My Own Kind of Person

by Tim Manley

Genres: Young Adult; YA Social Themes; YA LGBT & Pride; YA Romance

Synopsis

In this heartfelt and hilarious coming-of-age romance, Sean discovers his bisexuality and his true voice while chasing his dream as a stand-up comedian.

"What can I say about this brave, disarmingly funny, heart-punch of a book? Tim Manley writes with vulnerability, wit, and unblinking honesty, and his debut is a love letter to humor, authenticity, and hard-won self-discovery. I felt things I haven't felt since reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower at sixteen."—Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Sean O’Brien copes with anxiety by being the funny guy—at school, in his relationships, and onstage at local open mics. But when his stand-up act starts feeling like a performance of someone he’s not, everything changes. As Sean struggles with awkward girlfriend encounters and rising panic, he meets Elijah, a new guy with quiet confidence and an honesty Sean has never allowed himself. Suddenly, Sean’s life, his comedy, and his self-awareness come into sharper focus.

With wit and emotional depth, My Own Kind of Person explores the courage it takes to speak your truth—even when your voice shakes.

Release date: September 8, 2026

Publisher: Rocky Pond Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter 1
The night of my seventeenth birthday, I message Christy and tell her I’m ready to have sex.
She writes back, Hopping out the window
My thumbs hover over the screen. We’ve been dating this whole summer, which is about how long she’s been asking. I know I’m supposed to be excited, but I can’t help thinking I’ll do it wrong. Like when she puts me inside her, I’ll just start talking about our childhoods, or how deep the ocean is, or how much I like her. And she’ll prefer to save those conversations for another time because at that moment we’ll be having sex.
So I type, and stare at, and finally send: Woo!
I get down on the carpeted floor and start doing push--ups—-one, two, three, three and a half. I reach under my bed to the candle bin but all I have is Blueberry Muffin. I light it and hope Christy thinks breakfast is sexy. The yellow glow falls over my shelves of action figures and LEGO sets from elementary school.
Moving quickly, I carry my cat, a ginger named Ginny we call Cat Cat, into the bathroom for extra privacy. She curls up in the sink and I close the door. Mom is out doing food deliveries, so the house is empty. I put one condom in my pocket, one under my mattress, and one under a paint can in the back room. Just in case. I wish I had ten more. I know not to pre--condom, but I do think it would make things easier.
A quiet knock comes from the back door.
Christy and I met last year on the literary magazine, the unfortunately titled Long Island Lyfe. I drew comics, mostly about invisible friends and visible monsters, and she wrote poems, mostly about menstruation. On the late bus home we got to comparing whose Irish skin was more pale. She said hers was so pale that it was more like a light purple. I told her mine was so pale that I got sunburns at night. Her blue eyes lit up. “You get moonburns?” At the release party in the cafeteria, she walked up to me in her black dress and said, “I think you should ask me out.” I choked on my cookie and said, “You wanna date me?” She replied, “I’m not sure, but I know you should want to date me.”
I always doubt myself, so it was a relief to have someone tell me what to want.
She was a First--Name--Last--Name person then. Christy Ryan. A party kid who got suspended for flipping off a teacher and once came to school with a black eye. And maybe I was a First--Name--Last--Name person to her. Sean O’Brien. A floppy--haired art nerd who became not--cool--but--still--known--by--people after doing stand--up at the talent show. I did five minutes about getting beat up by girls, eating gummy bear vitamins, and, finally, what if seagulls could talk? I got a standing ovation, a video circulated, and I was voted Homecoming Court Jester. It was the best feeling in the world. Now I go to the open mic at the local comedy club every week. My dream is to be as good as my favorite stand--up comic, Joe Johnson.
On my first date with Christy, to the playground behind the elementary school at night, she said I wasn’t like the gross guys she’d known. We walked along the curb and sang “Down by the Bay,” went back to my house and played Yahtzee, and did that thing where you fold a paper into thirds and take turns drawing a creature’s head and middle and bottom. She left an unstamped letter in my mailbox the next day saying the night felt pure.
