“ Oh, no. Oh, this is so embarrassing. This is so painfully cheesy. I can't believe they're actually going down this road. I think I'm just going to stick my head under my sofa pillows for about twenty minutes. ”
Jack and 35-Year-Old Eric are lolling drunkenly around Jack's room. 35-Year-Old Eric is wondering why anyone would want a girlfriend, of all things, because all she's going to do is "bitch and moan" and force you to watch "Notting Hill, over and over again." Oh, sweet Mary. I have never forced the boy in my life to watch a chick flick multiple times. I do sometimes make them watch football, however. While I feed them beer, and cupcakes. It's true. And yet, I am alone. Perplexing, no? Anyway. "I like Notting Hill," Jack offers. The boys laugh, and then they both lie back on the carpet and stare longingly up at the ceiling. "Dude?" 35-Year-Old Eric begins. "Yeah?" So many seductions in my own past have begun with those very words. "What was it like when you realized you were gay?" Oh, no. Oh, this is so embarrassing. This is so painfully cheesy. I can't believe they're actually going down this road. I think I'm just going to stick my head under my sofa pillows for about twenty minutes. Jack says that it wasn't something he just realized all of a sudden. "Well, what was it like?" 35-Year-Old Eric asks. Jack sighs, and says that so many people spend so much of their lives all "locked up inside themselves. And they never know that they have the key all along." I want to die. Why are they doing this to me? This scene is so silly! It's so goofy! It's so clichd! It's so 1983 ABC Afterschool Special! Can't Jack just live the normal life of a normal gay college student? How much more entertaining would that be? 35-Year-Old Eric looks thoughtful. We get it: he's gay! He's gay, and he's also gay! Jack continues, saying that he always knew, "on some level," that he was gay. "Just like you always knew you were straight," he adds. 35-Year-Old Eric makes a "not so much" face up at the ceiling. "It's about realizing it was all right [to be gay]," Jack says. "Even though I don't really think that it is," Kerr Smith ad libs. "You're amazing," 35-Year-Old Eric breathes, then rolls over and props himself up on his elbow and makes moon eyes down at Jack. Oh, man. Cue The Music Of Forbidden Gay Love. "You're the kind of guy I want to be," 35-Year-Old Eric says. Jack's eyes get really wide, and for half a second I think they're actually going to kiss. See, I forgot that Kerr Smith doesn't think that teenagers need to see gay people macking. Straight people are okay, though. Don't ask him why. Jack peers up at 35-Year-Old Eric. 35-Year-Old Eric blinks and looks down at the carpet and then over at Jack again. Jack sits up abruptly and asks 35-Year-Old Eric if he wants to watch some more TV. Non-kissing-type TV. But 35-Year-Old Eric has work to do. Awkward. Awkward. Awkward. "Okay, I'll see you," Jack sings dismissively. 35-Year-Old Eric leaves. That scene was real bad.