When I was an undergraduate at a very conservative christian college, there was only one gay man brave enough to be publicly out. He gave talks about it and the rest of us endlessly discussed the legitimacy and validity of his sexual orientation, which, in retrospect, he was extremely gracious about. I think it only took a year or two of straight christian nonsense as a continually abrasive response to his simple existence on campus before he finally gave up and left for more accepting places and people, but I think about him a lot.
I used to catch him talking with his friends in front of the dorm all the time and I would stare a little too long and he would smile at me like he knew something I didn't, which he probably did. 20 years later I can tell you when you are out in "visibly gay" mode, you receive a lot of looks, not all of which are flattering, but some of which are undisguised longing and attraction, occasionally from ostensibly straight men out with their wives and children. I'm guessing he saw in the look what I wouldn't be ready to admit for over a decade: interest and longing.
I think about a time machine or a reset button that would let me go back and make some different choices all the time, because my choices for the last couple decades have been largely abysmal. But if I had to choose just one moment to go back to it would be those moments when the only openly gay man on campus smiled at me. I would whisper kindly in my own ear, "Put a smile on your face and go over and introduce yourself to the nice man who you are VERY much interested in knowing." I would then hopefully fade away like a smiling force ghost. Smiling in hopes of a future I could be prouder of, hopefully fading away because nobody loves a temporal paradox.
