Secret Santa

Someone once said you spend Thanksgiving with the people you want to, and Christmas with the people you have to. You’re blessed if those two audiences are one in the same.

For me, the gatherings are almost always different for each holiday, but it’s not due to drama. It’s mainly because a) I prefer not to leave town on Thanksgiving (the day before is the busiest travel day of the year and I like my sanity), and b) I have such a big family on both sides, I rotate my destinations to try to see everyone.

Most of my friends have asked if my partner is going with me back home to L.A. He’s not, because of his work schedule. But my family knows about him and many will eventually meet him. Most of his family now knows me, and I spent Thanksgiving with all of them and enjoyed it.

But many gay couples will never have to think about this scenario. Because one is a secret from the other’s family.

An informal survey across my friends reveals something remarkable: many of them have not told their families about their long-term relationships, even as they hit the 5-year mark and beyond. So you can guess the holidays are resolutely a separate affair for them. But does this kind of arrangement devalue the relationship?

Family is tricky in of itself, let alone when you bring a boyfriend or girlfriend to the equation. You feel like you spend a lifetime learning the complicated rhythms and personalities of your family members, and how they can be incorporated into your life. And your plus-one may not be able to blend into that scene well. That alone can make someone hesitant to bring in a veritable in-law.

Some others have a more tangible fear. Their family may consist of conservatives, religious or otherwise, who would virtually disown them for their gayness. Or maybe the family is abusive or dysfunctional to where they don’t want to bring the unsuspecting partner into a dark milieu.

But an informal survey of friends and acquaintances doesn’t uncover such drastic scenarios save a very few exceptions. It frankly seems to be an extension of how out they are in general, and how comfortable they are making their homosexuality known.

My question, though, is how long can you keep your partner from the family, or be hidden from your partner’s family? And what purpose does it serve in the long run?

I can see if you’ve only dated someone several months, and don’t know the long-term potential. You don’t want to do the family rounds and then break up shortly afterward.

For me, keeping a partner in the closet for a long time is putting fear, pride, and a desire for acceptance above your relationship. And is that the priority list you want? Conceivably, a family member can scorn you for your career choices or your style of dress. So are you going to keep everything you think might elicit the slightest bit of disapproval away from the family to “keep the peace”? When does it stop?

When I bring this argument up to a few friends who fit the scenario, they bristle and see the words “closeted” and “fear” as judgmental. Their ears hear me saying that they are cowardly wusses. It’s complicated, they say, and I wouldn’t understand. One friend years ago said that it’s “not important” his family knows. Another unabashedly said he would never introduce a boyfriend to his family to avoid a sense of shame and discomfort that would be generated, even if it meant losing that boyfriend eventually.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve met many men who are out to their friends, and maybe even co-workers. But family is still put behind the great wall, essentially creating a double life. One argument is you can get new friends, but not new family members. So even if prejudices fuel tensions and divides that may arrive due to sexuality or a relationship, it’s better to avoid that situation. Blood is thicker than water.

But if your long-term partner is as important in your life as a parent or sibling, why keep those important parts painfully separate? Sooner or later, there has to be a breaking point. I mean, will someone tolerate a 10-year closeted relationship? Will you be age 50 or 55 before you officially out your relationship? And isn’t that a teeny bit ridiculous?

Oddly, I know situations where one is out, but the other is not. So while the couple is enmeshed with one family, you only hear crickets on the other side. I can’t help but think that eventually the out person is going to feel resentful and throw down the gauntlet.

Sometimes, outside factors motivate outing the relationship – a prime example is if one or both has children. If the other person is serious, you scarcely can spend time with the kids and leave out the significant other.

If someone is bent on having separate holidays and separate lives, I can’t convert them. But they’re missing something good. Why talk about the turkey dinner and the glee from unwrapped gifts over the phone, when you can be there in person?

Spanish Fly

Leave it to that cinematic trickster Woody Allen to make me think I was only going to see a breezy romp about a ménage a trios (well, four technically) and then give me some weighty relationship issues to ponder.

I went with a friend to see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," a story about two aforementioned women who vacation in the aforementioned Spanish city and simultaneously get involved with a sexy painter who has a crazy ex-wife (the latter two become a two-for-one deal).

Cristina and Vicky are archetypes on the surface, but they have traits and distinctive views on relationships that can be found among us. Cristina is impetuous, passionate, and afraid of boredom. She’s had many short relationships that burn out. Hmmm. Sound like any gay man you know? Vicky prizes stability among all else, perhaps even true happiness. The viewer quickly gets the sense her lawyer fiancé was a pragmatic choice, not an emotional one. Those women – and men – are certainly out there.

The movie is imperfect, but I like how it shows the drawbacks of the relationship mindset that each woman swears is ideal (at least at first). Cristina dives headfirst into an affair with the painter and even when the ex-wife shows up, the three become a unit sexually and otherwise. OK, Scarlett Johansson (Cristina), Javier Bardem (the painter) and Penelope Cruz (the ex-wife) together? It can hardly get more exciting than that. And Cristina seems to do nothing but take scenic pictures, make love and drink wine.

But for Cristina, even that unusual arrangement turns ho-hum. If this isn’t exciting for long, then what is and can be? Cristina reminds me of that old joke about gay men in L.A. They’re all 10s looking for 11s. Cristina is Exhibit A of Restless Bed Syndrome. Victims set themselves up for possible long-term unhappiness because side effects include constantly thinking something better will come along and they’ll miss it.

They fancy themselves as chasing happiness and not settling, but the upshot is that they never can be satisfied for long (or perhaps don’t allow themselves to be). What if, in the course of this chase, the runner passes out of exhaustion or runs by the mark s/he really needs? In my singledom, I had some Cristina-esque moments. I hated routines and got bored easily. I was worried a lot more about settling than being hasty with dating choices.

Vicky is the other side of the spectrum. Sensing chaos from a life unplanned, she seeks solid long-term relationships with no bells or whistles. The painter’s bald offer of a weekend getaway with clear intentions of bedding both women offends Vicky. First, she’s engaged. Second, it’s illogical and unsafe to get involved with a stranger. She sees Cristina’s eagerness to say yes as another "crisis" that Cristina creates for herself.

But then Vicky unexpectedly falls for the painter and sees the Spanish exotic as more virtue than vice. Her fiancé never makes her feel special or even notices how the flamenco guitar music floods her face with emotion. He’s busy talking about golf and apartment hunting. She realizes that maybe she was dumb for doing the "smart" thing and marrying a well-to-do but unimaginative lawyer. Is stability worth unfulfillment?

If you actually read the Q&A that comes with Metro Weekly’s Coverboy Confidential layout, you’ll see that the most common response for biggest fear is "being alone." And that fear propels the choices some of us make. We’d rather have an unsatisfying or just bad relationship than none at all. Men and women with much going for them fall into this trap. Another person supposedly provides the needed support system, but how much support comes from a failing system?

You can imagine Vicky making a list of suitable traits for marriage and deigning her man worthy. A laundry list of features is nice for computer shopping, say, but not necessarily for man shopping. What about desire, instinct, and flexibility of expectations? The painter makes Vicky see things she willfully overlooked for the sake of order.

The movie does miss the boat on one thing. The implication is that you can either have a life of boring monogamy or fleeting free love – someone needs to tell Woody the ‘60s are over. There is such a thing as a relationship that offers serious commitment, yet has romance and passion. (I have one, and so do some of my friends).

And that big-picture idea of a relationship can make you happy and keep you covered, even when the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.