Chris Rountree

You hear stories about straight guys that are best friends with gay guys. This is one of those stories as Chris Rountree and I were best friends for many years. However, it is my belief that Chris was confused about the depth of his feelings about our relationship which caused many frustrating moments for me. 

I met him around 2007 in Dallas when On Display Men was getting started as a male model calendar website. Chris with his all-American good looks not only became the face of the project but was a huge contributor to its growth. I really built the website but Chris helped me understand the modeling industry. He led me to believe he had done a lot more professional modeling than he really had done. He was a personal trainer with modeling aspirations. As you can see he definitely had the handsome face with a body that wasn’t too muscular. We worked together on many shoots and developed the formula for each model’s calendar photo shoot. At one point, he wanted to do graphic design so I got him a big contract to design packaging for a department store. You can read the testimonial he wrote about me here.

The project made us great friends and we would hang out at my house or his apartment all the time. We traveled to both Manhattan and Vegas in 2008 as we worked with male models across the country. I always knew he loved me but the type of love was confusing for both of us. He started dating this girl who I met a few times. She was toxic for him and was verbally and mentally abusive to Chris. It was sad because he was such a happy loving person. At one point, he asked to move into my house for a few weeks because he was scared for his life based on comments by this girl and her father. Chris actually married that girl after I ended the ODM project and had to move out of Dallas. He was a Dallas police officer for the DFW Airport.

That person in his life was very religious and kept giving ultimatums to Chris that he couldn’t have a gay friend, me. He actually ended our friendship 4 times because of that which left us not talking for long periods of time. Each time he would call and beg me to bring him back into my life. I did it over and over because I loved our relationship and I always wanted to be there for him as a friend. One time he ended our friendship and found another older gay man that he started doing everything with. After that fourth time, I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. He asked me repeatedly what he could do to become friends again. I just casually said he would have to come over and strip so I would know he was serious this time. One day, that handsome officer showed up at my door in uniform. I let him in and he completely stripped out of his uniform which was great. We were friends again, of course. Yet again he ended our friendship again a week later for the final and fifth time because of pressure from his horrible girlfriend. I knew that was the last time and I remember crying in a ball on the floor for days. 

Chris emailed me one time many years later followed by a phone call. It was sweet like he always was with me. He freaked out like always and said we could never talked again. Remember, he is the one who contacted me. I know he loves the relationship we had. We created new business ideas for him and me. We had a great time doing nothing as well. I miss that friend.