The QLP Questionnaire: Joseph Lezza
"There was a time when I thought I needed someone just like me to achieve the kind of understanding I idealized. ... All I learned from these pursuits was that I had no idea what I was looking for."
Did you struggle to find love? Or maybe you had a difficult time making it work in a same-sex relationship or outside the typical heteronormative parameters that dominate our culture and have lessons to share? Since most LGBTQ+ people don't have many role models to help us learn what it means to put ourselves together, we invite you to take “The Queer Love Project Questionnaire” and share your distinctive experiences so that others might learn from them. Email us at QueerLoveProjectSub@gmail.com to find out how you can participate.
I am a Pushcart and three-time Best of the Net-nominated writer on the East Coast. My debut memoir in essays, I'm Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss (Vine Leaves Press), was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award and the 2021 Prize Americana in Prose. It was also named a "Most Anticipated/Best Book" by BuzzFeed, them., StyleCaster, Lambda Literary and others. My work has been featured in Longreads, Variant Literature, West Trade Review, and Santa Fe Writers Project. More can be found at my website, JosephLezza.com, and you can follow me on all the socials @lezzdoothis.
What is your age, where in the world do you primarily live, where did you grow up?
I’m 30—I’m…in my thirties. I live and grew up primarily in the metro NJ/NYC area.
How do you define yourself on the LGBTQ+ spectrum?
Gay, in the sense that I’m attracted to men. Queer in the sense that, growing up, I would go to the Dollar Store in my Boy Scout uniform and spend my allowance on tubes of Bonne Bell Lip Smacker.
What is your relationship status?
Single. Helplessly so.
Do you have an “ideal” relationship status?
It’s changed so much over the years, informed by what I’ve witnessed in others’ relationships, what the pop culture has taught me, and what I’ve tried to discern is intrinsic to myself. What’s remained constant is this idea of a partnership, though. Married or otherwise. That has proven immune to even my deepest cynicisms.
What is the biggest misconception about being single or in a relationship?
That those who are single are somehow “incomplete.” I’ve learned it’s very possible to be open to (or even want) a relationship without needing it to shade in some part of us that remains uncolored.
As a person, in general, it’s essential that one endeavor to live comfortably in their own company. The idea of a whole and fulfilling life cannot be predicated on a partnership. I’ve known some incredible single people and some miserable partnered folx—and vice versa. Nowadays, I try to focus on myself and the relationships that bring me joy while remaining constantly open to the idea of someone entering my life.
How would you define love? Is it the thing you work at for a long period of time? Or is it the strong feeling you feel for someone right from the beginning for no reason?
I think love has myriad definitions and, really, can only be defined by the two people who share in it. I hold a special love for certain friends with whom I can be my most unvarnished self.
I hold a love for my family and how their love has helped shape me. I hold a love for some of the men I’ve come to know. Really, at the end of the day, I think, each and every time two people reach that point where love is forged, it is impossibly unique because it is a product of their own making.
When was your first intimate moment (holding hands, kiss, etc.)? Was it with someone you liked? Did you feel pressured into it?
My first kiss was actually with a girl. I was nine or so and I did, indeed, have a crush on her—whatever that means at that age. And, out of nowhere, she kissed me on the cheek, and it was like my whole face caught fire. It’s a feeling one never forgets.
My first real moment of intimacy with a boy was in high school. I met him during a summer job, we’d been sort of paired off involuntarily. But, it led to us forming a bond that, for me, quickly developed into deeper feelings I neither understood nor believed were reciprocated. Until, one day, we were on a break and he just sort of laid back and rested his leg on my knee. I couldn’t move or even look at him. Every one of my circuits was malfunctioning to the point where I only knew two things: (1) I liked it, and (2) I wanted to freeze time and never move from that spot.
When did you come out to family, friends and others for the first time?
To some cousins in high school. To most of my larger friend group in college. Somewhere in-between, my parents sort of found out. It was a bit of a scary time because the reaction was one of concern and confusion. But, luckily, not rejection. And, in time, we developed a new love and understanding for each other.
Did you have any LGBTQ+ role models as a child or teenager? What do you remember about images of same-sex or queer relationships or messages you gleaned?
Like most kids, I was molded by pop culture. However, growing up, I wasn’t hyper aware of any one person or figure who was openly gay and who wasn’t regarded, in some way, as fey. (At that age, I still saw it as a pejorative). Weirdly, I was attracted to the allies. People like Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur’s character on The Golden Girls), who was staunchly intellectual, individual, scarred but tender because of it, and a vociferous defender of the gay community. And, in that way she was a bit queer-coded herself.