Now she stands on the cement steps in my tight--on--her green T--shirt. I drew on it in Sharpie a tree with its branches reaching up. She added the roots reaching down. Her wavy red hair leaves damp spots on her shoulders. She must’ve showered quickly.
“I was just passing by.” She opens the screen door and enters.
“On your nightly stroll?”
“I was strolling by.”
She walks past me and rests her butt against the kitchen countertop, her jeans stretching around her thighs. I’m already extremely turned on, which doesn’t bolster my confidence about surviving physical contact.
“Can I get you a glass of water?”
She smiles. “I’m okay.”
“A bowl of cereal?”
She laughs, but I’m not sure I was joking. “My parents went to bed early, so I made myself some grilled cheese.”
“I love grilled cheese.”
There’s a pause, and I can’t figure out if it’s an awkward pause, which makes it one. Christy motions for me to come closer. I look around the room and point at myself. Me? She nods, and I approach.
“How was the rest of your birthday?” She takes my hands and puts them on her sides.
“My mom made a triple--decker Funfetti cake, so.”
“So it was perfect.”
“Pretty perfect.”
I don’t mention that when Mom brought out the cake and said she loved me, I almost cried. It’s one thing to be a non--alpha male, but to literally cry about getting older? No thanks. I made the choice right then to Not Think About Sad Things Ever Again, to be a Regular Guy Who Doesn’t Worry About Stuff, to grow up and lose my virginity already. When Mom left to do deliveries, I messaged Christy.
I straighten out the bottom of her T--shirt. “I’m trying to figure out the cool thing to say right now but it’s very challenging.”
She kisses me.
“No words is smarter,” I say. “You are so smart.”
She laughs. My heart is racing.
“Come on, weirdo.” She holds my hand and walks me toward my bedroom. Technically I walk in front of her, but it feels like she’s leading the way.
“It’s hard not to use words though,” I say, “when they keep coming out of my mouth.”
She opens my bedroom door and steps in backwards, gently pulling me along. Even when she trips over her own foot, she recovers quickly and doesn’t make a joke. She leaves the lights off and puts on a playlist of lo--fi beats. She lightly kisses my neck, and I let out a little sound and my knees get wobbly. She pulls my shirt up over my head and takes off her shirt too. I’m scared she’ll think I’m scared, so the next time she kisses me I bite her lip. She squeezes my arm and pulls me onto the bed.
I tug off her pants and start to lower my head between her legs, but she puts her hands through my hair and pulls me up. Usually I go down on her for a while and by the time we get to me I only need a few seconds. It’s nice to take turns. You know your role: You get to make someone else feel good and then you get to let them make you feel good. There’s no top or bottom, and there’s no need to time yourself to finish with someone else. With sex--sex, it seems harder to know how I’m supposed to be. A pure--hearted nice guy who can also do you? I understood how to be a kid who was a boy, but now I’m old enough to be a grown--up who’s a man, and I’ve never seen a man I’d like to be.
She takes off my jeans and boxers in one motion and hands me a wrapped condom. The packaging is purple. She brought her own.
“Purple!” I announce, which doesn’t feel like a useful contribution.
Not wanting her to see me hesitate, I open it. My lungs turn to stone.
Christy was my first kiss, down behind the brush at Lake Ronkonkoma. She’d gotten off work at 7--Eleven and still had on her red polo. I told her I didn’t know how to be sexual and she said everyone does but you have to be brave enough to let it out. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m trying to believe it right now. Like being sexy is a superpower I never noticed and tonight I will embrace my fate. Maybe my voice will drop two octaves and I’ll finally grow some facial hair.
I pinch the condom’s latex tip so air can’t get in and I roll it on. Christy lies down and maneuvers me so I’m suspended above her about to do a push--up. She’s done this with other guys, so I follow her lead.
