Michael Mutlu, age 17, Bayside, Queens, NY,
March 13, 2002 Robin Bowman

Michael Mutlu, age 17 When I was twelve, I met a girl in my high school and she introduced me to crack cocaine. I got to doing $400 worth a day. This girl was dating, heavily dating, somebody who was supposedly involved with organized crime. And she was sleeping with him to get the money. My parents knew I was doing the drugs, but I would lie to them and I would say I stopped. But you know, parents aren’t stupid, so they tried to send me away to my home country, Northern Cyprus.... Eventually I got bored of everything, and one of my best friends who was there for me throughout this whole ordeal of me doing drugs, she accepted me, she actually offered to help me... and now, last Friday was one year that I was drug-free. I think I was about seven when I realized I was gay. I knew I liked boys, and knew about homosexuality, but when I really realized that I was gay was I saw, in a magazine, homosexuality at seven. I was worried, I was afraid I’d go to hell. I did hide it for a while. I was fourteen when I came out. I really liked this boy, and I had told him, and I didn’t want to hide it because I really liked him. I’ve had girls–not like girlfriends, but friends–who’d come to me and say, “Oh, I like this boy a lot, I like this one.” And I just wanted to do that, you know? I was thinking about getting married to a woman, and having a platonic relationship because I can’t really get along with men. I’ve found women to be more understanding, more substantive, and much easier to get along with. Men to me, they seem to be all the same. All their interests are in sex, and they’re philistines. I’m growing closer to eighteen and I want to be in an apartment. With the money I have saved I want to eventually buy my own car. You know, I want to do things myself and say, “Hey, I did this, and I came from this, and look where I am now. I did it all by myself.”