Uncharted Territory

It was late evening in the spring of my freshman year of college, and I was sitting in my apartment with my boyfriend, Jared. We had been talking about our day and enjoying a few minutes together before I had to get back to studying, and he suddenly started acting nervous and said that there was something really important we needed to talk about. Jared and I had been dating since we were in high school, and although I was only 19, we had been discussing marriage recently. I didn’t know what to expect, as I assumed we had covered most of the serious conversations in the previous few weeks as we had discussed marriage in more detail and spent time discussing details about an engagement. I tried not to look too concerned, but urged him to go on. Jared looked so nervous I thought he would throw up, but finally he blurted out “Sometimes I like to wear women’s clothing.” I stared at him, not sure whether this was a joke or whether this was serious, while he went on explaining.