Looking through my blog, I realise that I blog incessantly about the most trivial shit, and then gloss over the pertinent stuff, such as when I finally bit the bullet and started telling family and friends that I’m gay.
For any homosexual, this is potentially the most difficult and therefore significant part of their life. Even if it turns out not to be a difficult or negative experience, it’s still significant. I guess this is why, when searching through some gay blogs (or I should say the blogs of gay people), the coming out process is highlighted somewhat.
In my case, I also had to come out to the readers of my blog – and did so in The Hardest Button to Button, which I posted on the 8th of October, 2008 – 6 days before my 24th birthday. I believe this post was at most two days after actually coming out to those in my life.
So I figure I’ll be explicit here, and tell you the actual story. Maybe this will give someone the extra little push they need to start the journey – and I know that sounds so cliched or whatever, but trust me, be prepared for things to change.
On Coming Out
As far as I can tell, it all started at the Red Party sometime in September 08. This is an annual fundraising event that the charity I’m involved in runs, and is to raise money for those suffering from HIV/AIDS in Fiji. I was there with a small group of friends, but I wasn’t having the best night. Around this time, I was having a lot of emotional problems, and was seeing a psychologist. for a couple of years I had become increasingly unhappy at times, which I thought was normal at first. Then, sometime early in 2008, I noticed that on occasion, I would be really happy without any reason. So I recognised a pattern of mood disturbance that was congruent with cyclothymia, a pre-bipolar condition.
Anyway, part of this mood disturbance was that I would become incredibly paranoid, particularly within relationships. So this night at the Red Party, it was some imagined slight that had me spiralling down into a depressive episode. I effectively pushed my friends into leaving the party early – but I remained.
I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I decided I was going to wait until they’d left, and then I’d make my way to the one and only gay bar in Surfers Paradise. When I look back now, I laugh because it all seems to calculated. I left the party and went to the gay bar, almost certain that I’d run into some of the gay guys I knew of from medicine. When I got to the party, they were there. Actually, I knew there were three gay men in medicine, and was surprised to find five guys from class there.
That night I didn’t try to hide from them, and we ended up having some drunken conversations, and I asked them not to tell anyone I had been there, knowing for certain that they would. I didn’t care.
A couple of days later, I visited a friend who – unlike myself – suffered from pretty severe depressive illness. She asked how my night at the Red Party was, and I told her I stayed on after they all left. Then she asked me:
“Where did you go afterward?”
After a little hesitation, I replied “MPs. The Meeting Place.”
Forgetting that she was originally from Sydney, this name had no real impact on her.
“It’s a gay bar.”
Unflinching, she says “Okay. Did you kiss any cute boys?”
Ultimately, I know I told her because she seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t really give a shit one way or the other. I was using her to test the waters. The feeling was incredible, and meant so much more than when I came out to the other gay guys. We talked a little about my ‘Coming Out Plan’ – to tell my sister who had recently come home from overseas, and then ask her if she thought I should tell mum and dad. I knew my sister wouldn’t care, since she’d been a dancer and surrounded by gay men and seemed to cherish them, and that she most likely already knew. My friend kept herself out of it, saying it was a decision I had to make on my own. Then the conversation turned to men we thought were sexy, and ended the session by watching The Recruit so we could perv on the lovely Colin Farrell.
A couple of days later, I sat my sister down on the couch at my parents house and told her I had somthing to say, and that I hoped she would be cool with it.
“I’m gay.”
I remember how she literally screamed in delight, clapping her hands a couple of times and bouncing up and down on her seat.
“I know!” She said, “but thank you so much for telling me – finally!”
We talked, and again – I was on my own with the rest of the ‘Coming Out Plan’, as I suspected I would be. The next day, I bit the bullet.
It’s funny how I get butterflies in my stomach, even as I write this right now. My mum and I were watching TV, were the only two home, and that’s when I decided to suck it up and tell her. It felt like it was now or never, and I remember thinking ‘I have no idea why I suddenly feel the need to come out to everyone, but I seriously need to do this now before I back out, or pass out from the stress’. I turned to her, and – while trying to work up the nerve to talk – ended up just staring at her.
She noticed me staring and turned to me.
“What are you thinking?” She asked.
“Nothin’.”
Perceptively, she turned the volume on the TV down. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
I could only nod. The butterflies were going crazy, and I actually started to feel lightheaded.
‘Do it now!’ I thought.
“You know that I’m gay, right?” I blurted. Obviously, she looked stunned.
“Uh..no.”
“Oh. Well, now you do.”
Of course, she was fine with it. The only thing she wasn’t happy about was the way in which I told her. I didn’t care too much that she was upset about that. As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t understand how fucking hard a thing it is to do, so I just did it in the quickest possible way. Sure, I acknowledge that it wasn’t the gentlest way to tell a parent, but this is so not about them.
