Coming Out to Play, page 9
My teammates always treated me like one of the guys, but for me it felt like all the relationships were fake—not just superficial, but based on one huge lie. The guys would talk about girls—who they’d hooked up with and who they wanted to hook up with—which was hardly surprising, given that they were all straight. I’d try to stay out of the conversations, but sometimes there was no avoiding it, like when one of my teammates would comment on the fact that I wasn’t dating anyone or hooking up and say, “Robbie is so picky.” The fact is that I am picky, but of course that wasn’t why I wasn’t hooking up with girls.
Every so often one of the older players would say, “Robbie, I’ve got a girl who wants to meet you.” That was always scary for me and I’d have to keep from panicking. Usually I’d just say, “I’m sorry, I’m dating someone.” Or sometimes I’d respond, “Okay, yeah, why don’t you introduce me to her.” And then I’d find a way to make sure it didn’t work out, although sometimes I’d wind up hanging out with the girl or even hook up with one, which happened five or six times over the years I was in Columbus. It wasn’t like I’d go looking for girls, but there were always girls around at games and they were aggressive. Sometimes I felt like I had to test myself and see if maybe I’d actually enjoy it, and sometimes I was just afraid to say no because I thought the people around me would start to wonder. Or I’d do it in an effort to demonstrate that I wasn’t gay, like that time at the Olympics.
One downside of doing really well on the soccer field was the press attention that went along with it. I was always nervous about the questions, because invariably I’d get a question about whether I had a girlfriend, like the time in 2008 when I was interviewed, along with my roommate Brad Evans and another teammate, Danny O’Rourke. (By then Tim had been traded to Colorado and Danny Szetela was playing for a team in Spain, so I’d moved to downtown Columbus to share an apartment with Brad.) It was a fashion story for C magazine. The three of us were featured on the cover and we were interviewed together. One of the questions was: “What about ladies?” Here’s how we responded:
BRAD: I’ve had a girlfriend for three and a half years now.
DANNY: I’ve had a girlfriend for about three years now. She just moved here and got a teaching job.
BRAD: But Robbie Rogers is a different story! He’s just 21!
DANNY: He’s the future!
ROBBIE: I am single . . .
BRAD: He is 21, going to the Olympics from Huntington Beach, California. It doesn’t get any better than that.
ROBBIE: But I need a girl who is willing to cook, do the laundry and just chill. We have a really nice couch. Oh, and she needs to enjoy sushi.
BRAD: Okay, it’s this mammoth couch from Z Gallerie. It’s huge! If you sit all the way back, your feet barely reach over it.
DANNY: We were all watching the Euro 2008 semifinal. It was me, these two and our teammate Stefani. I was all into the game and I looked back and all three of them were sleeping on each other!
ROBBIE: That’s why I kind of miss college. You know, because life is pretty awesome. You get to go out and meet a bunch of girls.
DANNY: Do you regret that part of leaving early?
ROBBIE: Yeah, for sure. Now I’m just so busy from work and too tired to even do anything.
I remember when I heard that question I thought, Ugh! Another time I’m going to have to cover this up. And I was afraid because I wasn’t sure I could come up with answers that were convincing. Reading my words all these years later, I get a weird feeling in my stomach. For one thing, I don’t think I was all that convincing, but also I feel sorry for my young self and I feel sorry for anyone who has to live like that now. There are a lot of people who have to lie and hide for their whole lives. And at the time I thought I was one of those people who would have to.
