Very first wave of Gay films to go mainstream on HBO

I moved out on my own into my first apartment when I was 18 in 2001.
18 and gay and having very very little exposure to "gay" film.
I got a cable package which back then was just HBO and Showtime. You had to pay extra for Cinemax.
There were no guide buttons and the TV guide channel was usually what I went by. I remember the first time I saw Queer as Folk and yadda yadda.
But that show would come on very late and I usually had to be up very early for work.

Anyhow, long story short there were only a couple movies that HBO would play that had gay themes.. and they'd usually play them multiple times per a week.

The first I remember seeing was a British film I can't remember the title of about a young man who worked at his schools newspaper who dated a closeted runner. It really threw my whole world upside down to see something like this in a movie. I come from a very conservative state, Indiana, and back then it just wasn't talked about outside of talk shows and the what not.
The next movie was a Greg Araki film called Nowhere, although the gay theme wasn't as much, it was still about these people living an alternative, accepting lifestyle with a bit of a syfy vibe that was very appealing to me.

But that fall.. around October of 2001 a movie called "Like It Is" was on my TV Guide channel and it said "Gay" on it. I stayed up late to watch it and because I was so young and all of this was so new.. I would stay up later and later to watch any showings of the film on any night that followed.

Head On was around the third or fourth film (I'd ever seen) on HBO that year.. and when I saw it on the guide channel I couldn't wait to have a new storyline with new characters. It was really exciting. Funny how back then all the movies that were gay themed were foreign.

Anyhow.. anytime I see Head On on cable or on Netflix it really takes me back to that time when I knew so little and was soaking up so much like a sponge about gay life. About people who led gay lives and didn't get sick and tried to be as happy as possible.

I absolutely loved this film back then. And was so grateful for HBO. Of course this film is not a happy one but it was an interesting depiction. I suppose I got my love for foreign movies through this process as well.

I don't know how people before cable would go about seeing Rated-R (R kind of stood in for me as meaning REALISTIC) LGBT films or shows. I'm sure it took a lot of research and a lot of time going to Blockbuster, etc. lol

Did anyone experience Head On the way I did? Through HBO and when they were just coming out?