Just by Looking at Him: A Novel

Gus likes it, though. I can tell. He loves playing the part. It goes back to him secretly being an assimilationist gay. He likes being “normal.” He likes feeling secure. He likes talking to other gay men who have a big nice house in Los Feliz and are showing us pictures of their expensive wedding and, oh my god, kids? We’re not sure. But probably!

The problem here is the inherent belief that alcohol is EVERYTHING and you’d be making a giant sacrifice in giving it up. You wouldn’t be. In fact, you’d be gaining so much and losing nothing. It was life-changing to fully know the insidious slippery-slope nature of addiction, that after doing something for so long, you’re more inclined to get addi

It’s like, you’re with someone for so long, words become so dull that you decide to make them fun, but somehow you end up talking like you have brain damage, and any spark of desire you have for this person gets slowly snuffed out.

I think that just speaks to the failure of dating sites in general. They’re giving you the tiniest curated piece of someone’s personality. Flops can come off as charming or witty. Meanwhile, unicorns like Jonas fail to translate.

I didn’t want the night to end, even though I wasn’t having any fun.

still not drinking. Three whole weeks. Can you believe? Instead, I just looked at Boomerangs on Instagram of people clinking glasses and photos people posted of martinis with some “funny” caption justifying their drinking, and I thought about how our society worships at the altar of booze and how it’s more socially acceptable to drink than not to d

A lot of people use alcohol to lose their inhibitions, but for me it was the opposite. I drank to calm down and basically become catatonic. To be sober at a party reminded me that this is who I truly was: a Dennis the Menace weirdo who liked trolling people and acting kooky.

Looking at the list, I knew why Jonas wanted me to do it. It was important for me to look at all the ugliness that had lived—no, still lived—inside of me. Because only when you’re honest about the ugly can it start to become beautiful.

Here’s how the rest of the party went. I stayed sober, which was hard for two minutes and then easy. Honestly, I stopped thinking about whether or not to drink when Jonas and Kings got absolutely blotto and Kings ended up making out with the vice principal of Jonas’s school who had recently gone through a divorce, and Jonas started tripping and fal