away from all of the misery 
and lack of love and romance perhaps? 
A pilgrimage, a great northern odyssey 
that we all want to take, though 
the reasons and direction might be 
different. Flee. Flee. Flee as fast as the 
naked body can through the darkness, 
moonlight unveiling the bare tree 
trunks and light snow falling. Falling 
slowly and gracefully like the breath of 
one in the midst of it. It as something 
undefinable, 
an 
inconceivable 
and 

inexplicable answer to an inconceivable 
and inexplicable question.

There is a power that drives life. A 

meaning that must be found. Aurora is 
my meaning, it is both a driving force and 
an end goal that is both attainable and 
unattainable. It is the wind that sways 
the trees and the sunlight that helps 
us wade through the darkness. It is the 
sweet music that is heard, immersive it 
is, and loved while in the region of one’s 

dreams. It is even perhaps the love that 
is so essential to us all. We all must love; 
whether another individual, a place, a 
song, whether it is that journey through 
the midnight snow. Aurora is my it. And 
the midnight snow and bare tree trunks 
are my where; it is, in my soul, that 
particular region that we all have that 
begs for us to explore.

I would walk amongst those lonely 

trees forever in perhaps a vain attempt 
to find that other individual whom 
I can, and would completely, love 
and cherish. And we would love and 
cherish that particular region, and it 
would become the realest of realities. 
I put hope into such a romance, and I 
shall walk through the snow until that 
happens, forever in that sad, northern 
midnight.

And at the brink of eternity, I must 

relinquish the siphon of pure wisdom 
that has been feeding me, and while 
it was personally useful and enjoyed, 
it must unselfishly be shared to those 
who have reached the edge of that life-
altering conviction of all convictions. 
Aurora. 
Infinity. 
Aurora. 
Eternity. 

Aurora. Awareness. Can you feel the 
passion building? Go on in a state of 
ecstatic excitement and anticipation . . 
. it is calling.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018 // The Statement
4B

Wednesday, October 24,, 2018 // The Statement 
 
5B

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Alex Kubie

“I just got really good at covering up how I 
feel”: Profiles of gay loneliness

BY ALEX KUBIE, CONTRIBUTOR

Aurora

BY CODY LADD, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR

ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH STUBBS