Why come out and what's stopping you?

[Mugwump]

This question was raised in a meeting I attended recently... so I thought it would be interesting to find out more opinions! Also, it is interesting to hear the things that prevent people coming out.

E.g. for me, I would want to come out because (a) I like to be able to share things in my life with my family and (b) I feel like I am not being honest. I have not come out yet because I feel like I won't be 100% sure about my orientation until I have a girlfriend, and I am afraid to 'lock in' something that I don't yet feel entirely comfortable with.

[Bevo]

Let me see, for a whole lot of reasons:
I havent come out fully to myself so i need to sort that out first and i'm still not sure of how i feel about it as yet.
I'm also sort of seen as the conservative, academic, leader-type guy at school and I fear that people would see me differently, in a negative sense, instead of seeing me as the same guy who is just gay.

I'm also nervous as to how my family would take it.

and thats my situation...

well, i need to come out fully because at the moment i'm living in a sort of sexless purgatory, where intimacy and affection are nonexistant, and my moods are pendular at best not to mention the fact that other than the three people who know, my life is a constant deception of those nearest and dearest to me.

Whats stopping me come out? The majority of my friends are straight guys, the rest are mostly their wives/girlfriends... When i come out i could lose almost all of them at once. There are no gay support groups for adults on the island so that isn't an option.

As for my family, well thanks to the economy my dad's facing redundancy at the age of 60 and my mum is coming out of semi retirement to get more money, they have enough to stress them without me adding (once again) to there troubles at this time.

Happy days. :-)

[Just Adam]

because it would isolate and strain my family life. and i cant distance myself from them

[if i had a dime]

I need to come out because I feel like im lieing to the people I love and hideing a part of who i am from them.
whats preventing me from coming out is that im afarid of how they will react because alll i can think about is if they react in a bad way. i too want to be completeley sure of sexuality too.

[Synthetic7]

I would like to come out, not only as gay, but to be able to act as who I really am. My own self confidence issues are preventing that from happening. I'm also afraid of losing what few friends I have left...

[Lexington]

Living a lie is such a pain in the tail. It's not fun playing "pronoun games" ("I'm interested in someone...") or remembering who you told what, or wondering if somebody might be interested in you if only they knew. Being out simplified things completely.

Lex

Why come out? Because it'd stop the constant anguish that stems from concealing a part of myself all the time. I wouldn't have to lie anymore and people would see the "real" me.

What's hindering me? The fear of rejection and having people laugh at me.

[Markio]

I want to come out because it's easier than lying to people all the time.

I haven't come out to my family yet because I wouldn't be accepted by most of them, at least not for a while. Plus I'm financially dependent on them.

I haven't come out to most other people at school because I'm worried that people won't want to talk to me, or will think I'm weird, or will judge me before they know me.

[CrystalCat]

I want to be true to my self. A few people know, but i'm not fully out

I would love to come out to everyone else in my family, but i come from a strict Jamaican family and at least once every few weeks i hear some sort of gay bashing coming from a family member's mouth.

[GhostDog]

I want to come out to my mother, because it bothers me that my dad knows and she doesn't. That I'm basically lying to her, even though I trust her as much as my dad.

What's stopping me? Finding the right time, when she's not dealing with migraines and nobody's around, fighting the awkward tension and trying not to let my heart shoot straight out of my chest when I think of telling her. But mostly? I'm worried it'll make her sad. I don't think she'll reject me, and she doesn't seem to have a problem with thinking my cousin's gay. I know she'll get over it. But I think she might mourn for the daughter she thought she had and when I make my mom sad, I always feel a bit like I've just kicked a puppy.

I want to come out to the world in general, and to the people at school, because I don't really feel like myself when I'm among them. They talk to me about boyfriends, hot actors, hot guys on campus, and unless the conversation happens to involve David Tennant? I don't really feel like I can participate. And the guys will say things like, "Well, I liked [character played by hot actress in a TV show], too! Probably for different reasons than you, though." And it just makes me want to shout, "Actually, no! I thought she was a fox, too!"

What's stopping me there? I'm not sure if my female friends will then feel weird being around me. I've already gotten weird looks from people who've seen me wearing my little rainbow bracelet. I want to just say, "You know what? If you have a problem with that, you're not worth my time." Because it's true. Still awkward making that leap, though. Especially when I have to work with them. =/

But you know what? I really want to have a lovely, amazing girlfriend and hold her hand in public without batting an eye, I want to wear my little pride necklace and not care what anyone thinks, I want to put a sparkly rainbow sticker on the back of my car (and see if anyone asks to borrow it again, haha!). And mostly, I just want what everyone sees to be me, and not the facade I've lived behind for so long.