More than anything, I wish I could take a picture of her face: her open eyes and the light--red birthmark across her left cheek and down her neck. She said it’s called a firemark. It burns a path from her heart to her mouth.
Christy adjusts her legs. She’s waiting.
I guess we haven’t been dating as long as other people, but I can get attached real quick. In June a baseball guy called me queer and Christy kneed him in the junk. I was basically hers after that.
She puts her hands on my lower back and pulls me closer, this one part of me almost touching this one part of her. Does almost touching count as anything? Maybe this could be my college essay.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hi,” I say, but it comes out like a question. Like I’m an extraterrestrial learning human speech. What is “sex” and how come everyone takes videos of it? And how come in the videos everyone seems so angry?
“I like you.”
“Oh.” I wish I’d done more push--ups to prepare for tonight. My arms are already wiggling from the strain. “I like you too.”
“Y’know, I used to think you could never be seen as you really are,” she says. “You could be almost--yourself and be understood or you could be fully yourself and be incomprehensible. I feel like this summer with you showed me that’s not true.”
I can barely hold myself up. “It’s not?”
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m rambling.”
She hasn’t pulled me in yet. My brain shouts at me to be a man and do it, and I close my eyes and move my hips.
Chapter 2
“When I was a kid, a girl would tell a guy she liked him by being mean to him and beating him up.” I hold the microphone tight and plant my feet center stage. “And let’s just say all the girls loved me.”
A couple of people laugh but there’s only a couple of people here, so maybe it counts as the crowd going wild. Maybe I am bringing down the house at the open mic night at McGuinn’s, the comedy club behind the McDonald’s across the street from the airport.
“There was one girl I had a secret affair with. Secret because it was only when the teacher wasn’t looking that she’d kick me in the shins.” I look wistfully at the lights. “That girl struck fear into my heart and urine into my pants.”
A little more laughter.
“She would knock me down and kick at my special area until I was numb. Then she’d roar and go, ‘You had enough?!’ And I’d respond—-” I mime removing a cigarette from my pocket, lighting it, and taking a long drag. “ ‘Give me five minutes. I can go again.’ ”
Louder laughter.
“Thanks very much! My name is Sean O’Brien.”
I fumble to get the mic into the stand and I step down and walk to the back of the dark room.
An old lady turns in her chair. “Great job.”
“Thank you!”
The host, a retired firefighter named Bobby Bingo, takes the stage. He has thinning hair and wears a T--shirt with a bald eagle clutching a fire helmet. All his jokes are about the length of his hose.
“Give it up for Sean. For someone with such skinny arms, that kid has big balls.” This gets a lot of laughs. “Monthly showcase is next week. Top up--and--coming comics. Catch them here before they get big and have to be careful what they say.”
The house lights come up. The performers greet friends with handshake--claps and half--hugs. At the center table, my best friend Tony carefully removes his phone from the little tripod he used to film me. Beside him my other best friend Andi takes out a stick of gum and folds it into their mouth. You need to bring two paying guests to get onstage, and Tony and Andi dropped everything the second I asked.
I wasn’t planning on coming tonight at all, but when the rest of the night with Christy didn’t go as I dreamed it would, or reasonably hoped it would, or feared it possibly could, I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t stay in my bedroom. I couldn’t stay within a ten--mile radius. There was still time to make it to the open mic, so I begged Tony and Andi to attend as a not--yet--belated birthday present.
I’d rather not think about it, but suffice to say that instead of losing my virginity I had a minor, casual, extremely severe panic attack.
For some comics, getting onstage is a way to speak the truth and process what’s happening in their lives. They turn their tragedy into comedy in real time. I’m the opposite. I don’t want to process how spectacularly I just failed to have sex. I don’t want to ever tell anyone about it. And there is no feeling like making a room of strangers laugh. An hour ago I was a complete failure. Now I can do anything.
