What are you doing for Valentine’s Day? Some of us will be spending the day with our significant others, staring into one another’s eyes, and others will be sitting alone at home with a bottle of wine and a box of cheap chocolate. Whether you think Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love or of consumerism, take time out of your Valentine’s week to read these charming stories, poems, and tweets from LGBTQ students at U of T looking for love all around the calendar year.
Nice Jewish boys
I was doing my thing in a free modern/ballet dance class in the gay village and decided to see what the story was at a gay Jewish event held next door. The room was full of really hot athletic guys and I was like, “wow.”
I went up to a group of people, started chatting, and I noticed they all had accents — maybe British. One of them asked: “Are you here for the rugby club?” A bartender then informed me that the Jewish event had been relocated to a bar down the street.
I finally got there and sat down next to this guy around my age. He was one of the executives of the gay Jewish organization. To my surprise, he was rather close-minded. He didn’t seem to understand that intersex people existed, or that bisexual people need to be taken into account when running a queer organization.
Out of nowhere, this drag queen shows up, drunkenly exclaiming: “I heard there was a party in here!” Somebody explained that it was a gay Jewish event, so she asked if everyone was circumcised. I wanted to leave, but also really wanted to see what would happen next.
She started flirting with me, and mentioned she was a redhead — and I love redheads. She asked for my number to send me a photo of her out of drag, and the picture was really cute, so I decided to see where it would go.
The reason I went to this event was to prove to my mom that I would not find a nice Jewish boy there — done.
— Jonathan Hadad, third-year, political science and sexual diversity studies
Fire
I fell in love with fire, and of course, I got burned. I fell in love with words that broke in my hands and kisses that left scorch marks on my lips. I traced her back while she slept because I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, she would disappear. Turns out, she left when my eyes were wide open. I tell myself, all you have to do is let it go. Let it go.
— Nicole Doucette, fourth-year, mineral engineering
Roommates (for Ami)
A’s hair smells of ginger soap
her toenails scratch my sleeping feet
and sometimes she looks very young
standing in the snow
A is moving in with me
I’ve hung paper moons on plaster holes
peeled the wallpaper down
to make room for her books
I have filled our drawers with birthday candles
My grandmother knows we go on dates —
But not with each other — to dimly lit rooms
I would gladly trade my parents’ hate
for our quiet Valentine’s
I could watch her dress all day
When A comes home, exhausted
she’ll cast their anger off with unwed socks
to be lost in laundry baskets
and we’ll sleep like cats
all winter
With great plans for the thaw
— Kate Burnham, second-year, english
The one that got away
It began on the last weekend of Reading Week last year. I was bored since none of my friends had returned to the city yet, so I decided to snoop around OkCupid. One profile caught my attention in particular: a tall, green-eyed, muscular, olive-skinned man. I decided against sending him a message out of fear of rejection.
The next morning I awoke to a message from the man I had viewed the night before and I was ecstatic. We messaged all of Saturday evening and exchanged numbers. We planned on meeting the following weekend, but the very next day we decided we could not wait an entire week and we met that afternoon. We grabbed coffee and wandered around Queen West in frigid February, talking for what felt like 30 seconds, but in reality was several hours. We talked about everything, from why he decided to move to Canada to philosophy and religion. We just clicked.
Several weeks went by and I was enjoying every single moment spent with him — but then things took a sharp turn. The company he worked for was going through a rough patch and laying people off. His hours were cut in half. His Canadian citizenship application would not be processed for a year, and he was worried he would not be able to find another company that would be willing to sponsor him so he could acquire another work visa. His was set to expire in a few months. The stress caused the relationship to unravel, and we ended on poor terms.
After a month, he reached out to me and apologized for the way things ended, and asked if we could give it another try. We tried, but the stress wore us down once again. I have not been in contact with him since. It hurts to think about what could have been if we were not faced with the stress of immigration and the fear of uncertainty. I think about him all the time, and I don’t even know if he is still in Toronto. I wish him the best, and in all honesty, I wish we had just one more chance. He’s the one that got away.
— Anonymous, fourth-year
Three times I kissed a girl and I liked it (sort of)
The first time, she was a friend of mine and we were on the dance floor at a club that we would later say we would never be caught dead in. Some guys were hassling us, and she pulled my face towards hers, laughing. We made out briefly, and it hardly served its purpose of creating the desired space between ourselves and our unromantic suitors. I had red lipstick all over my face. I didn’t wipe it off.
The second time, she was my dearest and oldest friend in the city and we were drunk and happy in the careless honeymoon phase of an inevitably doomed social group. We shared secrets and wine and kisses on the cheek. She put a pretzel in her mouth and offered me the other half. Our lips met briefly, and they tasted like salt.
The third time doesn’t really count. I wanted to kiss her and I did not — but it wasn’t like the times before, when it was just an intimate moment with a friend turned something more, but something small and fleeting. My heart was beating, faster. This time, I didn’t kiss her because for the first time, I really, really wanted to.
— Anonymous, fourth-year
Pizza and boobs: a series of tweets
November 15: Why does everyone talk about rob ford when we could talk about pizza and boobs
November 20: Wildly attracted to girls wielding a large weapon or a large pizza
November 24: this party has turned into couples making out and me eating cheetos
December 31: people say the sexiest curve on a girl is her smile but it’s her butt
January 15: I’m making a girlfriend out of pillows and watching rom coms with her if you guys wanna join, should be rowdy
January 19: u of t is offering gay and lesbian softcore parkour lessons for beginners this friday, what a time to be alive
— A third-year criminology and sociology student