[tm74]

Why come out: as others have said, so I can be honest with my friends and family.
Why not come out: fear. Fear of rejection (esp. from my parents, despite not being dependant on them), fear of ridicule (esp. from some of my work colleagues)

I want to come out becasue Im tired of being a character in everyones elses life. People have certain expectation for me and sadly, I live up to them and thats not me.

Whats keeping me from coming out is fear of rejection and isolation. My brother is a fundamentalist and my mother wont stop talking about marriage and when I visit my family thats all they want to know about, If I found someone or not.

Slowly but surely Ive been learning to walk on my 2 feet mentally enough to know that this year will be the year I come out.

I want to come out to my parents because I always feel a little dead inside when they bring up the topic of if I have a girlfriend yet. I also don't like lying to them, I've become good at it to protect myself but it's something that I really dislike doing. I want the ability to tell them the truth. I have no problem coming out to friends and on Myspace/Facebook though.

What's stopping me is my parents' conservative values and views on LGBT issues. As my family is composed of Roman Catholics and my birth country is one of the unfriendliest places for LGBTs to live, and that we're immigrants, I hate to think of how they would probably despise me. I need their support to pay for college, and if my dad found out I'm afraid he would disown me and throw me out of the house.

[Davo]

Honesty is the main reason why I want to come out, but it's also the thing that's stopping me. I feel like I need to come out to people, because otherwise they don't really know me. I've recently acquired a fantastic new boyfriend and I feel I now have a reason to come out, because I don't want to act like he doesn't exist, it's not fair on him

But as I say, honesty is why I don't want to come out. I don't want my friends and family to know that I've been lying to them - I did in a perverse way like coming out to my best friend because it did prove once and for all that he didn't know me as well as he thought he did. Growing up I didnt want to come out to my family until I had a safety net, so if my family reacted badly I had someone to lean on, now I have my 2 best friends and my boyfriend, but I still can't bring myself to come out. It always seems a bit off-topic

[Apocalypte]

I'd like to be out to my family for the sake of being completely open and honest with them, I'm sick of lying and skirting around the issue when people ask about relationships. I have been a little more open over the past few months, such as not lying to my family when I was going to Pride this year, but I'm still too chicken to have That Talk with them.

I'm not out to them because I'm still financially dependent on them, and there's a good chance I will be for another year as I'm considering grad school in September but can't quite afford it on my own. Even though I know they probably won't react too badly, I'm still way too scared to risk it.

[matty123]

well it would be nice to be able to be totally honest with everyone, and i figure it'll be easier to meet someone if others know i'm gay, but then i like how people perceive me, i know it sounds weird, but i like how people see me for who i am, and i guess i'm afraid that if ppl find out i'm gay, then thats what they'll see when they look at me, and there's more to me than my sexuality, but saying that the people i have told still see me for me, and they didn't assume that i was going to fit into some stereotype, like i worry that people will think you'll all of a sudden love shopping and musicals, and forget you are just you and that being gay doesn't change that.

[Gumtree]

I'm out because it's easier to be out, I couldn't not be out.

I speak my mind, not what I want people to hear. Not always a good thing...

I care little if people do or don't know, but I don't want to and wont avoid saying "He" instead of "They".

[Bookmarked]

Honesty was the main bit. Not because I felt much of an obilgation to be truthful to random strangers, but it felt bad to constantly, consisently and deeply lie to people I really did care about. My friends, my family and so on.

As well as that, I was sick of having to give everything a "once over" in my head. It was like having a script editor, or a censor in your head. He's a tyrannical little bastard that throws some of your best lines to the floor saying things like "No, too gay" and "Watch your bleeding pronouns, you big queen, you." It felt good to finally shut him up for good.

I'm pretty much out to everyone, and I've made a policy of not lying or being ambiguous about my sexuality in conversation. Say, for example the question "Do you have a girlfriend?" can be sneakily answered with "No." or something misleading; something like "I'm not really interested in girls" tends to work better.

On occasion, though, I get a little worried about bringing it up in conversation. I mean, do they really need to know? Do I want them to know? Is it too much of a tangent for them to know? I guess it'll pass as time goes by.

[George]

I came out because I couldn't stand living a lie. Everyone's constantly saying things like "oh when you get your wife and six wonderful children" so it was getting kinda annoying because I don't want a wife or kids.