I take out my phone to send Christy a quick message, but my breath catches and my thumbs stop. Maybe I can’t do anything.
The old lady points at me as she passes. “You remind me of my son when he was a kid.”
“Aw. That’s—-”
A bald guy with giant arms walks so close that I have to step aside. The girl following him touches my arm and whispers, “You were hilarious.”
“Thanks,” I whisper back.
Feeling the buzz of being well--liked, I run over and sit next to Tony. Andi’s gone, probably outside avoiding people.
Tony holds up a finger to tell me to wait. He’s uploading the video to various safety--deposit boxes. He’s my de facto manager and is very serious about having at least three backups of everything in case of an emergency followed by an emergency. I’ve known Antonino Zitolo III for over ten years and he’s still a chubby Italian kid with standard--issue glasses and spiky brown hair, though the almost--mustache is new. He always wears a green shirt with a green jacket and green shoes. It’s not a fashion statement. He just really likes green.
He puts his phone away. “Your best set yet.”
The server drops the check—-three sodas and three orders of French fries—-and Tony puts a debit card down for all of it.
“Thank you, man,” I say.
“No doubt.”
He gets a monthly stipend from his parents because they desperately want him to have a social life, but this is still very kind. One time, his family brought me to Disney World and didn’t ask me to pay for a thing.
Bobby Bingo leans on the bar jiggling a glass of seltzer. The two comics next to him hold beer bottles. Looking at the three of them gives me the same fear of being too soft that made me text Christy I was ready to have sex. That didn’t work out but maybe I can be a Regular Guy Who Doesn’t Worry About Things as long as I’m wearing clothes.
“I’m gonna do it,” I say.
Tony’s voice deepens. “Is it time?”
“If I want to perform for more than ten people, I gotta get in that showcase. Guys who started at this open mic after me and get less laughs are already in the showcase, and the only reason I can see is that they hang out with Bobby Bingo.”
“You know how to hang out.”
“I hang out!”
“I believe in you, Sean O’Brien.”
“I’ll give you the signal if I need reinforcements.”
He salutes me.
My stomach churns as I walk to the bar.
Bobby Bingo takes out his phone. The other two comics are in their twenties and have perfectly shaped beards. Their jokes are usually about how there are so many things they can’t joke about.
“Yo,” one says, “I admire the swag.”
I’m wearing a white button--down, pink necktie, and jeans. “Thank you.”
“You look like a kid trying to dress up like a man,” the other says.
“Ha. That’s true.”
“Your jokes are a little like Joe Johnson’s,” the first says.
I’ve been a fan of Joe Johnson’s since I was twelve years old and I saw his first one--hour special, Awkward White Boy. It was recorded in his bedroom for an audience of stuffed animals. It gave the blueprint for self--effacing humor, for getting people to laugh with instead of at you. Whenever asked about his philosophy of comedy, Joe Johnson says his only goal is to make people laugh. Not think, not cry—-laugh. I’ve taken that as my guiding principle. Most inspiring of all, he’s from here, Long Island. Closer to the city, but still.
“I do like Joe Johnson.”
“Funny set though,” the first guy continues. “It was like gay without being gay, you know?”
I do not.
The other guy points his chin at the first. “Like how you’re straight without being straight?”
“Shut up.”
“And don’t make assumptions. This kid could be gay.”
They both look at me.
I shrug. “I’m straight but maybe I’ll be gay one day, if I work hard enough.”
That’s the kind of sentence I find funny, but I appear to be alone in that feeling.
“Christ,” the first guy says. “Is that what they’re teaching in school these days?”
The second finishes his beer. “If by some freak accident I have a kid, I’m homeschooling.”
Bobby Bingo puts his phone down and I jump over to him.
“Bobby! Or do you prefer Mr. Bingo?”
“Mr. O’Brien. The talk of the town.”
“Is that true?”
He takes a sip of his seltzer. “How many open mics have you done now?”
“Five.” I hold up five fingers for some reason. “Cool eagle shirt.”
