Yes. I went through a period when I was really sick of The Real World. I bitched about the experience and the inconveniences it adds to your life. But, in the end, I can't say I'm not lucky. Life's been really good. I've been really fortunate.
After the show, I tried
out the acting thing. It just wasn't me. I'm not an actor, and I just
didn't fee! comfortable with it. It was not what I wanted. I just
didn't get into it. 1 did the gig on Dawson's Creek to get the
experience, to meet real TV stars, and see the whole process not many
people get to see that. Going out to Los Angeles and going to movie
premieres made me feel blessed. I also signed with a modeling agency
in New York. That's also not a career I'd want, although it's
definitely been nice financially. I did a Nautica runway show and a
Gap.com shoot.
Really, the best thing has been doing the college speaking tours. I used to have this nightmarish fear of speaking in front of crowds, and now I've completely overcome it. I've gotten to travel far and wide. It's great. It does, of course, bring up some issues. One night I was speaking at Johns Hopkins, and this kid asked me, "How do you feel now that you've created the Danny type? I was like. "What does that mean? The Danny type?"
He said, "You know, there's the flaming type and there's the Danny type which is the straight type. I could feel
the heat blazing up my back. Because of the show, I'm a role model who's supposed to know what to say to
something like that. In the beginning,I'd stress out when 1 said the wrong thing, feeling like I let the gay public
down. I have to remind myself that I can't please every single person. I'd love to, but it's too much pressure.
Because I am recognized so often, we can't go to the grocery store together. If we go to movies, we buy tickets separately and sit apart. If we go to bars, we go to places where everyone's 50 and up. There's a lot of stress about what could happen. Sometimes, we worry about it too much. And then we pull back and check ourselves.
The good thing is that Paul's about to get out of the military, and we're starting over fresh. It's a whole new chapter of the book. We'll have a much easier life. We've made some major plans together, the main one being we're moving to the West Coast. Are we going to get married? Well, we have a weird thing about the use of the word "married." It's a word that's so old-school, and legally, for us, it's not possible. But we're bound to each other. We think about having a commitment ceremony. We want to pack up all our best friends and jet out to some remote place and have music and a really spiritual commitment ceremony.
Watching the show wore on Paul, understandably. And as the weeks went on, I got more and more annoyed by if. I got so sick of myself. It was like over and over again, I was saying, "Boo hoo, I'm in a relationship, but I feel weak." I was screaming at the television set, "Oh, get over it." Definitely, the show made for a stressful summer. But we got through it.
Our cast all gets along in a different way now. In the last book, I said some ridiculously awful things about Jamie. After the show aired, we started talking and I started to know him more. Now he's one of my favorite roommates. I think I feel like we're on the same level now. I did not expect that. Paul and I have been back to New Orleans to visit Kelley and Peter. And I love seeing Melissa. She cracks me up. Matt and David, I talk to probably the least.
In the fall, I'm going back to school for sports medicine therapy and massage therapy. I'm pretty psyched. It's something I thought about before the show started and now I'm going to continue. My
goal is to have my own studio. And I'll keep up my Web site,
countryto-concrete.com. Initially, It was a personal Web site, but now it's a gay community site. There
are all these gay kids from 14 and up talking to each other about being in the closet. Older kids help them out. Oh, and I have guys meeting and hooking up on there. It's pretty funny.
The
Real World has been awesome with my family. My parents really got
to know me through the show. I think they realize they missed out on a
lot. I think they want to make up for what's been lost. We talk so
much more now. I talk to them on a real adult level, not a half-ass
kind of way. The show changed everything for us. If you lie to your
parents about something major like being gay, then if means the big
picture is all a lie and everything you say has to fit into this big
lie. It's a huge relief to be beyond that.