It was pretty early on in my time with the Crew when I was forced to recognize that it wasn’t normal that I couldn’t enjoy anything. Because 2008 was such an extraordinary year I should have been on a constant high, but I wasn’t, and the more success I had, the worse I felt. Everyone around me would be excited, and in the moment I was, too, but as soon as I was back in my room I’d feel numb or sad or depressed, and that left me feeling confused. I’d think, Why can’t I be happy? I mean, deep down I knew why, but I’d feel confused as to why I couldn’t get over this stuff. I’d ask myself, Am I going to have to deal with this my whole life? Will I always have to hide and lie? And the more success I had, the more I felt like, Oh, no, I definitely can’t come out because if I come out that will be the end of my career and I love soccer so much that I can’t quit now. It never crossed my mind that I could be gay and play soccer. Never. So the better I did, the more trapped I felt, like there was no way out, that this was how my life was always going to be. One thing I didn’t have any understanding of at the time was that by squashing my sexual feelings I crippled myself emotionally, so much so that I often couldn’t feel much of anything other than sad and depressed.
The worst was when we won the MLS Cup—the contrast between how I was supposed to feel and how I actually felt was unbearable. I thought that winning the championship would bring me happiness, and it didn’t—just like I thought that going to Heerenveen would make me happy, but it didn’t. Immediately after the game I was happy. But after saying goodbye to my family I went out with a bunch of the guys to Manhattan Beach to grab a beer. It was weird because we’d just won the championship, which was amazing, and I could see how excited my teammates were, but I thought, Why am I not happy like they are? I couldn’t experience what they were experiencing. It was as if I were living behind a thick glass wall and could see what they were feeling, but I couldn’t feel it. For me it was like watching a movie without sound, which made me feel so alone and left me wondering, If this doesn’t make me happy, what will? I’ve come to understand since then that keeping such a tight lid on myself because of my sexuality made it impossible to feel the whole range of emotions that people normally feel, and that’s really sad.
I’d actually forgotten that I’d told anyone how unhappy I was, but I talked to Alicia recently and she told me that she remembers a phone call from a few days after the championship. Here’s what she recalls: “Robbie had this desperate voice that I’d heard when he was in Heerenveen. He said, ‘I’m just really depressed. I should be so happy because I just won the MLS Cup. But I’m not leaving the house, I’m not exercising, and I’m eating a lot. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ He was just so tortured and in so much pain and as low as you could be. I was very worried.”
Of course, I couldn’t tell Alicia what was really going on and I’m not even sure I was fully aware of just how deeply affected I was by living the big lie. Part of the problem, just as it had been in Heerenveen, was that as much as I wanted to connect with people, it was tough. I’d wanted to be close to my friends and teammates, just like I wanted to be close with my family, but since I was hiding something so fundamental about myself and trying to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, I wound up feeling isolated whether I was around people or not.
As alone as I’d felt during that time, it wasn’t like I didn’t know what was going on out in the world, and that there were lots of gay people who lived their lives openly. Even in Columbus, Ohio, there was an annual gay pride festival, and in 2010 there was a parade that went right down the street where I was living with my teammates Steve Lenhart and Cornell Thomas, who did the videography for the Crew. (By this time Brad Evans had been traded and I’d moved yet again, this time across town to the Short North neighborhood.) There was a giant group of gay men and women who went by our apartment, so we opened the window and watched as all these people in drag and wild costumes went by. It was an incredible spectacle and Cornell and I were laughing and having a good time and commenting on what we were seeing. It was one of those very rare occasions, maybe even the first time, when I let myself enjoy the moment instead of feeling like I had to pretend to be indifferent to what I was seeing because I was afraid someone might think I was gay. Still, I was aware that Steve was silent while we were watching, and then he said in a tone of voice that was full of disgust, “I can’t watch this anymore,” and he walked away from the window.
I guess I wasn’t surprised by Steve’s reaction because he’s a really strong Christian and holds very conservative views about homosexuality and gay people. But I still thought it was a bit childish, because he was acting like, “I can’t handle this.” I remember thinking two things in response to Steve’s disgust. First, I thought, Even if you’re homophobic, relax. It’s not like watching a bunch of gay people having a good time is going to bring down the wrath of God. But it also made me feel like if Steve knew I was gay he would probably be disappointed in me. (Since my coming out, Steve has been one of my biggest supporters. I guess we both had a lot to learn and fortunately our friendship has not only survived, but thrived.)
