third-planet

The Rainbow Thread 10-03-2024

Interviews with those that lie outside the common red thread

Elise, a 25 year old lab technician, identifies as unbound.

As a kid, nobody has a thread, so I fit right in, and there were no real problems. In middle school, there were a few kids that started being able to see their thread. Now of course, at that point still, it didn't really mean much if you couldn't see it yet. It just meant that at some point in high school, it'd show up and fully manifest.

So imagine my anxiety as I'm in my senior year of high school, and I don't even have the faintest outline of a thread on my finger. My parents told me not to worry, that it would show up sometime soon, my doctor said I was just a late bloomer. As a senior in high school, I did the super healthy thing of pushing it all down and pretending that it had actually shown up.

Once I got into college, I realized that even if I could lie to other people, I really couldn't lie to myself. So, I did some research online, and found that there were other people like me. They called themselves unbound and I learned a lot from listening to their stories.

One of them said that they were unbound because they felt that they weren't meant to be tied to just one threadmate. Another felt that they were unbound because they felt that they weren't attracted to other people romantically, so they didn't have a threadmate. One even said that he was unbound until his late 30s because up until that point, he hadn't come to terms with the fact that he was gay.

Personally, I feel that I don't have a threadmate, and I don't need one. I'm not really attracted to people that way either.

I'm working in pataphysics right now because I want more people like me to be represented in research regarding the physical nature of the red thread. We've come a long way since the discrimination of the past, but there's still more work to be done, and I'd like to help in the way that I can.

Mary, Aarav, and Jordan, 36, 34, and 36 respectively, are all threadmates.

Mary: I can talk first.

Aarav: Yeah, go for it!

Jordan: No complaints from me.

Just like everyone else (or almost everyone else), my thread started showing up in early high school. In 9th grade I think it was, it was super faint, so I could just barely see it then. Imagine my surprise the next year when I took a closer look and I saw that it was split in two!

Now, at the time, everyone generally kept quiet about that sort of thing. You know, you don't ask why your uncle hasn't found his threadmate even though he's past 40, that sort of thing. So I kept quiet about it too. I just said that my threadmate was out west somewhere, and I ignored the one that was pointed north. Life went on, and after getting a degree and working for a bit, I ran into Aarav.

Well it was more that I ran into you, since I was the one looking for you.

Yeah yeah same difference. Do you want to tell this part of the story?

Sure.

So my background is similar to her's. When my thread manifested, I knew I couldn't tell my parents. I mean, even when I did tell them about one of them, they were a bit upset that it wasn't pointing directly at who they wanted my threadmate to be. So, I pretended only one of them existed, and after I graduated college, I decided that would be as good a time as ever to try and find my threadmate. Or one of them at least. I looked up a guide online on thread triangulation, did some math, and booked a cheap flight. Long story short, I ended up meeting Mary at a cafe, and we talked for a while.

Of course, at the time, I was unemployed, and I still wasn't quite ready to move halfway across the country. So it was, (to Mary) what, 2 years of long distance before we moved in together?

Closer to 2 and a half, I think.

And after that - well, Jordan, I think it's your turn to talk.

You've got such a good narrator voice though, I think you can do it.

Aarav gives Jordan a bemused look.

This is your part.

(Laughing) Okay, okay, I can go ahead and pick it up from here.

My story is a bit different than theirs. My mom was always sick, and when I was in high school, my dad got into a car accident and couldn't walk properly afterwards. So, I had to pick up the slack. I got into a job straight out of high school, and I worked full time while taking classes at the local community college part time. I didn't really say anything about my thread (or how I had two of them) to my folks, and they didn't really bring it up with me either. Since I was working so much, I guess they didn't want to even talk about it, considering that I wouldn't have the time to go out and look for my threadmate.

So I worked for a while, and eventually, my mom passed, bless her soul. My dad, who loved her dearly, followed her a few months later. At that point, I... I didn't want to be alone. So, I decided it was about time to find my threadmates. At that point, they were pointing the same direction, so I took off on my journey, and that ended with me awkwardly standing in front of an apartment door.

The moment that door opened, I think all of us had a moment of understanding. The conversation we had afterwards was long, awkward, and complicated, but I'm glad that we had it. I don't think we'd be here like this otherwise.

