By Caleb Morrow

I was forever chasing the unattainable. We all were.

“Where is my Marlboro Man? Where is his shiny gun? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the cowboys gone? - Paula Cole

On a sun-scorching Sunday in the summer of 1996, Paula Cole wanders the acreage aimlessly in search of something, or someone, to save her. Drenched in sweat, her damp sundress clinging uncomfortably to her arms and knees, she sees a brawny silhouette in the distance. After all these years of scouring the terrain for something to call her own, her cowboy has finally appeared.

She inches closer and closer, though sand seems to seep into her aching bones and dust now smothers her throat. Just when the silhouette is within striking distance, only an outstretched arm away from paradise, it’s gone — man turned mirage.

It’s these mirages that yank me further from myself. Stepping out of my comfort zone initially seemed appealing, but the journey ends up exactly how it began – an aimless wander to nowhere in particular.

Every man I’ve ever desired has been a mirage. The closer I get to unraveling the mystery of them, the more likely I am to be disappointed when my perception of them dissipates in my fingers. Though I’d like to think these mirages are mine and mine alone, I know there’s a bigger force at hand. What I desire has always had a specific blueprint, a blurry outline that has only become clear when I take a step back.

I’ve always found myself drawn to the raw and rugged men depicted in Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight. Hardened by the lives they live and possessing some kind of dulled sparkle, I found comfort in the hypermasculine. My real crushes, the ones projected in cafeteria seats in front of me rather than the big screen, have reflected this same pattern of men: the Cowboy.

The Cowboy is the Boy-Next-Door and American Dream all wrapped up in one brawny ranch hand with dirt under their fingernails and leather boots accompanied by a satisfying click-clack. But there’s factors that transcend beyond the physical. The cowboys possess a calmness I could only dream of replicating, a swagger that appears annoyingly natural, an awareness of the attraction they draw in that would enrage me – if only I wasn’t so hopelessly desiring them as well.

But the common denominator of the desire was the knowledge that deep down, the desire never felt like it was my own. It was a curated attraction, the mold I felt was designed for me to fall for - some kind of robotic, dutiful lust that left me feeling even emptier after the inevitable rejection hit. 

The assembly line starts within my own community.

We’ve retreated to the tight corners, dimly lit corridors far out of reach from the heteronormative culture that aimed to swallow us whole. In spite of being the overwhelming minority in everyday life, a hierarchy has sprung up in nearly every male queer space I’ve been a part of.

To be queer has meant being an active participant in a competition I didn’t know had started. It’s a blend of camaraderie and envy, of community and divisiveness. Obsessive beauty standards, the drive to have the most obscure taste in media and the arts, and social climbing all blend together to create a twisted web of elitism. Mediocrity isn’t an option; it’s not a social scene for the faint of heart or those deemed deplorable - the non-whites, plus size, and hyper- feminine. Despite this, I’ve built my existence around what the collective desires, forever morphing and contorting to get as close to perfect as possible.

It dawned on me that the spaces my younger self flung towards for a sense of comfort were now poison in their own way. I grew uneasy at not being what the collective was attracted to, failing to see anyone like me be desired.

A community with beauty standards rooted in whiteness and hypermasculinity forced those who didn’t yield to the status quo into the periphery. Exclusion seeped into the veins of a people who once relied on inclusivity, an alarming contradiction to witness firsthand. Though I found “perfect” in the men I’d chase to no avail, as their pedestal rose to new heights, all I could do was gaze longingly from below. Below was the place I found myself most often; I was sinking amidst the ranks of my queer peers. Looking into the mirror, my reflection spelled out the antithesis of everything the community deemed desirable.

Where The Cowboy began, my sense of self slipped away. Now it was me who was the mirage.

The cowboy, the idealized version of what the gay community wanted - what I wanted - needed to be interrogated.

Where had my desire taken me? What had this yearning for nothing in particular resulted in besides a bruised ego and a mirror’s reflection I winced at? Had any of it been productive, or had I been too late in recognizing that what was once a dream had crescendoed to a nightmare in my deepest slumbers?

I wade out to the sand where Paula’s frail body resides. I lay a piece of cold cloth against her face, brush off her sundress, and find myself clinging on to her as if we were one. Finally, after gathering the courage to stand back up again, we leave, making a point to not look back at the mirage that stung us so deeply.

Say our goodbyes, say our goodbyes. - Paula Cole ■