“Thanks.”
“You think the fire hat belongs to the eagle, or do you think the eagle took it from a human firefighter?”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Maybe that eagle fights eagle fires.”
He nods.
I don’t think I know how to talk to people.
“Anyway,” I say, “if you have an opening at the next showcase, I have no life and I am available.”
“Yeah? The crowd does like you.”
“They do, right?”
He looks at my shoes, faded P.F. Flyers onto which I painted two halves of a red heart.
“You’re a funny kid.”
I smile. “Funny like hilarious or like strange?”
He makes a breathy sound similar to a laugh. “We don’t got any spots next week.”
Heat rises to my eyes, but I tell myself to be confident and direct. That’s what Tony says his dad tells him.
I stand taller. “Give me three minutes, Bobby. I’ll kill.”
“You can keep coming to the open mic.”
“I’m sure—-”
“Next time bring guests who laugh. One of your friends looks at his phone the whole time and the other scares people. Asses in seats are good, but we want ones that actually laugh.”
I believe I am about to cry. “Laughing asses!”
It’s time for me to go. I give the signal to Tony—-a thumb in my back pocket—-and my phone buzzes.
He’s texted: Say “argh, the old ball and chain won’t get off my back”
“Sorry,” I say, “my girlfriend . . .”
He texts again: Say “she wants to make out right now? It’s a weeknight!”
“I gotta go.”
Bobby Bingo points his seltzer at me. “Tell your girlfriend to come next time. And tell her to bring friends.”
Outside, the air is hot and sticky. I cross the parking lot pulling at my tie and unbuttoning my shirt. Tony runs past me. He pops the trunk of his bright green Jeep, unzips a duffel bag, and passes me a water bottle and a protein bar.
Tony and I lived next to each other when Mom and I were in our first real house. One day Mom wasn’t paying attention and pulled into Tony’s family’s driveway instead of ours, and we walked in and literally sat at the kitchen table before wondering why there was a giant crucifix on the wall. Tony has stayed my brother--from--another--mother through all the times Mom and I have moved. Sometimes Mom would drop me at Tony’s for a weekend or the whole summer, and I’d learn about Jesus and St. Anthony and how to pronounce the names of Italian cheeses.
I take a bite of the protein bar. “Bobby Bingo shot me down.”
“Bobby Bingo doesn’t matter.”
“He does if I want to get out of this garbage club.”
And this garbage island, really.
Andi Lucero, the Reigning Monarch of Apathy, coughs from their seat on the hood of their rusted brown Ford pickup.
Tony jumps. “Have you been there this whole time?”
“It’s only been like five seconds,” Andi says, monotone on point.
Andi’s fall look is the same as their summer, spring, and winter look: long dark hair shoved under the same I--don’t--care beanie, and the same black hoodie with the not--expensive brand name scraped off. I’ve never seen their bare arms or legs. They’re short, sometimes they call themselves tiny, and their black Doc Martens are enormous. They’re Ecuadorian and say their skin is “classic brown.” Once at a party, a drunk white guy asked Andi where they’re really from, and Andi said, “Your nightmares.”
They spit out their gum and jump down to the pavement. “Why do either of you care what those mouth--breathers think anyway?”
“What else is there to care about besides what other people think of you?” I say this like a joke, but truthfully I don’t have an answer.
Andi does a louder monotone. “Every time we come to McGalligan’s—-”
“McGuinn’s.”
“Whatever. It’s two hours of cis white guys jerking off on each other’s faces, and not in a fun way.”
Tony yelps. “Is there a fun way?”
“For somebody,” Andi says.
I’ve valued Andi’s judgment more than my own since we met last year in Studio Art. Their work was exacting, detailed, and serious. I wanted them to do a portrait of me, like it would help me see myself. At the Art Honors Society event in the fall, Andi stood in front of my piece, a messy oil pastel cartoon of every item in my house linked together like a puzzle, and said, “This is my favorite thing.” I was speechless about their piece, a watercolor series of objects rendered so close it was impossible to tell what they were. When Andi tried to throw it out at the end of the night, I asked to trade mine for it, and we became real friends.
