so, i came out on october 21st of 2009 to my friends. they were mostly cool with it. i had a new girlfriend and she said she was okay with me not coming out, but i really wanted to do this for her, yah know? well i did and the school was pretty damn accepting and it was honestly a shock. we inspired our school's first GSA meeting, run by our only gay teacher who then came out to his students. we did a lot of good for our school. but the luck ran out. she's now my ex. oh well, i'm over that. but that's not why i'm angry. i found out that chicago pride was on june 27th this year and i really want to go. i told my one friend (A), who came out shortly after me, and she was really hyped up about it too. and then my best friend (K) said she'd totally go with to support us and stuff. her philosophy was that maybe i'd find a cute girl at the parade. the only problem was that pride is on my other best friend's (J) birthday. anyway, today as i was leaving J's house i told her that A and K had already agreed to go and on the 27th we were going down town. she asked why and i was like, "the pride parade is on the 27th!" and J just scoffed at me and was like "um, we are NOT going to gay pride on MY birthday." do i have the right to be mad at her? going to pride really means a lot to me and i was totally looking forward to it. i want to go, but now i'm pretty sure i can't. i can't just miss J's birthday to go to pride. i'm getting really sad just thinking about not going. is my anger justified or am i just being irrational?
Do you have to spend the whole day with your friend on her birthday? Could you go to Pride for a bit and then hang out with her afterwards, or vice versa? I do think she's being a bit selfish. I understand that people's birthdays are important to them, but Pride is only once a year and it's probably just as important to you as her birthday is to her.
I dont think a straight person(assuming shes straight...) will ever understand how important pride is to us, or at least a good portion of the lgbt community. I think you could either see if she wants to hang out another day, or like Chandra said, hang out part of the day with her and go down for the parade. Here at least pride is a weeklong event, and the parade is only part of it. Check that out because there might be other events not on her birthday that you could go to instead.
I think birthday trumps pride parade. I'm sorry but if she's a good friend I think she has every right to want to spend her birthday how SHE wants to. Now like Chandra has said I don't see why you can't spend part of the day at the parade and part of it with your friend. I don't know your friend though I guess so it is hard to give advice, birthdays are more important to some people then others. My friends totally ditched me on my birthday and I never felt so horrible in my life as I did on that day. In my opinion Birthdays are days that should be at least slightly if not nearly entirely about the person who's birthday it is. I don't maybe that's just me. I personally think you are being selfish. How would you feel if your friends were set on doing something you didn't want to do on your birthday?
i guess you're right, ryan. i went on the pride site and there's "gay day" at the six flags by me on the 19th of june. i'll try and get people to go to that. i'm thinking it should be fun. in all honesty, because of the person she is, i most likely won't end up going to the parade.. i guess i'll have to wait for next year. -sigh-
