An interesting possibility

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Nabokov's Lolita, except by reputation, but an exchange of e-mails I've had with someone over the past couple of days has illuminated the possibility of a significant parallel between Humbert Humbert and myself, beyond the superficial consideration of being attracted to 'minors'.
In the book, the reason Humbert gives for his attraction to 'nymphets', insofar as a reason is given at all, is the loss of his childhood sweetheart and first love in traumatic circumstances - she dies of typhus. While I was writing a reply to the latest e-mail from my correspondent yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me that I lost my first real - I almost said adult, but that would be overstating the case a little - love of my life in a way that was very upsetting for me, albeit in completely different circumstances, and the thought that I had was that the loss, and the way I handled it, or failed to handle it, has had substantial consequences for the way my life has developed since.
I have written about R before, both in this blog, and in a fictionalised way in 'Cuckoos' (Here). He was a younger boy who'd attended the same primary school as me, and went on to the same grammar school, which was where I got to know him. He was 13/14 when we became friends, whereas I was 16/17, just having started my 'A'-levels, and it didn't take me long to fall deeply in love with him, not only the first boy I fell in love with, but my first serious love of any kind. Oddly enough, though, I didn't think of him in a sexual way at all, not even at the level of fantasising about him, my feelings were purely (if that's not an oxymoron) romantic. I never told him how I felt about him, and certainly never propositioned him, but somehow, I suspect, he eventually got the idea, or was given the idea, that I had dishonourable intentions towards him, because, over the weekend of my 18th birthday, I lost him forever. The previous time I'd seen him, at school at the end of the previous week, everything had been as normal between us, thoroughly friendly and with him wishing me a happy birthday, but, by the Sunday evening, it had all changed. I was walking to the station, to catch the train to the neighbouring town where my best friend lived, to go out for my first legal visit to a pub. As I was about to cross the main street, someone approached on a bike, so I waited by the kerb for them to pass. As the rider got closer, I realised it was R. I smiled, and was just about to say 'hello', when he stared at me with a look which I can only describe as complete and utter hatred. I was so shocked, I literally took a step back. When I say 'I suspect' he'd decided I wanted something from him beyond friendship, I use the phrase advisedly, because he never spoke another word to me. I've only seen him once since I left school, in a takeaway when I was on a weekend visit to my home town about five years later, and, again, there was that look of total loathing towards me, an impression that he would quite happily have stuck a knife in me, if he'd had one to hand.
That Sunday evening was a complete nightmare. I still went to meet my friend, but I was absolutely devastated, and terrible company. Eventually, we gave up on the pub, and walked across the road to the seafront promenade, where we sat in one of the shelters, and I completely dissolved into floods of tears. When my friend finally managed to get me to tell him what the problem was, he was very shocked, because he'd known me for nearly seven years, but had no idea about my attraction to boys. He tried his best to help me, even so, but a lot of the time was spent with his trying to convince me that I was mistaken, and that I liked girls, really. I'm sure he had my best interests at heart, but I knew he was wrong - I wanted a boy, at that moment, one specific boy, and I knew, maybe even the first time I'd admitted it to myself, that I was gay.
The moment of clarity I had yesterday, writing a shorter version of that weekend in my e-mail, was that it seems to have been a pivotal moment in my life. Had I had the courage to fully accept and embrace what I'd admitted to myself, I could perhaps have gone on to be a gay adult, comfortable in my own skin. Sadly, I let doubt and fear win the day, tried to live my life in the light of others' expectations and, to an extent, my own wishful thinking, that I was, at some point, going to be 'normal', but which, instead, has led me to the emotional mess that I am now, married, closeted, horribly frustrated and, to finally draw the parallel with Lolita, with my boyloving side 'locked in', as though, like Humbert, I'm still searching for my lost, lamented first love.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B