As I became a teen and was exposed to out gay people and characters on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Queer as Folk, and even The Real World, I was—like most in my shoes—utterly fascinated by their brazenness and bravery. Even if they were subject to trope after trope.
Are there any pivotal pop culture moments that you credit for teaching about love and/or relationships?
Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill. That album showed me just how intensely someone can love and the emotions that could be unearthed in its undoing.
Do you have a Chosen Family?
I suppose you could say that. I have a smattering of friends that I’ve made through various jobs, chapters of life, and communities. These relationships are often unexpected and, because of that, all the more appreciated. Geographically, we’re spread out.
While I’d love nothing more than for us all to all be neighbors at The Apthorp and do our grocery shopping at Zabar’s, for the ones that matter—the real ones—the distance is trivial. We find ways of staying close and being in each other’s lives and these are people without whom my life would be incontrovertibly dimmer.
What is your relationship with your biological family (if any)?
I’m lucky to be very close with my family. Both near and far. That isn’t to say it’s some sort of Norman Rockwell painting. We have our differences. We get at each other’s throats. But, we’ve also been the beneficiaries of (or witnesses to) each others’ acts of pure care and selflessness, certainly enough to discern the kind of love that’s worth preserving.
What do you (did you) like about dating as a LGBTQ person? What do/did you dislike?
I like to think, on some level, folx in the queer community have had to learn to speak (or, at least, understand) the same language. There are still accents and dialects but, we all come to the conversation with some level of understanding that I think is often underappreciated. On the frustrating side of things, it can be tough searching for a connection among a much smaller subset of the population who are subject to the same human failings as anyone else. It can, at times, breed a sense of futility. But, it’s a big world. And, a small percentage of a planet is still hundreds of millions of people.
Has race, ethnicity or cultural differences been a factor in who you seek out?
No. There was a time, long past, when I thought I needed someone just like me to achieve the kind of understanding I idealized. Then, in the search for balance, that shifted to looking for my polar opposite. All I learned from these pursuits was that I had no idea what it was I was looking for.
Have you had any difficulties dating or finding/keeping a relationship?
Both. On any given day, either the “finding” or the “keeping” can be the hard part. I feel we’ve become a more insular society. America, particularly. I don’t see the sense of community that I’ve witnessed in other parts of the world. It often feels like that got lost somewhere in transition.
So, a lot of the “finding” has been digitized, which has sort of “game-ified” everything to the point where it’s not real. Where we’re just sifting through faces on our phones as if they might as well be avatars. On one hand, it’s allowed for volume and possibility, but the substance has been drained from it all. And—while I’m certainly not the first to say it—I certainly believe it’s lent people, human beings, a veneer of disposability. I don’t know. Something about it all just rings as gross. Anyway…:opens Tinder:
What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about relationships from your perspective?
Who you can count on when the chips are down. It’s never who you’d guess.
Have you experienced heartbreak?
Ask the good people at Toll House.
Do you have any moments of joy, happiness or pleasure that you can share about being in a same-sex or queer relationship?
Something about it has always felt forbidden. And, there is a trademark rush and joy that comes when two people become outlaws together.
Are there any things that standard heterosexual relationships have that you feel are out of reach or that you wish you had or could achieve?
Being affectionate in public without having to look over your shoulder first.
Have you ever been in a polyamorous relationship or would you like to be in a situation that doesn’t involve just two people?
I have not. I can barely hold a conversation with one person without getting exhausted.
Have you had a difficult time navigating the “roles” you should play in a relationship?
Nope. Worse comes to worst, I just check the Playbill. Looks like I’m going on as Witch #3 tonight.
What is your philosophy about relationships?
“Wish in one hand, and spit in t'other” —Helen of Troy, The Iliad, Book 6
Any good/bad advice you received from a friend or queer elder?
Honestly, figure out who you are. The rest will take care of itself.
Any advice you’d give to someone younger than you who thinks it’s impossible to find love?
Remember. Three people married Roseanne Barr. So…I like your odds.
BONUS:
We all need more inspiration. Recommend something that influenced or helped shape you significantly that you’d recommend to someone else.
Book: Maurice by E.M. Forster
TV Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Honorable Mention: The “Knotty Pine” scene from American Horror Story: Coven.
Movie: Cruel Intentions
Song: “Live for Loving You” by Gloria Estefan. First single I ever owned.
Play, Musical, Other Cultural artifact: The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane
Joseph Lezza’s debut memoir, I'm Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss, is available now.
So good to hear from one of my favorite memoirists.