i will NEVER forgive the people that have turned byler into a joke because “mike doesn’t like will back, he’s made that clear”.
do you not understand the mind numbing horror that floods your body when you realize you’re gay? do you not understand the all encompassing FEAR when you realize if you’re seen doing something “suspicious” by the wrong person, it could ruin your entire life? do you not understand the devastation that comes with losing the people closest to you because “you love the wrong person”?? now take all of that and times it by 1000x…the 80’s while yes seem amazing had their setbacks. the only people gay men had back then during the aids/hiv epidemic were lesbians. everyone else was too “terrified” and uneducated to understand what was happening. do you realize how satanic panic and homophobia went hand and hand during AND after the epidemic? now imagine you’re a 13 year old boy and you realize during the height of all of this that you’re in love with your male bestfriend. how would you feel? do you think it would be funny? do you think that’s something to downplay? or do you think that you’d become overly self conscious around him? that you’d distance yourself and find a “beard” of sorts to try to convince yourself that you’re “normal”? that youd do everything within your power to make it clear that “we’re friends, we’re friends” at any chance you got? and then when you slowly start accepting yourself people start getting haunted by their darkest fears and secrets? so of course now you have to be EXTRA careful and only send “signals” to your love because why should you drag him down with you incase he doesn’t feel the same? even though he’s been terrorized by the people of your town his entire life, but maybe they’re wrong, maybe he’s normal and good while you’re tainted and sick in the head. does this all seem like a “joke” to you? does the internalized and externalized homophobia just roll off your brains because there’s no ridges to catch it and analyze it and come to an understanding that a story is being set up, a story of self acceptance in 1980’s for two gay boys?
