people, particularly women, remains 
rampant in our culture. On “Friends,” 
Chandler and Joey jump at the opportunity 
to watch Rachel and Monica share a 
minute-long kiss. In Katy Perry’s debut 
single, “I Kissed a Girl,” she perpetuates 
the notion that relationships between two 
women are just experimental and simply a 
way to entertain straight men.

Ackerman-Greenberg, now speaking 

louder than before, attempting to break 
through the voices of students frantically 
ordering their last caffeine fix before 
moving to the library for the night, begins 
to highlight how these portrayals in pop 
culture have manifested in her own life.

“I was at Skeeps (Scorekeepers Sports 

Grill and Pub), and my girlfriend and I 
kissed for the first time,” she said. “For the 
first time in my life I was kissing a girl that 
I cared about,” a hint of red beginning to 
color her face. “It felt as if there was not 
another person in the world.”

That euphoric feeling did not last 

long, she notes. Soon, that world was 
interrupted by the sight of half a dozen 
men, staring, cheering, as more onlookers 
began to gather around for “their own 
entertainment.” While this brought a 
“feeling of disgust,” what stuck in her 
mind the most was having to weave 
through the crowded bar, watching as 
dozens of straight couples intensely, and 
“sloppily,” made out with one another — 
unnoticed and unbothered.

“I’m sure there are hundreds of bisexual 

girls like me on campus, people who I 
can talk to and who could relate to these 
things,” she said, placing her drink back 
down, the bottom of her cup now visible. 
“I guess I just don’t know where to find 
them.”

Her phone buzzes, interrupting a 

solemn gaze. It’s her girlfriend, asking 
when she will be back home. A smile 
returns to her face.

“I almost feel bad for complaining. You 

know, it could be much worse. My parents 

are so accepting. I have a girlfriend who I 
love. But sometimes — as soon as I begin 
to let go just a bit, something brings me 
crashing back down to reality.”
“I 

came home from school, and I 
knew something was wrong.”

“My parents sat me down and they said, 

‘We heard you’ve been cutting yourself.’”

LSA junior Caleb Grimes met me in 

the middle of the Ross School of Business 
Winter Garden. He stood out amid the 
chaos of networking calls and coffee 
chats transpiring around him, dressed in 
a sweatshirt and the only one without a 
backpack or briefcase.

“Sorry I was late,” he said calmly, “I had 

to come straight here from my friend’s 
house”

Hailing from an all-boys Catholic 

school in Kentucky, Grimes exhibits an 
air that one might expect from an All-
American lacrosse player. At first glance, 
his hardy demeanor supports the cool and 
unaffected presence that he carries. Yet, 
as his guard begins to wane, his effort to 
maintain this composure becomes more 
apparent.

“It was hard,” he says in a more solemn 

tone. “I was just 15 years old. I wasn’t even 
sure what or who I was. So, when I tried 
talking to a friend to maybe get some sort 
of clarity, and it suddenly spread across 
the town, I fell into a dark place.”

During his sophomore year of high 

school, Grimes’s parents received a phone 
call from a friend about his self-harm and 
the rumors of his sexuality. Hoping to 
alleviate their son’s pain and confusion, 
they sought out a therapist to speak with 
him.

“I never got to have my ‘coming out 

moment,’” he says with a more sunken 
face, his hands retreating into the refuge 
of his sweatshirt. “Instead, I woke up each 
day wondering if I would even be alive the 
next morning, all while trying to maintain 
this image of the lacrosse player, of the 
football player, of the student.”

Grimes’s internal conflict with his 

identity is pervasive in LGBT teens across 
the country. According to the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention, 
people who are gay are four times as 
likely to attempt suicide when compared 
to heterosexual youth. The fear of 
discrimination and harassment because 
of one’s sexuality also leads LGBT people 
to have depression and anxiety disorder 
rates three times as high as their straight 
counterparts.

“My therapist helped me sort through 

some of these things, but that constant 
anxiety and overthinking just never went 
away.” He begins to pause at the sound of 
his voice becoming shakier, almost taking 
this as a signal to tuck back these difficult 
memories. “So I clung to anything that I 
thought would make it easier.”

Grimes notes that he wore his “non-

stereotypical” background as a badge of 
honor for the majority of both his high 
school and college careers. “It was funny 
how much I relied on that single label of 
the ‘lacrosse kid’ as a way to lift myself 
up.”

“Half of the reason I wanted to play 

lacrosse in college was because I wanted 
to maintain that safety of, ‘Yeah, I am gay, 
but look at me defying the stereotypes!’” 
he laughs with an almost-regretful tone.

Upon coming to campus, Caleb saw 

Greek life as his next outlet to bolster this 
image. He recalls hoping to not be seen 
as the “gay kid,” but as the “masculine, 
gay frat kid.” While he eventually found 
a supportive community within this 
new space, there are times he still feels 
isolated because of his sexuality. To 
him, Greek life is built upon, in many 
ways, the expectation of going out and 
finding another person to hook up with. 
Reinforced by dark, cramped basement 
parties, where the conversation is limited 
by blaring music, people can mainly just 
“dance and hook up.” While friends may 
come briefly to wave hello, most of them 
quickly disperse as he “obviously doesn’t 
fit what they came there for.”

Even when he has brought another guy 

with him to a party — something he notes 
he is very lucky to be able to do — that 
isolating feeling begins to reemerge.

