"Isn't she a mess though?" The other one broke in at this point, just as the situation was getting a little out of hand. "If I've told her once, I've told her a hundred times that she's a man. I'm a man. We're all men but just because we happen to like these butch guys we put on a little mascara and do our hair this way so they'll know we're available." The whole interview then went off into a rambling discussion about clothes that didn't seem to get anywhere. The two of them finally left, arm in arm, still arguing.

At the Athletic Club one day while getting a rubdown the conversation somehow got off onto homosexuality. "You'd be surprised how many homosexuals there are," the masseur said. "Right here in this club there's bankers, ministers-I wouldn't dare tell you who, and every one of them married too. Got kids. Ask 'em such a question and they'd sock you one but after a couple of drinks they might admit they're a little bisexual once in a while. More or less for a laugh, of course.

"Hell! A bisexual is just a guy kidding himself that he's not queer. That way he figures he can forgive himself for getting married as a cover up. I've seen lots of 'em. They're all the same."

How to start "accepting the homosexual" if no one would admit he was one? That seemed to be the question. So far, the search had only resulted in adolescents who weren't homosexuals but were just "experimenting," according to the psychoanalyst, and some screwball types who weren't homosexual, so they said, in spite of looking more like women than a good many women do. As for the bisexuals, they were not about to admit that they were homosexual, so that ruled them out and the whole situation was getting pretty absurd until one day, by accident, the subject came up with an older and much admired friend.

After a moment or two of thoughtful silence the older man said, "I'm homosexual. I always have been. There seldom is any good reason for talking much about it, but so long as you have brought it up I will say that I certainly am not ashamed of being what I am. Why should I be?

"My way of looking at life is as natural to me as yours is to you. Acceptance is something I rarely think about. My business life has been fairly successful, as you know, and I find that I'm accepted on that basis almost everywhere. I appreciate your motives, but to be accepted into the kind of 'mamma, pappa and the kiddies life' that may to you mean acceptance, I don't want it. If you'll forgive my saying so, from my point of view I can't imagine anything duller.

"I have my own way of living and, so far as I can make out, it is about as rewarding as that of most people I see around town. You ask how many others like myself there may be. Who knows? One thing I can tell you, though, if other homosexuals are going to have what I have achieved they will have to pass through a crisis of identity.'

"What might that be, you ask? It means coming to terms with oneself, acknowledging what one really is. How does the individual know for sure? Well, if he's fighting it that is about as sure a sign as there is that he is one.

"When he gets over that hurdle by learning to accept himself he won't have to worry very much over being accepted by others.

"A lot of men (and women too) have to go through the battle alone. I'm thankful that I had a very wonderful lover who steadied me over the

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