As I thought about Steve’s reaction it wound up really upsetting me, so much so that I talked to my mom about it. I’m not sure whether I was subconsciously testing Mom to see what her reaction would be, but I look back now and wonder why I took that risk and also wonder what kind of response I was hoping for. Or maybe I just couldn’t contain myself and blurted it out during one of our many phone conversations. Here’s what my mom remembers:
Robbie said something about Steven and I asked, “Have you seen him or spoken with him?” I of course knew they were roommates and had become good friends and was asking what I thought was an innocent question. In response Robbie said something like, “I don’t like the fact that he’s so homophobic” and he went on to tell me about what Steven said when they watched the gay pride parade go by their apartment.
Now, I knew that Steven was a very good man and had a strong spiritual core. I said, “Robbie, I’m aware of a groupthink phenomenon that goes on, where one person may say something that they expect the other person to hear and agree with without necessarily believing any of it themselves.” I think it’s what was behind what I said about Elton John when Robbie and I were in the car many years ago and I thoughtlessly remarked that Elton John was gay and Robbie recalls that there was disapproval in my voice. Based on my own personal experience with this sort of thinking I said, “Robbie, be careful what you do with that. Steven has a religious orientation where he may express things in a negative or canned way, and I believe Steven would surprise you if he was dealing with a gay man, person to person.”
I think back now and wonder whether Robbie was testing me, looking for me to say, “That’s horrible! Why do you think he’s homophobic?” And yet, given our relationship at the time I never felt that Robbie was looking for an opportunity to discuss it.
Thinking back, I can see that talking to my mom about Steve was just one slight crack in the armor that I’d built up around myself to keep my secret and to keep myself from feeling my normal sexual feelings. But it wasn’t the only crack. It seems silly now to talk about this because I was so terrified back then that anyone would find out what I was doing, but while I was in Columbus I watched two movies with gay themes that were very much in the news: Brokeback Mountain, which was about two gay men in Wyoming who carried on a secret, but ultimately impossible, relationship; and Tom Ford’s A Single Man, which is my absolute favorite movie on so many levels, is about a gay man who finally finds love, only to lose it and his life.
Watching A Single Man alone in my apartment made me so sad, because it made me wonder if my only options were to have a fake relationship with a woman or to spend the rest of my life all alone. I thought, Will I ever be able to love someone the way the main character in that film loved another man? Could I ever have a loving relationship like that? As sad as I felt, it also left me with the slightest bit of hope that maybe one day I’d meet someone somewhere that I could love and who could love me in return. But as crazy as it may sound, I still wasn’t done trying to change—to “go straight.”
Toward the end of my time in Columbus, I made one last attempt at having a relationship with a woman. Her name was Katie. She lived in California and traveled a lot for work—she was a model—so we didn’t get to see each other often, which in a lot of ways made it easier because there was less pressure on me than there would have been if we saw each other every day.
Katie was so beautiful and we were so similar in terms of our personalities that I thought if anyone could change me it was Katie. (At this point you might be wondering how I could possibly have still been thinking that a girl could change me, but you’d be surprised at what a state of denial I was in, how stubbornly ignorant I was about these things, and how desperately I wanted to change—and don’t forget that I was still pretty young.)
When I was back in California to visit my family, Katie and I would go out to eat and talk. When I was in Columbus and we were apart, we’d text. One time she came to a game when we were playing against the LA Galaxy and met my mom in the stands. (I can see why my mom might have thought my relationship with Katie was evidence that I wasn’t gay, but that wasn’t why I was trying to have a relationship with Katie—it was about my wish to be straight, not an attempt to mislead anyone, at least not consciously.)
