Page 31 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

“What, were you, like, his first date ever or something?” Michael snorts.

Eli nods. “That’s what he told me.”

Michael lets out a low whistle. “That is S-A-D sad.”

It is sad, but not for the reasons Michael thinks it is. Eli has to figure it’s a feeling familiar to a lot of people. Realizing at a young age that they’re different, but not having community or support in a rural and incredibly homophobic part of the country. He thinks back to his formative years, lived in the comfort of knowing that it was always safe for him to come out, having grown up surrounded by supportive parents in a city that celebrated queerness.

Eli had every resource available to him since before he even realized he was trans. He grew up surrounded by queer elders, queer art, queer music and movies, queer books. And his parents fostered those feelings, never giving Eli the space to doubt who he truly was.

Peter might not have had any of that.

Just like countless other queer people like him from a similar area.

Then, the idea hits him. He could write an article, interview Peter about growing up queer in the South, the difficulties that queer people face coming of age in an area of the country with few resources, with no real opportunities to find community.

Eli can’t help but smile at the idea. “Actually—”

“One second, I’m not done,” Michael interjects. “For the dating concept . . . you’d pretend to date him, teach him how to be a better boyfriend. A ‘Build-a-Boyfriend Project’ of sorts . . .”

“Yeah . . .” Eli’s smile dies as quickly as it appeared.

“I like it.”

“What?”

“This idea, you should do it.”

“Michael, what if we wrote about—”

But Michael interrupts Eli again before he can get another word out. “Think about it. A long-form article, or maybe an essay or something. Or we could do smaller updates, spread them out. You spend a few weeks with him, teach him to be someone that people would want to date . . .” Michael puts his hand to his chin. “Yeah, yeah. This could be gold. I like it.”

“No, no, you don’t.” Eli resists the urge to pull at his hair. “I’m not going to pretend to date someone just to teach him a lesson. We could write something important, how many other people grow up like Peter? Isolated and inexperienced because of where they’re born. We could make an actual difference to a lot of people, help them see themselves for once.”

Michael seemingly ignores him, though it’s a coin toss on whether it’s purposeful or accidental. “This is what you want to do, though. Right? You want to be a staff writer.”

Eli can’t deny how scandalous an article like that could be. He’d certainly give it a read if he stumbled upon the headline somewhere online. But doing that to Peter? He couldn’t. Besides, he knows in his gut there’s something more interesting here. “No way, this isn’t journalism, it’s garbage.”

“Exactly!” Michael looks at Eli with a wild glee in his eyes. “This is what I’ve been trying to get you to write about, Eli. This is the kind of stuff our audience wants. They want messy, they want drama, they want you to spill the tea!” The words form so awkwardly coming from Michael.

“You’re not using that correctly,” Eli tells him.

“You know our connections, Eli. This could be at the top of the trending page like that!”

“No, absolutely not. I’m not putting myself through that.” That’s when Eli decides to leave, to cut the conversation short, and put an end to this entire discussion. There’s no way he’s suffering through weeks of teaching another guy how to date when he could be doing something better.

Like writing articles that no one is going to read, that are just going to sit in his Google Drive while he wastes away as a secretary at a job that he hates. Michael steps out of the way, and while Eli has often wished that his desk isn’t right in front of Michael’s office, he’s never wanted that to be true more than right now. Because Michael just follows him.

“Think about it, come on! The readers would eat it up.”

Eli wakes up his computer. Could he do it, though? Could he teach Peter how to date? No, right? What experience does he have? Just a seven-year relationship that crumbled right before his eyes. But Eli likes to think he knows how to date, the expectations, how to connect with someone.

No. Nope. Never, he tells himself.

He can’t do this, because how stupid of an idea is that? Unless. He could treat this as an entry point, getting his foot in the door. Maybe he could lie to Michael, pretend to write the dating article. All the while, he can interview Peter, he can learn about what it was like to grow up so isolated as a queer person. He can shine a spotlight on those experiences. And Michael will finally understand, he’ll see that the readers of Vent are so eager for those human stories that they once prided themselves on.

Sure, it’s a long shot to think one article will make a change. But given how high the barrier of entry is into the queer community when it comes to lack of experience, maybe it’ll open some eyes, start some conversations.

“Imagine the traffic to the site with something like that, and maybe . . . who knows, you could expand it. Tons of articles lead to full-blown books, or movies even!”