I am still questioning, but I am thinking about if/when I ever come out. What is your opinion or experience on waiting until you are dating someone to come out. Do you think it would make friends/family more upset because you are like "hey, I am gay and I have been dating someone" do you think that is too much of a shock? The reason I am still not ready to come out is because; 1.) I am still not certain about what I want exactly, as I have never been with anyone of either gender; 2.) I just really do not want to disappoint my family and make such huge waves. I am already the weird one and I get crap every time I get a new piercing or for my career choices or just anything I do. I am just wondering if waiting until I am in a relationship would upset my family more based on your experience. In the end, I don't care what they think, but I really want to try and not upset them even more. I feel kind of bad and feel like they would be disappointed because all they ever talk about is me marrying a man in the future. I don't know how they would take it and I just want to make things as smooth as possible.
I know that your family expects you to marry a man, but what do they think of homosexuality. Also there's many ways to come out to your family. Saying 'here's my girlfriend' is one way, but there's many others too. You could write a note or a letter. You could tell them. You can make then show them a video. You could just leave hints here and there. Maybe you might want to get help from a friend. I say this tons of times, but be prepared for the worst. You can never be for sure how their reaction could be. Of course when you're ready to come out. I understand that you would like it to go smoothly but sometimes it just doesn't work that way. I'd say for now maybe if you can talk to someone about you and questioning your sexuality. One person supporting you can go a long way.
Hi badwolf22 My main concern with waiting until your dating would be that your family may "blame" your partner for "turning" you this way. If you are out and single there is no one else involved or to blame.
This basically sounds like me a few years ago. I started to realize that I wasn't sexually attracted to men and that I am probably gay. I've questioned it for a long time but was raised that homosexuality is wrong. After a spiral into depression and digging my way out, I finally learned to accept myself. All that being said, my advice on coming out is to wait until you know for sure what your feelings are. Coming out too soon, or coming out then later dating someone of the opposite sex really confuses everyone and gives people a lot to talk about. I started dating my girlfriend kind of unexpectedly. I was exploring things and happened to meet her quickly and didn't have time to come out before we started dating. With everything being new to me, I really just wanted to keep our relationship private till I knew it was serious between the two of us. I told a few of my friends and they were accepting, but I didn't tell my family till after a year of dating. For me, it seemed to work because it gave the sense of "Ok, this isn't a phase if she's been with this girl for over a year now." One concern my girlfriend had (because it has happened to her before) was that when I came out, people would blame her. Like csm123 stated above. My mom kind of hinted at that when we were talking. She asked me how we met and who initiated the dating thing. I told her it was mutual and neither of us were really seeking one another. (that was sort of true. it was mutual, but neither of us were really expecting a serious relationship to develop at that moment). I think it really depends on your partner, family, and most of all yourself. You have to do what makes you happy. But I would be certain about your feelings before you do come out because you will always have those people that will ask you tough questions to kind of "test" you. Put a lot of thought into it and be ready to accept yourself before you ask others to accept you!! Don't get discouraged when people don't accept you, just move on and don't let it get you down. It's their loss!!
What taken said was really good. In my opinion there is no right answer, because it all depends on you, your family, and or your partner. People react differently in situations. I think it's more on if you're comfortable with it mainly. Are you okay with kind of hiding a relationship? And so on and so on. From what I've seen most people say it's better to come out to family first and then start dating for reasons csm123 gave.