(I’ve just gone to get a beer, because this is taking forever and I’m settling into the story.)
I asked mum what she thought about me telling dad, and she agreed that I had to tell him, but that it would probably be hard. We’re talking about a man who used to bash gays when he was a kid. Of course, we understand it was just a stupid thing he did with his mates and not actually politically or morally motivated, but that fact didn’t make what I was about to do any easier.
That afternoon, when he came home from work, I asked dad if he wanted to go and get some beef jerky from the South African foods store. I decided it would be a good time to do it, just me and him in the car. We were driving and talking about nothing in particular. The conversation turned to my gym training program and how it was going. I’d slackened off and complained that my cardio fitness was shot after just a few weeks of inactivity, but that my muscle definition had remained. He’d commented that it was lucky, because the girls like muscle definition.
I took this as my opportunity.
“Yeah….I don’t really care about that. I don’t like girls.” He kept driving, not reacting outwardly to what I’d just said. I needed to make this crystal clear.
“Dad – I’m gay.”
At that very second, his phone rings. He answers it, and looks at me blankly. For the next ten minutes, the phone conversation continues, and the suspense kills me. In fact, he’s still talking on the phone when we pull into a parking space at the foodstore. He hangs up the phone, and we both get out and walk to the store. We buy our jerky and get back into the car. On the drive home, we talk about the jerky and the flavours and other random shit. All the while I’m thinking, ‘fuck me, did he not hear what I said? Am I going to have to do this again?‘
We get home, and dad goes up to his computer room, as usual. I hang back for a little, not really sure of what to do. Basically, I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen eating beef jerky.
“Come watch me play.” He yells down from the computer room.
I go into the room and still we talk about anything but what happened in the car.
“Dad,” I finally say, “I don’t wanna make a big deal out of all this, but I need to know what you think about what I said in the car.”
He tells me that it’s no big deal, and that’s he ‘known’ for years. He doesn’t care one way or the other who I’m attracted to. He jokes that he’ll no longer be able to call me fag or poof or make gay jokes. I tell him that nothing changes, so he better keep calling me poof and make gay jokes whenever the opportunity arises. To this day he has, and sometimes I set him up just to see if he takes the bait. He always does.
From that point on, I told all my friends, and my roommates, which was important. I live with two guys from uni, and I didn’t want it to get weird. Of course, everyone was fine with it. Not one single person reacted badly. The talk started around uni, which was great because as far as I was concerned, it was just more people I didn’t have to tell the story to.
I’m not one of those people that says ‘hi, I’m Adrian and I’m a fag.’ but I will tell anyone who asks if I have a girlfriend, or if I think a particular girl is attractive. It’s just a simple “I’m gay, actually.’ No big deal. I’ll even talk with friends about relationship issues wherever I am, regardless of who can hear. It’s not so much that I want the world to know I’m gay, it’s just that I’m so done hiding it. Hiding it….what a waste of fucking energy.
If you’ve read this far, good for you. As far as I’m concerned, this is the important part:
So you think homosexual thoughts pretty often, right? Wait until you come out. That subconscious part of you that pulls back on the gay thoughts so you can maintain your ’straight’ facade will be gone. He disappears, and in my limited experience, it becomes all but impossible to control it. I began to think constantly about being gay. I even joked to a gay administrator at the medical school that she should have warned me about coming out during exam period – I could not focus.
It’s months and months later, and the thoughts are as pervasive as ever. It just goes to show exactly how much I was suppressing myself without even knowing it. Life is so much easier now, I don’t have to waste my energy concealing and lying. I’m allowed to be myself, and again that’s a cliche – but think about it. You create this fictional character before you come out – it’s part you, part fabrication. When you’re finally honest with those around you – you get to be all you. And it’s such a refreshing change.
**************
So that’s my coming out story. As you can tell, while still difficult to do, it was nowhere near as bad as I had expected. Nowhere near as bad as some of the stories I’ve heard. I have a large family – 12 aunts and uncles, and roughly 25 or so cousins. They all know about me now, and not a single person has had a problem with it – to my face, at least. The fact that I don’t act effeminate most likely helps the process along, and the fact that I haven’t changed my demeanour drastically helps, too.
Whatever you take from this, let me tell you one thing: It was the best thing I’ve ever done. Of everything, it’s my proudest accomplishment, and I’ll tell you why…
When I was about 16 I can remember telling myself that I would never come out of the closet. I coldly and calmly decided that I would marry a woman, have babies with her, and cheat on her with men. That was my plan – to lie and adulterate. I’m not proud of that at all, what I’m proud of is that I had the balls to take what I saw as the hard road (now I see it as the easier road, lying and cheating would be much harder), regardless of what the ramifications may or may not have been.
The fact that everything worked out better than I could have hoped for? Gravy.
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