About a year ago I gave in to temptation and looked up the first man I ever loved, my mentor and immediate boss right out of college. He was tall, trim, dark hair and hazel eyes, handsome in a very serious, buttoned down New England WASP kind of way. He reminded me of the young Gregory Peck, one of those very sober, professional guys who had no idea how handsome he was and would be almost embarrassed if anyone said anything complimentary about his looks. I worshipped the ground he walked on.
Ultimately he couldn't deal with family expectations (there was a portrait of his grandfather prominently displayed at his college), or the risks and pressures of being in a relationship with another man in a profession where homosexuality was not tolerated. He married the college girl friend (two separate words) he'd told me was like a sister to him and went back in the closet. I was devastated, closed myself off from any kind of relationship for the better part of a decade, which might have saved my life as it was the mid 1980s. Through the years I'd hear about him now and then, but by the time social media stalking was a thing, I'd long since put him behind me.
Late last year, a long distance on and off relationship I'd been in for years turned unexpectedly serious and I got to thinking of the last time I'd let myself feel that way, and typed his name into Google. The results were illuminating and depressing. He was still married to the same woman, had a long, highly successful career and was now retired, had several sons and now grandchildren. But the high price of the closet was in evidence.
Unlike a lot of the posters ruptured, he hasn't gotten fat and bald, just the opposite. He looked almost emaciated, looks as, dried out and dessicated. This guy who I used to have trouble breathing around reminded me of Hume Cronyn or Henry Fonda circa On Golden Pond. He's only in his early sixties now but if you'd told me he was is his mid seventies I would have believed it. One look and I knew he's not getting any action in the gym steam room on the down low. He killed off that side of himself to have the life he wanted. He looks like the kind of guy who gets up at 0430, runs 10 miles, eats the same paleo breakfast every day, doesn't drink or smoke, hasn't poked the wife since the Bush Administration, and when he's looking for some excitement, orders a 2-volume biography of Admiral Spruance from the Naval Institute Press with his lifetime member's discount and splurges on 2-day shipping.
By contrast, the long distance casual boyfriend who became my husband didn't look like he'd age at all well, if you judge by the youthful photos. He had the kind of nondescript, cornfed all-American looks and baby fine blond hair that usually melt into a fat bald puddle by 40, as discussed upthread. The hair was pretty much gone by thirty--he was shaving his head at that point. He turned out to be one of those guys who gets a second growth at thirty, an his soft featured got lean and craggy, kind of like the British actor Mark Strong or Dean Norris. Our neighbor's nickname for him is Doc Savage, Man of Bronze.