Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 420 May 29, 2019

BY IAN-MICHAEL BERGERON
@ianmichaelinwonderland
THANK YOU
(Next)
I wrote my first column for Get Out!
Magazine in December 2015.
I was ecstatic: After three years in New
York City, I was finally going to have
something published in print. Justin Luke,
who was writing for them at the time, told
head honcho Mike Todd to check out my
online blogs, and Mike asked me to turn
them into this column.
Ever since, you’ve been here with me
through my New York experience: the
bad first dates, the awkward hookups,
the numerous run-ins with The Ex Fiancé.
You were here with me when I ran into
him at a Target in Queens, holding toilet
bowl cleaner and looking a hot mess. (The
very first column.) You were here when we
got back together—and broke up—and got
back together again—and broke up again...
and so on. You were here with me through
the final breakup, when I knew we would
never get back together again.
You were here through two years of dating
AJ, who admitted to never falling in love with
me when we broke up. You were here when
I started seeing James (and when I gave him
a concussion during sex on a weekend cabin
retreat). You were even here when I forgot
my pants at an underwear party and had to
walk 20-some blocks covered by my coat and
what little dignity I had left.
I’m just trying to say: Thank you for being
there. Thank you for reading my columns,
every week, for picking up Get Out!
Magazine or going to the website to see
what shenanigans I was up to. Getting to live
my Carrie Bradshaw fantasy for the last three
and a half years has been a dream come true.
Joan Didion used to write personal essays
for Vogue. (Much less sexual in nature than
my own, but still.) Eventually, she felt she
needed to move on to something else; she
continued writing movie reviews for Vogue,
PHOTO: STEVE BRENNAN
WEARING: DOLCE & GABBANA JACKET
while focusing more on her own work.
In “Sex and the City” (the TV show, that is)
Carrie’s column is picked up by a publisher
and turned into a book. For me, at least for
now, that isn’t the case: I’m following in Joan
Didion’s footsteps and moving on to new
projects.
I’ll still be writing for Get Out! Magazine,
with a new weekly column coming out in
June: But as for the personal essays on sex,
dating and the like… they are being retired.
It’s been an amazing run, not just as a writer
having his work published, but in a more
personal way. Sharing my stories has helped
me get through bad times: The night that
AJ and I broke up, after crying for an hour
or two, I opened my MacBook and started
typing. It was both a creative and emotional
release getting to share my stories with you
all.
Maybe, some day, I’ll come back to it.
Maybe, some day, I’ll have a story just too
good not to share. Until then, it’s on to a new
beginning.
Who knows what will happen: This is New
York. It’s been waiting for me.