Over time I was forced to realize that there was only one problem in my relationship with Katie—and that was me. As much as I loved Katie, I just didn’t have any sexual feelings for her. I loved her as a person, I admired her, I could see that she was objectively beautiful, but there wasn’t even the slightest spark of sexual energy, at least not for me. And the truth is, beyond maybe making out once, we never had sex. And I’m glad we didn’t, because by then I was old enough to realize that I would have been using Katie, and that would have been wrong. I remember thinking about what it would have been like for Katie if I’d been able to pretend I was sexually attracted to her and started an intimate relationship with her. That would have been so unfair to her because I thought she deserved to be in a relationship with someone who could love her in the ways she deserved. As a gay man—which my failed relationship with Katie had finally forced me to finally accept I was—the best I could do was pretend, and what kind of life would that have been for Katie? Or me?
After Katie I never tried dating another woman and never hooked up with a woman again. I knew that if Katie couldn’t change me, then no woman could. In a way that realization was liberating because I could finally give up trying. But it was also crushing because I began to realize that sooner or later I was going to have to make a choice—my life or soccer.
CHAPTER 9
THE BIG LEAGUES
I couldn’t not accept the offer from Leeds United. I’d always wanted to play in the UK, ever since I’d first fallen in love with Arsenal as a child. And given the half-life of a professional athlete—especially one with a balky knee—I figured this was my last chance to realize my lifelong dream. And, not incidentally, it was also an opportunity to redeem myself after my disappointing experience in Heerenveen. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of what went into my calculations—mostly subconsciously—was my wish to go someplace where no one knew me and where I’d be far from my family. This was obviously becoming a pattern for me, but I couldn’t yet see it and if you’d asked me point-blank at the time if that’s what I was doing, I would have in all honesty denied it.
Here’s what was behind my thinking: By going someplace where no one knew me, I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why I never had a girlfriend. With my family, it was impossible to start with a clean slate, but if I lived in England, it would be easier to keep my secret. We’d only speak occasionally, so they wouldn’t know my daily life. And when we spoke it would be limited to Skype calls, which is a lot different from sitting across the kitchen table from my mother. On an occasional Skype call it’s hard to really experience a person’s full range of emotions, and generally I found it easier to keep those conversations to basic things. If I were facing my mother in person instead of on my computer screen she’d really be able to read my emotions and would want to know more details about what was going on in my life.
For example, when I was home for Christmas, while I was deciding between Portland and Leeds, I was having a conversation with Alicia and she asked me if I’d ever been in love. Face-to-face I felt I had to answer honestly and said that I hadn’t been. In response she said, “You deserve love.” I managed to switch topics because I didn’t want to talk about why I’d never been in love, but then Alicia was telling me about one of her patients who was a lesbian and wanted to marry her partner, and she started telling me how she didn’t believe in gay marriage and wasn’t sure whether being gay was something you were born with or was learned behavior.
I knew Alicia loved me, but that conversation made me want to run away. And as much as I loved Alicia and the rest of my family, I thought it would be easier if I lived far from them. That may sound counterintuitive given how important my family is to me, but I was just trying to preserve a relationship with them when I was still thinking that if I came out to them, they’d put even more distance between us than the fifty-three hundred miles from Leeds to L.A.
Playing for Leeds wasn’t my ultimate dream. Although they had a storied history and were once one of the top teams in the world, by the time they recruited me they were playing in the Championship League, which is one tier below Europe’s top league, the Premier League. My hope was that if I went to Leeds and did well I could move to an even bigger club. I wasn’t fooling myself that it would be easy, but I was never afraid of working hard and was determined to prove I could do it. Of course I hadn’t forgotten my time in Heerenveen, but whenever even the slightest doubt crept in I told myself that I was a lot older, had traveled a lot, and had lived on my own in Columbus. I knew I wouldn’t get homesick this time, which I didn’t. And as far as what it would be like for a closeted gay man to step into the hyper-masculine world of UK soccer, well, I chose not to think about that and focused instead on the positive, and on my first visit to Leeds I wasn’t disappointed.
