Logistics of coming out

I think coming out would be a great opportunity to find out who your true friends are and what family members really do love you unconditionally. I understand when you say being gay is kind of a hassle because there aren't many around and if there are they are in the closet as well so it's difficult to tell.

I think you should just come out and get it off your chest because I assure you that you will feel soo much better afterwards, and if your friends don't accept you then you can start anew and find new friends who accept you the way you are 100%. It is a hard thing to do to let go of friends you have had for so long, but if they don't love you, who needs them anyways?!

 

Okay, a few things about coming out.

It sometimes sucks while it's happening, especially because it IS such an intimately emotional conversation. With family and close friends this can happen. (whereas with most other people it's like, 'oh you're gay. that's cool. did you see that new harry potter movie?) But after coming out to the people closest to you, it's no big deal and you don't have to make any efforts at all to pretend to be anything. It's a short burst of a lot of work and then smooth sailing. For the most part.

That leads me to my next point. Yes, coming out is an ongoing thing. You will be telling people that you're gay periodically for your whole life. That sounds like a big deal, but mostly it's not. 1. you don't have to come out to everyone. it's not like you need to announce it to everyone you ever meet. and 2. if you just assume everyone already knows then you don't have to explain yourself very often. For example, the other day I was in the car with my friend and some guy she knows. I said something about my girlfriend and he was like "wait, GIRLfriend?" and I was like "yup, her name's ****" and he was like cool and then I finished my story.

No pressure, no mess. That's how it is for me most of the time, now that I'm out to everyone I'm close to and pretty much no longer care who knows. That's the only tough part of coming out is at first you're always being worried about this person or that person finding out or knowing something that no one else knows. Once everyone knows, it's not usually a huge deal anymore and you'll hardly think about it.

 

Hey, Marlowe. I had a lot of the same feelings as you. Considering whether it was easier just to stay in the closet and not date. I'm 24 now and just came out for the first time to my friend.

It may sound trite but it came down to the fact that I want to share my life intimately with someone else. I haven't found that person yet but I want to make it possible for me to find them. I came to the conclusion that this person whoever he may be is a man. And, that no amount of appeasing others was worth never meeting him, never sharing my life with him.

I know that some relationships will suffer, but if you want to look at it logically you can definitely apply a cost benefit analysis. I concluded that the benefits outweigh the costs. And therefore, the decision that I was leaning toward and thought would bring me greater happiness was also the most logical. Don't give up long-term gains for short-term gains.

 

i too did the asexuality thing for a while. i did a 2 year stint in college and i'm on my 6 year stint now. look, if you are asexual, then live asexual, but you are not asexual. honestly, do you think it's right for others to live their lives and you stay holed up in a asexual shell just because someone else has a problem with something that has nothing to do with them. and guess what, the people these are the same people that are secretly freaks and doing all matter of things behind closed doors. so while you live your life in this asexual punish tank, they are out there living it up and enjoying their lives and condemning you for doing the same thing they are doing and probably they are doing more. noone condemns the hot guy that has a hook up orgy with two girls. no one condemns george clooney (classic lady's man bachelor who gets more tail than he can shake a stick at...no pun intended). no one condems demi moore for getting ashton who is well than 1/2 her age......but you just so happen to like a guy and you're a guy and people want to picket against you and tell you constantly how wrong, bad, and disgusting you are. makes no sense. live your life because trust me all the people that are condemning you are certainly living theirs.

 

I, too, am not very open emotionally. In fact, before coming out to my first person, I think I'd never really talked sincerely about what I was feeling to anyone. I mean, I don't go looking for other people when I have personal problems. I just mostly handle it myself. Personally, I think that's bad. We can't always solve our own problems, particularly not your emotional problems. It is also hard to relate to someone who appears to be hiding something. As a result, I kind of felt that my relationship with my friends, even the close ones, was kind of incomplete.

Because of that, coming out to that one friend was especially hard. I did it over IM, but, even so, I remember I was shaking after I hit the "send" button. The conversation that ensued, however, made me feel gradually better. I guess that one of the reasons why I didn't feel good about talking about my emotions was precisely the fact that I was gay and hiding it. Then I realised that coming out was kind of a double thing for me: I'd start telling people I am gay and I'd also start being able to handle my own feelings better and communicate them to other people.

If you feel like that too, you may want to regard coming out as an unpleasant but necessary step to solving a lot of issues in your life. From what people here who are fully out say, it all does get much easier to handle after you come out to your first few people. I'd suggest you just focus on all the relief you will feel by taking that painful step that is coming out to your first person. It is not like all your issues in life will be suddenly solved, but you will know that the worst is already over.