When I first went into the hospital, I told my wife I was having homosexual feelings. She didn't understand. We went together to talk to the doctors at the hospital, and they told us that this was a symptom of other things. "We'll clear the depression, and that will go away."

I went to 16 different doctors. Neither the depression nor the homosexual feelings went away. I got more depressed, had more hospitalization, got more shock treatments. I had nineteen electric shock treatments to change me from being homosexual to being straight. On the twentieth, I said "No."

I came back, went to the AIDS Project, and joined the Buddy program. I took on a 36-year-old former prisoner, IV-drug user, drug peddler, uneducated, very hard-core person.

I have a college education, come from an upper middle class family, and have all the trappings of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, in spite of being brought up Catholic.

We hit it off. I connected with him. We talked about almost everything.

I drove him back and forth to the doctor's office. He kept putting his hand on my arm and saying, "Ted, it's so good to have a buddy who's straight that I can talk to."

That went on for six months. Before me, he had had three other buddies. All of them were gay men, and he had trouble with that. He was homophobic and hated gays.

I'd been introduced as, "This is Ted. He lives with his wife. He has four children and five grandchildren." He had come up to my house, and my wife liked him.

I figured, "Some day I'm going to have to tell this man that I'm gay. I cannot go under this pretense any more. I am deceiving this man, and it's not fair; not just to him, but to me."

My wife and I were separating, and I was moving in here. One day, we were on the way home from the hospital and had stopped at a red light.

Again, he was talking: "It's good to have a straight buddy. I hope some day, if you're ever in this position, Ted, you'll find a friend like I have in you."

At that red light, I turned to him, and I said, "Joe, I have something to tell you." I looked at him, then I turned my head forward and just stared out front at the traffic light again.

I said, "Joe, I'm a gay man."

I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He was still for the longest time, then all of a sudden, I saw him jump around quick, and out come his hands. I thought he was going to hit me, but he put his arms around my head, drew me over to him, and kissed me.

He says, "You know, Ted, nobody has ever trusted me like you do."

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