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Did you loose friends?

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by drake86, Oct 12, 2009.

  1. drake86

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    I REALLY want to come out and have written a letter to my parents. I wrote the letter about a month ago, put it in an envelope, stamped it and it has been sitting in my car ever since. My parents are visiting me next weekend and I think I am going to wait and see how the weekend goes and maybe I will send it home with them when they leave.

    When you came out did you loose any friends. I LOVE my friends. I could be poor and have nothing but if I were around my friends I would be completely happy. The thought of loosing them terrifies me. I want the honest truth. I have a lot of male, straight, friends who dont know much about being gay. I just graduated college last year and I feel like being out in the real world will help with peoples opinions of gays.
     
  2. Just Adam

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    if i hadent drifted apart from them then yes i would of... and to a degree with teh friend i have... i do seem to have grown apart, the fact is sexuality to some peoel is a barrier tehy jsut cant overcome... and you may lose some people but that just shows tehy are not true friends as they would stand by you and be supportiveand you deserve better :slight_smile:

    you cant live on ifs and maybes...if you feel its time to come out then it is...it wont be easy but it will set you free from teh lies the hideing the worry of beeing outed and teh wondering will i lose anyone...

    take care x
     
  3. Maddy

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    Yes, I did, but I have to say, they weren't really close friends - I think they were glad to have an excuse to drop me, and if they had actually liked me all that much before I came out, they would more likely have stood by me when I did come out. If you're very close to your friends and you know that they care about you as you are, I don't think it's all that likely.
     
  4. drake86

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    It's so hard picturing myself living a gay lifestyle sometimes...ahhh
     
  5. Just Adam

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    we all get that feeling from time to time...and its not a lifestyle its jstu your life and you jsut love other guys.

    who you love wont define you as a person.... and everything you do in life will be the same just who you go home to at night would change who you wake u p to in bed would change.. that isnt important

    and you dont have to picture yourself living in anyway, you just will. and we are here for you as will you true friends and countless others in your life.
     
  6. s5m1

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    I have not lost any friends, yet. If I do lose some because I am gay, they are not the type of friends I want.
     
  7. Greggers

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    Since last year (when i came out) ive lost about 80% or so of my friend base. A good chunk of that was when i came out, and the rest of it is either people who drifted away from me or people ive drifted away from.

    But dont be scared, that was mainly because i didnt know anyone who was not from a conservative christian background (sheltered life pre-college, long story). And even though i lost most of my friends, the ones i still have are SO SO SO SO SO much closer to me than before i came out. I would not trade my sexuality or anything else for more friends and i stand by my choices. I would not do anything differently :slight_smile:
     
  8. Jim1454

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    I haven't lost ANY friends since I came out to them. But I didn't have all that many. You only need a handful of really good friends, and all of mine have stuck by me. It was a non-issue.

    It's been said so many times before - what "lifestyle" are you referring to?!? Do you just mean having a boyfriend? Or do you think that you have to replace you're wardrobe or change your taste in decorating or cancel your seasons tickets to the local sports team just because you 'come out'?!? Because you don't.

    But you DO get to just be yourself - something that shouldn't be looked upon as negative or shameful or different from anyone else just being themself. As Lex would likely say, being yourself "Kicks Ass!"
     
  9. malachite

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    I did lose a few, I was going to be the God Father of my friend's child, but thats went out the window.
     
  10. kettleoffish

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    I did, yes. BUT someone who doesn't accept you for who you are isn't a real friend anyway and by that logic, it is impossible to lose friends by coming out :slight_smile:
     
  11. kramer362

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    I haven't lost any friends. I've only told maybe less than 10 of my friends, mostly guys (who also happen to be in the military), but no bad reactions; the worst has been where they don't know how they should react (for my sake). I have only drifted apart from one friend, and I don't even think it was due to my liking guys, I think we've just grown apart. If anything coming out opened the door for some frank discussions that made me feel closer to my friends, even if I was uncomfortable at first. I've been under the impression too that if YOU act comfortable with it like it's not a big deal, people tend to take note of that and treat it as such. That can be tough at first, because for me it was a big deal, but just acting honest and unashamed can do wonders.

    I may be lucky because I could never stomach guys who had to turn everything into a dick measuring contest, so even my guy friends were never trying to out-man each other and harp on gay people to do it. It's really the transition from being perceived as straight to being seen as gay in your friends' eyes that made it tough for me. And then everyone new I ever meet is going to assume I'm straight too, so you never really stop coming out. Just remember even homophobes can get over it, and in the very least you can make people reconsider their bigotry. :confused:
     
  12. Apocalypte

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    I lost one friend, but that friendship was already on the way out when I came out. He was an arsehole about it, and I don't have time for anyone in my life who's going to be like that.
     
  13. AllSmiles

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    I have only come out to 2 people atm, one of them is a friend. After I came out to her, our friendship has become closer :slight_smile:

    Last year one of the guys from my class came out. He didn't lose any friends either, at least from school, I think he even got some closer friendships out of it.
     
  14. GhostDog

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    Thankfully, no. If anything, my friends were pleased that I trusted them enough to tell them. (It probably helps that I'm friends with a lot of lesbians and bisexual girls, I will admit. =P) I know one of my guy friends thought it was totally awesome, plus now he has someone else to talk about hot chicks with. =P

    I just outed myself on Facebook, and I have a lot of current/former classmates on there (some of whom are kinda-friends), and at least two of them "liked" the note I wrote. If any of the others read it, they at least weren't offended enough to de-friend me or anything.

    But nobody's cut off ties or bitched at me yet, for which I'm very, very thankful. <3
     
  15. Zach

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    I can only think of two people that had a problem with me being gay. One was a friend of a friend, and I considered him no loss. The other was a guy in the neighborhood that I didn't know that well. Everyone else was fine when I came out, and nothing really changed between my friends and me. (!)
     
  16. Ajax

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    wow i am amazed how many people are saying they felt they lost friends. I didn't lose any friends. in fact, i developed much deeper friendships with quite a few of my female friends than i had before. actually now have a much better relationship with my ex-girlfriend than when i went out with her! i guess it depends where you are, how your friends are and other things. i was really scared of telling my (male) best friend because i thought it might destroy what we had. used to go out clubbing, chasing girls etc all the time. But in the end his only comment was "i hope you didn't think that i would care whether you're gay or not". that was pretty much the reaction of all my friends.
     
  17. Lexington

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    Not a one.

    Lex
     
  18. Stuie

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    Nope, none. I just about died of boredom after I came out. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
     
  19. Adam

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    I thought I may when I came out, but nope, didn't lose a single friend! Nothing changed, If anything I became better friends with some people ha
     
  20. EM68

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    Not one. I came closer to a couple of people at work.