“I never truly feel comfortable or 

accepted with another guy in public. Even 
the most accepting people cringe deep 
down when they see two guys together.”

When I asked him why he thinks that, 

he responded coldly, “Because we cringe 
too.”

Before heading back to return to his 

friends, Grimes notes how his years hiding 
his identity have manifested throughout 
almost all spheres of his life.

“I just got really good at covering up how 

I feel,” he confessed. “But I go through an 
internal battle every single day.”

This is a common theme for many gay 

people. As discussed in a recent study 
from 
Georgetown 
University, 
LGBT 

people have learned that it is often safer to 
conceal their feelings than to become open 
to criticism or ridicule. This instinctual 
sense of protection, however, leads to 
an undermining of self-esteem and self-
worth. 

“I am grossly insecure with myself and 

I constantly regulate how people might 
view me,” Grimes admits. “And because of 
that, I may have come across in the wrong 
way to some people.”

Now, six years since his talk with his 

parents, he notes he is becoming more 
comfortable with the many facets of 
his identity. His family, too, has been 
celebrating this part of him as well. In 
fact, he tells me, they even went to a Pride 
parade without him.

A smile begins to break, and a warm 

glow fills his eyes.

“Yeah, that was pretty cool.”
B

usiness senior Chandra Sahu 
highlights how being a woman of 
color has played in her experience 

as a queer woman. While it has been easier 
for her to identify other Black students on 
campus, her pursuit of finding other gay 
students was difficult.

“I was surprised by how little of a 

community for gay people there was 
here,” she said in a disappointed tone. 
“Statistically, there have to be a lot more 

people that are not straight, yet there’s 
just no community.”

As president of both the Black Business 

Society and Out for Business, Sahu 
has used the tight-knit community of 
the Business School to find a place for 
minority groups to come together. Yet, 
unlike the University’s Black community, 
which she has been able to find a place 
in, she finds the LGBT community 
remains disjointed. Gay spaces do exist 
in Ann Arbor, including the University’s 
Spectrum Center. However, many queer 
students on campus feel its efforts to 
provide the resources needed to foster 
a connected LGBT community remain 
inadequate — a reality that has tangible 
consequences for its students.

“I am surrounded constantly by so 

many people,” Sahu confessed in a hushed 
tone. “Yet I still feel so alone.”

Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore 

Alix Curnow echoed this sentiment of 
seclusion to me. As the flicker of the 
Michigan Theatre’s sign lit the right side 
of her face, she detailed the struggle she 
has faced in search of a community of her 

own.

“I feel very isolated,” she explained, her 

entire face now drowned in the light. “I 
went through many stages of depression 
and most of it was rooted in trying to find 
where this part of me fit in my life.”

Curnow was ready to immerse herself 

in the progressive Ann Arbor community, 
hoping to find refuge in a place where she 
would not just be tolerated, but embraced. 
However, her time spent trying to fully 
discover her own self became increasingly 
disheartening.

“Friends, even people that are gay, have 

questioned my sexuality — telling me I’m 
just confused.”

“Even though friends try to offer their 

support, it’s lonely,” her shaded eyes now 
fixated on the floor below. “And being 
able to sit down in class and just knowing 
if there were other people like me would 
make things so much easier.”
M

idnight came and the empty 
booths and folded chairs 
signaled it was time to pack 

up. Gripping my empty mug and the 
hastily-scribbled notes from the day, I 

began to head home. The brisk chill that 
waited patiently at the door accompanied 
me on the walk that night.

Passing through the places I had grown 

to know during my time at Michigan, I 
spotted friends and former classmates 
around each mindless turn of the corner.

Maybe I wasn’t so alone, after all.
But with each step closer to home, 

the sidewalks grew barer. Approaching 
the stairs of my apartment building, 
the outlines of two figures under the 
dying street light were etched out of the 
darkness. As the sound of my sneakers 
dragging across the cracked pavement 
below broke the silence of the night, 
the lock of their lips became undone. 
In unison, they jolted their heads in my 
direction, as if they had been caught 
doing something wrong. I could now 
recognize they were both men. Almost 
instinctively, they took two steps back 
from one another. The air now felt colder 
than before.

“How’s it going, man?” one nodded as 

I passed by, as if they were testing my 
reaction to what I had seen.

I approached the door, feeling the 

icy touch of its frigid handle. Memories 
began to flood my mind as that same, 
bitter Michigan chill danced through my 
fingers. My eyes watered, and whether 
the single tear that managed to escape 
was from the gust of wind or the influx of 
memories, I do not know. Yet, as I crawled 
into bed that night, my freshman self took 
a hold of my mind.

The fear that I saw in the faces of 

those two men outside was all too 
familiar. It was the same fear I felt just 
three years earlier, walking through an 
unfamiliar campus with my freshman 
year roommate. That fear of rejection, 
how others may react. Suddenly, that 
insidious, creeping isolation began to 
re-emerge in my mind.

Hoping to clear my thoughts, I peered 

outside my frosted window, but now, 
beneath that same, dying streetlight lay 
nothing but leaf-covered pavement.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018 // The Statement
6B
Wednesday, October 24, 2018// The Statement 
7B

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Nicole Ackerman-Greenberg

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Caleb Grimes

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Alix Curnow

