We are equal opportunity, it's-all-good types here at The Boyfriend List,
and I'm glad to say that Brent Hartinger,
author of The Geography Club, The Last Chance Texaco,
and the just-released GC-sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak,
has sent in our first gay boyfriend list!
And it's SO romantic (the ending bit). I just love it.

--E

Brent Hartinger's Boyfriend List

ANDREW:  A fellow swimmer, a boyfriend only-from-afar.  Let's just say that between sophmore and junior year, he really filled out.  I wonder if he ever realized how cute he is.  Dollars to donuts, he was gay too, but I was too scared to ever find out.

TROY:  Was he my boyfriend or my college roommate?  Well, that part was never clear, was it?  An unmitigated disaster in the making, and yet more proof that a life in the closet cannot work.

MARK:  The first guy I ever asked out--who also happened to be a psychopath.  So why, you ask, did it take me two years to figure that out?  Two reasons:  low self-esteem and a guilt-ridden Catholic upbringing.  Catholics get dumped; they do not dump.  But I found the courage eventually.

JAY:  Another swimming hottie, this time from my masters team.  I thought he was the love of my life, and for about two weeks, he thought so too.  I spent the next six months asking him what was wrong.  Then he told me.  So this is what it felt like to have your heart destroyed.  For three months, I couldn't breathe.  (Confession:  I still dream about him.)

MICHAEL:  The unfortunate fellow who had to glue the pieces of me together after Jay.  But thirteen years later, he's way more than a boyfriend now.  When people tell me romantic comedies don't tell the truth, I just smile to myself and don't say anything, but the truth is, I now know for a fact they do.