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Small-town Mississippi boy TYLER WILLIAMS moves to the big city and tells his story, his way
Growing up in Mississippi…geez! Where do I begin?! As a child, I can remember playing Barbie with my sister Terrica. I had more fun than she did! We would set them up: Skipper in the camper, Barbie in her pink corvette, Ken…probably shirtless with some other guy if it was up to me!
As I got older, I always knew I was a little different than the other baseball-playing, bull-riding, girl-chasing “Mississippi boys,” although I was right along with them. (Minus the bull-riding!)
At around 15, I actually (believe it or not) came into contact with another gay guy in Meridian, Mississippi! WOW! This was, like, unheard of as far as I was concerned! Both of our parents had no idea that we were gay, so we would tell them that we were staying the night at each other’s house, but would really take my car and sneak out to the only gay bar in our area, Crossroads. (I know—how Britney!)
If you’ve seen the documentary on Logo, small town gay bar, you may have caught a glimpse of the very place I’m referring to. And yes, being every bit of 15 years old at the time, they would still let us in! We actually became very good friends with everybody (all 10 people) at the bar! You know they all sat around wondering when the mere “infant twinks” were going to roll up blasting music with their designer duds and hairsprayed-to-the-point-of-unmoving hair! We must have been quite a sight! Whew!
After I started going out, meeting more people and becoming more comfortable with myself as a “gay guy,” I finally came to terms with everything and decided maaaaaaaaaaybe, just maybe, I would tell one of my really close friends, Valerie. You see, she worked with my friend that I had been going to the gay bar with every weekend, and God knows, he was, like, the mouth of the south!
So I called her and asked, “Valerie, where are you?” She responded, “At the Super Stop in Collinsville.” I told her I’d be right over. She got into the car and immediately started quizzing me about things that she heard, which were 100% true, although I cringed to have to be the one to verify the facts! After listening to her babble on for about 20 minutes, I finally turned to her and said, “Valerie, what if I told you I was gay?” I might as well of told her I was Satan himself!
Her response was like something out of a movie: “We have to go talk to the preacher, Tyler!” Had I been a girl—and a mean one at that—I would have happily slapped her silly! She made it seem like I was doing something wrong or that I was this terrible person, but as the night progressed, she started acting cooler and cooler with the whole idea, asking me “Who’s the real Tyler Williams?”
I felt a sigh of relief: I did it! I finally told someone! Someone that was actually a big part of my life! Someone I really cared about! And someone that I considered to be one of my best friends!
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Telling Valerie was nothing compared to Valerie telling her mother. Her mother went a little off the deep end, researching books about ways to make me “straight,” telling her family members and who knows who else! Days went by, then weeks, maybe a few months, then disaster struck again! One night at what you would call a “revival,” Val decided God told her that she needed to tell all of creation that “Tyler Williams was gay!"
{mosimage}Needless to say, on the first day of 10th grade, I was scared to death to even get out of my car. As I walked up to my “group,” you could cut the tension with a knife—I knew everyone was either disgusted or dying to quiz me! From that moment forward, I was the gay kid in school. And really, it wasn’t so bad.
I thought my world would come to an end, my friends would disown me, and as Alicia Silverstone says in Clueless, “My stock would plummet!” If anything, I gained friends from being gay in high school! Given my location and rural surroundings, this was unbelievable! High school went by with a breeze, despite the few speed bumps we all have here and there. I graduated in 2005 and moved to New Orleans the day after!
After the summer, I decided I wanted to give New York a shot! That dream was short-lived as well—coming from such a small town sent me into total shock upon arrival in Manhattan! After that, I decided that I’d shoot for Aveda hair school in Houston, Texas, but after a few months, I decided that wasn’t really what I wanted either. Valerie called my cell and said she was going to San Francisco to attend FIDM and as fast as I could hang up the phone, I was on the next flight to San Fran! I think I survived a total of three weeks when L.A. started calling my name. I had always wanted to live in L.A., and who knew it’d take me that long to land there?
I always dreamed of modeling or acting, as most do here in Hollywood, but my passion for real estate has overruled all of that! I enjoy going to work every day, meeting with different people and helping them make (or sell) one of the biggest purchases of their life!
So here I am, all grown-up, living in L.A., being a successful real estate agent and waking up every day with the man of my dreams, thinking, It doesn’t get any better than this!
Lao-Tzu once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.” I started a thousand miles away, but I’m proud for taking that first step...and every one after that.
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To get Tyler's issue—or any other back issue— order online here! And don't forget to check out tylerleewillimas.com!
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