ᴅɪʀᴇᴄᴛᴏʀʏ • • •

Carlisle Jameson de Vries was born on February 23rd, 1993 in Denver, Colorado. The youngest child of city councilman, Michael de Vries, and socialite, Rebecca Humphrey de Vries, he was a conversation starter long before he came into the world and in the spotlight from that moment forward. As they had with his older siblings, Roman and Lorraine, Carlisle's parents began to speculate about his future when he was just an infant, wondering if the smile he gave his mother when she dressed him in his Denver Broncos onesie meant that he would take an interest in football or if his attraction to the American flag meant that he would want to study politics. His other relatives — grandparents, aunts, uncles, distant cousins — followed suit, analyzing his every unintelligible utterance in microscopic detail and using various tactics to streamline his curiosity as he grew. Only his maternal grandmother, Margaret Humphrey, seemed to remember that Carlisle, in his babyhood, was not yet capable of understanding football or politics, and she did what she could to protect him from the weight of his family's expectations for the first few years. Because she was a respected member of the family, her effort to preserve his innocence was, for the most part, successful; thus, Carlisle remained blissfully ignorant of his inherited burden until he was enrolled at a private elementary school, where his parents expected him to succeed both academically and socially.

Gifted with a high capacity for learning, Carlisle excelled in his academics from an early age, but because he was not as gregarious as Roman or Lorraine, he had difficulty making friends unless his parents forced interaction between him and his peers, most often in the form of extravagant play dates and birthday parties. Michael and Rebecca also signed him up for a number of extracurricular activities, ranging from music lessons to swimming lessons, to encourage mingling and make him more well-rounded. Regardless, Carlisle failed to forge any lasting friendships throughout his early childhood. It wasn't until he was seven, when he surprised his parents by expressing an interest in joining Little League Baseball, that he began to come out of his shell, and while being part of a team helped him learn to socialize, it also fostered athletic competition between him and Roman, which — despite Carlisle's athletic ability — made him look inferior in comparison. Perceived as weak by his father, and gradually written off in favor of Roman, Carlisle began to feel like an outsider within his immediate family. Though he connected more with his mother and Lorraine, even they were subject to Michael's influence, making it impossible for Carlisle to fully escape his feelings of inadequacy, and that much more determined to change his family's opinions of him.

Because he was desperate for fatherly affection and approval, Carlisle played the role of dutiful son quite well despite being habitually rejected by him. Growing up, he maintained a perfect attendance record and grade point average, never missed a baseball game, and signed up for as many activities and volunteering opportunities on his own as he could handle — but, ironically, it was his docile nature that made him even more of a disappointment in Michael's eyes. It wasn't until Carlisle was elected class president in high school, sworn in after a near-unanimous vote in his favor, that he received even the smallest semblance of praise from his father, but because he spent most of his four-year term suppressing romantic feelings for his Vice President, he knew deep down that his newfound sense of belonging was temporary.

The Vice President was a boy — a highly intelligent boy with a contagious smile, and Carlisle loved him with the same intensity that some of his straight male friends loved their girlfriends. He fantasized about holding his hand in a darkened movie theater, about kissing him goodnight on a dimly lit porch or being invited in to drink peach schnapps from his parents' liquor cabinet, about falling asleep in his bed with their limbs intertwined. For Carlisle, it was never a question of whether or not he was gay; he knew he was gay, and he wasn't ashamed of it, but he was scared of what would happen if his father, a right-wing city council member who drove his family to church every Sunday, found out. Hoping that it would satisfy his parents and deter the rumor mill, Carlisle pretended to be smitten with his female best friend throughout his junior and senior years. They staged a break-up after graduation, citing the start of their college careers as the reason for their split, and before anyone could ask him for a more detailed explanation, he was moving into a dorm room at the University of Denver, ready for his first taste of independence — or something like it.

The transition from high school graduate to college undergraduate was a scary one, but Carlisle embraced the change and was quick to adapt, unexpectedly finding his niche in an expository writing class. His interest and investment in the course material, coupled with his professor's encouragement, quickly inspired him to declare a minor in English, which has since enabled him to cultivate his creativity. It has also provided him with a much-needed outlet for feelings he has repressed over the years, making it easier for him to cope with his family dysfunction in the present. Having become especially devoted to his work on the student newspaper, Carlisle hopes to pursue a career in professional writing after he graduates — but because he's majoring in Political Science at his father's behest, working toward a degree in something he hates, it goes without saying he'll have his work cut out for him in more ways than one. While Carlisle may feel more at home on his college campus than he ever felt under his father's roof, he has yet to really get out from under his thumb; until he can find the courage to stand up for himself, freedom will be out of his reach.