The object of my first affection was another transplant from the Toronto area to the small, northern Ontario mill town. He was an ace student, a gifted jazz trumpeter and, to top it off, a lifeguard. Although I had a fairly clear idea that I was gay, I’d never encountered a guy who made my heart race until he sat next to me in homeroom.

Looking back, what I loved about him was his self-confidence. He didn’t care if people thought he was a snob. And he wasn’t afraid to be himself at a time when all I could think about was trying not to be noticed, slinking through the school corridors, avoiding eye contact with the jocks, petrified of being labelled a fag in a town that prized hockey skills above all else.

While our friendship developed quite naturally, I was always wondering how I could change myself to make him like me more. I wanted to be more than friends, to hang out in his bedroom while he improvised to old jazz records, to spend the night driving back roads, talking about everything and nothing. But as much as I wanted to make a move, I worried about how he’d react and what he’d think of me.

And here’s the trouble with unrequited love. I spent so much time thinking about how to make myself more likeable to someone that I lost a sense of who I was and what kind of guy I wanted to be with – namely, someone who’d love me back. As I felt more and more hurt that he didn’t treat me as anything more than a chummy friend, our friendship dwindled and we drifted apart.

I don’t think of him a lot any more. But when I do, I wish I’d had the guts to be honest with him about myself and my feelings. Although I doubt I’d ever have won his heart, I might have preserved the friendship. Instead, I experience a pang whenever I hear the strains of a jazzy Someday My Prince Will Come, the last song I ever heard him play.