Figure skater, coach, choreographer, writer, activist, publicist.

I loved Doug Mattis dearly for half his life before he died at age 56. He didn’t want me to know about the five years of cancer at the end. I am grateful to his mother, Jill Marberger, for doing the emotional labor of telling me and comforting me, even while grieving her son. I first laid eyes on him at the 1994 Gay Games, when he did an exhibition program with a blow-up doll parodying the perils of pair skating. At a time when almost all elite-level gay figure skaters were in the closet, this program was so overt, so witty, that it changed everything I thought was possible for the sport. I interviewed Doug for the Philadelphia Gay News (1995) and the Advocate (1996). He was the first U.S. skater to come out as gay on the record while still Olympic-eligible rather than professional.

He won his share of figure skating competitions, including a national title as 1985 U.S. junior men’s champion. He was well known for his comedy programs, such as the Imitation Number, in which he cleverly incorporated other skaters’ signature moves while explaining them in voiceover. One of my favorite programs of his, though, is a pro program from 1997, all Depeche Mode and clubwear and guyliner. I never get tired of watching his spins in both directions in this one, and the character he puts into his spread eagle, and that ending scratch spin.

The overwhelming thing about knowing Doug, the thing that made it impossible not to love him and every extra-intense thing about him, was that his creative gifts were so abundant that they always overflowed. He never stopped coming up with multimedia ideas that involved dancing, music, costumes, writing, acting, pranks, puns, casts and ensembles… and he was able to make them happen. I have no idea of all the things he achieved in his life, all the cities and people involved, all the scope of it.

I wonder if he is the most gifted person I have ever met at knowing and connecting people. I could ask him about anyone and he would tell me everything good about them, the things they did well, their funniest stories, their best selves. After he came to my wedding, he told me hilarious things he’d found out about my own guests that I’d never known. He delivered these stories like a wedding gift, reporting in with the things only he could give me.

When I met him, he wanted to work as hard on writing as he had worked on patch and freestyle. He asked me to look over a draft of a novel in the late 1990s. I gave him the deepest and most detailed feedback I was capable of giving. This was not entirely wise of me, since each chapter took a lot out of me. But once I showed him how thorough it could be, he craved it and couldn’t bear anything less. I guess after training with skating coaches such as Frank Carroll, Robin Cousins, and Irina Rodnina, he knew how it feels to get proper in-depth feedback and demand discipline of himself. I have never known anyone so willing to overhaul his own writing, no matter how much it took. That taught me something about how hard elite skaters train. He had no fear of hard work at all.

He taught me about the kind of person who wants to be seen more than anything. Who finds it unbearable not to be seen.

Part of it was the nature of being a performer. There’s a type of charismatic person who wants to be the one everyone’s looking at, so much that it physically hurts them to fight that craving, and I feel sympathy pangs just watching them fight it. It’s brave of anyone to put their essential self into the world to be judged on whether or not they deserve that attention. It was a privilege to watch what Doug offered the world in exchange.

Another part of it was just love. He wanted to be seen so he could be loved. He was hungry for it. He saw others and loved them, and he wanted the same. I don’t know if other people experienced him as I did; it seemed like he knew thousands and thousands and thousands of people, each in a different way. When I looked at him, I always saw the beating heart, the yearnings, the constant inspirations that were almost too much to contain. He was open about wanting the world and wanting love. He was open about the sadness.

In 2016, I stayed with Doug when I went to Las Vegas for the launch of the first edition of the Snape book. I’m glad he insisted on a selfie for publication day.

For decades, even if I went years without seeing him, I knew when we met up again, he would warm me with his sunbeam gaze and I could fill him up with my admiration. Now he’s gone and I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with all the love for him that’s backing up in me with nowhere to go.

I am happy for every single way he ever found to express his gifts. I want everyone to know how beautiful my friend was. Look at him.