“Point being,” Andi says, “I don’t know why you feel the need to prove yourself in this toxic place.”
“Where else am I supposed to go?” I’m surprised to find I’m almost choked up.
“To prove yourself?” Andi says. “Nowhere, man. You don’t have to. Where do you go to share your already--awesome self? Anywhere but here.”
I know hypothetically they’re right, but I don’t feel that they’re right, and either way I can’t think about it because it makes me want to cry. I cut off the heat coming to my eyes and pull my consciousness up and away. Sean O’Brien will be here having a hard time, but I will be at the edge of the Milky Way floating through a vast, indifferent universe.
“What is it, bro?” Tony says.
His face is blurry and insubstantial.
I have to pee. Before getting onstage I peed like ten times. I even stuffed toilet paper down the front of my underwear in case I accidentally peed more. It’s still there and it’s very uncomfortable.
“Thank you both for coming,” I say, I think loudly enough to hear. “Especially on such short notice. You two are the kindest, most—-”
“All right!” Andi growls.
“Keep it moving, bro,” Tony says.
“I just wish I knew . . .” I’m scared to finish the sentence because I’m not sure how it will end. I never know what’s inside my head unless I say it out loud, and there’s a lot I never say out loud. Whatever wants to come out isn’t funny, though. I can tell by how nervous I am. And I don’t want to seem too needy. So I say, “I just wish I knew how next week’s crowd could prepare themselves for the new material I’m gonna bring.”
Tony punches the air. “My boy!”
Andi rolls their eyes. “I’m going to bed.”
“But how will you sleep knowing I’m about to conquer the comedy world one Long Island suburb at a time?”
“Happy birthday!” Andi shouts as they get in their truck.
Tony drops his voice. “I should get to bed too. Research says teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep a night and I’ve been getting eight and a half at best.”
He gives me a sturdy pat on the back, and I head to my older--than--me blue Kia Rio.
Driving home I do not feel the need to cry. I do not feel inadequate. I do not feel like everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I feel nothing at all. When I stop at a red light and notice a feeling coming on, I let out a long shout. I roll down the windows and I shout as long as I can. When I drive onto my street and I’m not ready to see my bedroom, I drive past my house and I keep shouting. I drive until I can barely stay awake, until my voice hurts too much to continue shouting and I’m too tired to feel bad. Then I go home and lie on the couch. I close my eyes and when that isn’t enough, I pretend to close a second set of eyes, and a third set, and a fourth, and on and on until I’m buried deep inside where it’s quiet and I’m unseen. But a noise creeps into the bottom of my brain: It’s me telling myself, Nobody likes you, and I don’t know how to quiet it.
I try to distract myself with porn, but all the men are either being super dominant or being shamed for not being dominant, so I scroll until I find something with a woman alone. I feel rude watching her, though, so I click away. At times I’ve wondered if I’m gay, not because I’m not attracted to women but because I don’t think my attraction is the same as other straight guys’. But how do I know how other straight guys feel? I try scrolling through gay porn and the videos look as stressful as the straight ones. Everything happens fast and no one seems happy about it. I open one with a guy alone and I don’t feel rude watching him, but I do feel sad.
The noise in my head gets louder, pushing against the back of my eyes.
I put on Joe Johnson’s first special, recorded when he was my age. A line of stuffed animals face a wall of fingerpainted art. Joe steps in front of his bed with its colorful checkerboard blanket and lifts up a toy microphone. He delivers his first line.
I laugh, and as I keep watching, I laugh and laugh and laugh.
It doesn’t make everything better but it might make some things better. It doesn’t make me feel good but it does make me feel less bad.
When I’m finally able to fall asleep, it’s to the soothing sound of jokes.