HUFFINGTON
07.14.13
STRAIGHT TALK
to Jacob’s story. Jacob hadn’t really
wanted to end their relationship,
he said. Last fall, Mathew’s father
had called and asked to meet for
lunch. At a coffee shop in Queens,
Mathew’s father had ordered Jacob
to cut Mathew loose. He explained
that Mathew was in reparative
therapy, trying to become straight.
He felt that Jacob was interfering
with Mathew’s progress. In the car
with Mathew, Jacob said he wanted another chance.
“More than anything else, what I
wanted to say to him was, ‘Yes. Yes,
I want to be with you,’” Mathew
said. “But the news was so shocking
and so horrible, I couldn’t. I said,
‘No there’s no way. None.’”
In a daze, Mathew said he confronted his father, who insisted
he had done right by Mathew.
Then he called John and angrily
demanded an explanation. John
admitted knowing of his father’s
plans. Mathew declared that he
would be ending the treatment.
A few weeks later, Mathew and
his mother flew out to Los Angeles, but not to meet with John.
Mathew wanted to start a new life
away from his father. “I felt conspired against, betrayed,” he said.
His parents had begun divorce
proceedings. Mathew’s mom, Jane
Shurka, said that the therapy was
a factor in their break-up. “I saw
my son was not doing well,” she
said. At first, she had respected
her husband’s determination to
help Mathew, but instead of getting better, Mathew was “angry,
a wreck. He could not handle one
thing to the next.”
Mathew quit school and enrolled in a two-year community college in Santa Monica. He
stopped speaking with his father,
and began seeing an openly gay
psychologist. But he wasn’t out of
the closet, and he says he “couldn’t
shake the feeling” that if he lived a
gay life, he’d never be happy.
Alone for the first time in his life,
he spent weekends driving around
the sprawling city in a little sports
car. He dropped out of school again
and hid in his apartment for days
at a time. About a year after breaking off the sessions with John and
six months into his work with the
gay therapist, he decided to give
HE SAYS HE “COULDN’T SHAKE THE FEELING”
THAT IF HE LIVED A GAY LIFE, HE’D NEVER BE HAPPY.