I'm glad that you did come knocking on that door.

Me too.

(Laughing) Okay, sappy moment aside, it took about a year before we all moved in together. From there, it was rough at times, for sure. But we've worked through it all, and we're here now. I am quite happy with my husbands, and I'm sure they're quite happy with me as well. There's still a ways to go for legal recognition across the nation, but things have changed for the better too. I can at least introduce both of my husbands now to my coworkers.

You know, for one of your coworkers, I would have been perfectly fine if you hadn't introduced me. He's not exactly a pleasant guy.

(To Jordan) You get what I mean! Ignore him. We've fought for a long time to have this domesticity, and there's a way to go, but we're happy. End of story.

Jim, a 68 year old retired mechanical engineer, identifies as a gay man.

I'll start at the beginning. I was a pretty normal kid growing up. Not exactly top of the class, but I was smart enough to end up in the advanced math class. So, I fit in pretty easily, and I'm sure no one even thought I could be a homosexual. I thought the same until college.

Now, in high school, I had an inkling that I wasn't exactly like the other guys. When my thread started manifesting in freshman year, I figured I'd meet the gorgeous girl on the end of it after I graduated. As I continued through high school, I hoped that my threadmate would be a woman, that even if I had these thoughts, these urges, I'd still turn out normal at the end of the day. Of course, that wasn't the case.

I went off to college to study engineering, and I ended up in upstate New York. At that point, I couldn't lie to myself any longer. I went to a few bars here and there, spent a night or two with a man, and I met others who were like me. Of course, it was difficult for me to live with the idea that this was who I was - a gay man. So, after I graduated and the weight of the world started pushing down harder on me, I caved.

I met my wife at a social hour event that my company was hosting. It was a mixer of sorts, getting all sorts of folks across the industry together and chatting. I won't go too much into detail, but we eventually started dating. Both of us knew that we weren't threadmates - it took about 2 decades of us being married before I could work up the courage to ask her why she had married me. That's her story though, so I won't say anything here.

Despite not being threadmates, our marriage was happy. We were content with each other, not in any romantic sense, but rather a domestic sense. I was happy to have someone to come home to, someone that I could introduce to my parents, and well, I suppose she was happy to have a husband that respected her as a woman. Eventually, we adopted kids, and told everyone that it was really an act of charity, not an act of necessity. And we raised them, and lived our stereotypically perfect lives.

Every morning when I woke up, I would see my red thread, and I would be afraid. What if my threadmate came knocking on the door one day, that I would have to tell him I was married, that I couldn't be with him like that, that everything that I cobbled together would fall apart?

By the time I turned 50, I felt a bittersweet relief. I figured he wasn't going to find me, that maybe he was out there living a lie just like I was. I almost wanted him to come to me though, as that would be my excuse to run away to a new, happier life with him.

Around 5 years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would go looking for my threadmate after I retired. It was more to tie up any loose ends before I ran out of time. So, last year, about a month after I retired, I sat my wife down and I just told her everything. She had to have expected it, because she didn't even flinch when I told her that I was gay, and that I wanted to find my threadmate now. So, with her permission, I set out on my journey.

Now, I understand that there's all sorts of tools out there that'll help with finding your threadmate, stuff that'll get you their coordinates within a few feet if you take enough measurements. I wanted to do this the old fashioned way, so I got on a plane, and started my odyssey. I took a trains, buses, even a ferry at one point, but the last leg of my journey was on foot through a small town.

Imagine my surprise when I find that my thread is leading straight into a cemetary. I tell myself, he just works there, or, he just happens to be attending a funeral, but I know those are just desperate excuses. I followed my thread to see it leading 6 feet into the ground.

(Tearing up) At that moment, something inside me broke, and everything just came pouring out. I fell to my knees and just started crying. My threadmate, the one man I could have happily spent decades with, and I learn his name through his tombstone.

Even if I can't talk with him directly right now, I still want to know what kind of man my threadmate was. So, I'll be reaching out to his family soon, and hopefully I'll get some closure.

To all of the younger ones reading this, I don't want you to end up with regrets like me. Live your lives out and proud, and I assure you, you will find people who care, people who love you for who you are, hell, if you think you've got nobody, you've got me.

Can I say one last thing for this interview, if not just for the record?

I love you, Eric. I will see you someday.