Coming out, here and there

When people talk to me about coming out, I tend to mention something like, “Coming out’s more of a journey than a destination, anyway.” When I’ve blogged about coming out, here and in my old blog, I’m usually referring to either “the first one” or “the big one.” The first one took place half way through my last year in high school, early 2004, when I told my family. Mom, Dad, and my sister, Beth. The big one took place last year and sort of this year- it got a bit stretched out. I told basically all of my friends, and made sure they knew that it wasn’t a secret and that they could tell anyone they wanted to. Telling my friends, the people who are most important to me socially, was the goal.

I was hoping they’d spread the word. After I’d told them, I would’ve rathered if almost everyone else I knew just suddenly knew that I was gay. Coming out’s often a pretty big deal, especially when you’re voicing it for the first time with friends you’ve known for years and years, who of course have already come to the conclusion that you’re gay, but who won’t bring it up because they’re waiting for you to be ready, and for you to come out at your own pace. To many of the other people in my life, they just assume I’m straight, or have subtle suspicions. Coming out to all these people would be annoying. I can see why some people just change their facebook “interested in:” and then everyone knows. It’s just so much quicker. At this point, I just want people to either not assume I’m straight, or know I’m gay. And since everyone assumes you’re straight, I’d rather they knew I was gay. For some reason I don’t really feel comfortable going the facebook route, so I’m left with telling everyone. Or, of course, letting the grape vine play its part and hoping the news spreads. Unfortunately, a lot of my friends really don’t gossip much, and I hang out with a few separate crowds of people which don’t really interact. So I’m almost fully out in one of these groups, but in the next no one seems to know. Like I said, it’s annoying.

One of my co-workers is in the second group. She’s hilarious, and smart, and talkative, and generally fun to work with. Seeing as we’re both going off to bigger and better, we tend to talk about the future. Now and then she’ll make a passing reference about my future wife. Or some random joke that implies I’m straight. Or how I’ll meet a hot French girl next year. Etc etc. It’s nothing major, and I know she has no issue with gay people, but she just assumes I’m straight. Or she thinks I might be gay but pretends I’m straight out of politeness. Or something. Anyway, she’s one of those people I would’ve rathered had just found out some how. It would save me the stress of having to verbally tell her that I’m gay lol. It’s still stressful, I’m not sure when it won’t be. I don’t even fear rejection – I just fear awkwardness. I don’t want to come out awkwardly. I don’t want to create an awkward work situation by talking about something personal- even tho we already talk about somewhat personal things now and then, just in reference to our futures or whatever. Truthfully though, I’m sure she’d take it fine, I know she would. But it’s just telling her. I almost did yesterday on the drive home (we carpool), but she blasts her tunes as soon as we get in, so talking about something like that would require purposely turning down the music in an “I have something to tell you” kind of way, which I don’t want. I want it to be casual. I want to preserve the feel of our relationship. Cool, comfortable, light, funny. I want this to be something that we could talk about, if she wanted. It’d be nice.

So here’s my plan. A guy recently messaged me on PlentyOfFish, the personals site. He seems really nice, smart, communicative, whatever. He goes to school away, but he’s home here for the summer. We’ve msged back and forth a bit, we’re ready to move to IM, and he’s suggested maybe meeting up next week. I’m totally up for that, I’d like to meet him. It could be termed a date, if I wanted to read into it lol. Which I don’t usually do, but for the purposes of this plan, I think I’ll pretend to. So next week, after I hang out with him, then I can casually bring up to my co-worker that I went on a date last night. And she’ll be all interested, because she loves talk about relationships, or any light gossip. And when she asks, “What’s her name?” That’ll be my opening! I’ll be like, “His name’s Paul.” And then we can talk about it lol. A perfect segue-way. I get to let her know I’m gay without the “I’ve got an announcement” feel, and then we’ve got something to talk about, in Paul. Which could then lead off into any number of other gay and me related topics. Good plan? I don’t even care if we talk about it for long. I’m confident in the strength of our relationship, I know she’s not homophobic, and then she’ll know! Which makes all the difference.

I guess I’ll have situations like this all through my life. Never again “the first one,” and probably not “the big one.” But instead, a series of little ones. It’s often nice to not wear my sexuality on my sleeve – I’m a fairly private person if you can believe it. But at the same time, sometimes you do want people to know you’re gay. Pretending to be straight is useful when you feel unsafe, or when you know that you might face immediate negative consequences that you’d rather not by being out. And sometimes it’s useful to not exhibit stereotypical signs of homosexuality when you’re casually dealing with people who may or may not be judgemental about it. But I rarely if ever feel that way in my normal social life. I want to let people in. I want to be myself. I want to challenge assumptions. Ya know?

So I’ll tell my co-worker this week, or after my “date” with Paul, whenever it is, and update you. And I’ll update you about the date, too lol.