Let me preface this as to I have only told a few people that I am bisexual, and no one at work knows for sure that I am. So, I work in direct care, so the staff where i work get along pretty well, to the point where after work we go out for drinks often, and can talk about most stuff with each other. (I can't count the amount of times where I have over heard conversations about sex, going to the adult toy store, medical problems or a coworkers saying "I need to go poop") But, about a month, maybe 6 weeks ago, we got a new (male) staff. Lets call him Jamie. We get along great, work awesome together, the whole 9 yards. But I'm not really attracted to him, I just see us a really good friends. Since monday, JAmie and I have been going out for drinks and wings after work. Now, on Wednesday, the two of us invited another coworker (Tom) to go with us. So Jamie and Tom were talking about about this girl dressing up and Tom said she was cute (don't remember the specifics of who it was). Jamie then said she was hot. I said "mmm-hmm" (which Jamie always picks on me for because i say it alot) Jamie looked at me and said "really, ~TraceElement~?" I looked at him and nodded. Now fast forward to tonight. We were sitting in the restaurant, and we were talking about tattoos that we liked, and what we wanted to get. I had said "I don't care what anyone else says, I am NOT getting a tat with the name of my boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever." Now, Jamie seems to have no trouble with accepting the LGBT community, but even when i made small comments about girls, he did not ask if i was gay/straight/bi. So my question i guess, is it wise to tell current coworkers? Now, since Jamie and I get along like peas and carrots, I feel like i am not being 100% truthful with him, and I do not want to break the trust we have built. He even said that he is very comfortable with me, and i am very comfortable with him. I am fairly certain that if I do come out to Jamie, he will keep quiet until I am ready to tell everyone else, but on the other hand, my coworkers tend to gossip alot, and I know that if the wrong person overhears, everyone will know. Which i guess is not a bad thing, but i guess my issue is with feeling "exposed" at work. I am comportable with who i have become as a person. Only one of my coworkers has ever expressed something other than support for the LGBT community (He is a Muslim and told a fellow coworker that homosexuality is a choice blah blah blah. I feel like he has not been fully exposed to the LGBT community though) but i only see him as i am leaving work. We get along but do not talk as much as i do with everyone else. Sorry if this has been a post somewhere else in here about telling current coworkers, but i did do a quick search and came up with nothing. Didn't mean for this to be as long as it is. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. :icon_bigg (oh and sorry for any spelling mistakes, i am prett tired.)
I don't think you have to worry if there are other posts about coworkers. Lots of people have problems that are similar to other peoples, but you can still make a thread for your particular situation, here in the support and advice section. So, don't worry about that. You're kind of acting like you're out to Jamie anyway. I think you want to come out to him, and maybe at work anyway, and you really just want somebody to tell you it's okay. If you feel safe doing it, there's no reason not to. It's nice to not have to watch yourself all the time and worry about giving yourself away. I guess it depends on how worried you are about that one guy, which seems like not very. You don't necessarily have to come out formally, though, if you don't want to. You can just continue talking about things as they come up. Although, unless you've been talking to Jamie about guys as well, if you don't tell him otherwise, he might actually think you're a lesbian. When you're in the closet, there is all this anxiety about people finding out, that you carry around all the time. When you come out, sometimes a few people have a problem with you, but you don't have that constant anxiety anymore. These days, it's generally just a few people, and not most people, so unless it's people who are very important to you, the unhappiness caused by having them know is usually less than the anxiety caused by hiding it. So, I guess the question is, do you think that the people at work would respond in a way that will make you more unhappy than keeping it a secret is making you?
It depends on the work environment, but it sounds like yours is open and casual enough that you can do so. The fact that you did it outside the confines of the workplace is ideal - you were in a casual, let's-talk-about-ourselves place, and that makes it a totally natural place to do so. I'm also usually in favor of "telling without telling". Which you've done. Your comments like "boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever" have basically revealed you're bisexual, all in context of the current conversation. If your workplace was the sort of place where everybody simply did their job and went home, and never met up outside the confines of the workplace, and never discussed your lives, then yeah - it'd probably not be a good idea to bring it up. But not too many places are like that. Lex
Ianthe, I definately needed to hear that. I suppose it's not deathly important that people at work know, but it would be nice to have one less thing on my mind to worry about. Lex, again this is what i needed to hear. I have been thinking about telling him for a bit, but have always been a little reserved telling people about being bisexual, don't know why, maybe I have always thought that people didnt have to know. But, it kind of feels like Jamie is the brother/cousin that I can tell anything to, without fear of anything, which is why I initially wanted to tell him. Thank you Lex and Ianthe for the help and support you have give me on this.
