Coming out letter to friends, critique welcome!

I've finally decided that I'm ready to start coming out. I told my first couple of friends when I went travelling in the summer. I chose these people because there was no connection with home and so it felt kind of 'safe' and they turned out to be really supportive. Now I've got to take the next step and start telling my friends back home. This is a letter I've written to 2of my closest friends that I am most worried about telling because they are very religious and have made some veryhomophobic comments in the past. Please tell me which bits I need to change etc. Thanks!


Dear ---- and ----

By the time that you read this I will have hopefully have finally found the courage to tell you that I am gay. You’re two of my closest friends and I thought that you deserved me to tell you face to face but I’m writing this because I know that there are things that I won’t be able to say. I can tell you that this is one of the most terrifying things I have ever done.

I’m pretty sure that this will be quite a surprise and I’m sorry that I haven’t been honest with you before. The truth is that I couldn’t even be honest with myself.

This is something that I’ve known for a long time, but instead of talking to someone I could trust years ago, I bottled my feelings up and put it to the back of my mind because I didn’t want to be different and I thought that if I ignored it then it would go away and I could be like everyone else. I was so deep in denial that I began to build an invisible wall between myself and the people around me and I avoided becoming really close with my friends because I thought that sooner or later someone would guess what I wasn’t ready to admit even to myself.

This past year has been both the worst and best for me. I have gone round in circles for weeks from the ‘of course you’re not gay’ to ‘perhaps you are gay’ to ‘but I don’t want to be gay’ to ‘you’re gay and it’s not such a bad thing’ and then back to denial again. I convinced myself that I liked this boy but then I slowly started to realise that I was imagining how proud my parents would be and what my friends would think and not about what I really wanted. You might remember the state I was in during ------ last year, that was because I had started to realise that I could lie to everyone else, I could pretend that I was something that I’m not but I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. At the worst times I would imagine being rejected by my friends and how my family wouldn’t love me anymore. I used to go and sit on the benches on -------- and cry until I couldn’t cry anymore because I had a secret that I couldn’t share with anyone and that was a very lonely place to be.

By the end of last year I had decided that I couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t go on worrying about whether each of my friends and my family would accept me and I couldn’t cope with the horrible ‘what if they knew?’ feeling anymore. But most of all I knew that I had to begin accepting myself and I had to find someone who I could talk to. So this summer at ---- I finally told the first person and then three others. I chose people at ----- because I knew that there were no connections with home and if it didn’t go well I wouldn’t have to stay in contact with them. But it did go well, much better than I had hoped for and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It felt great to finally be able to be completely honest with people. Suddenly it was no longer such a big deal, no one cared and I started to feel happier and more confident about myself. It made me realise how damaging bottling feelings up can be and I wished that I had done this years ago.

I really have no idea how you are going to react, I’ve tried to imagine what all your possible reactions might be but I don’t know. I completely understand if you need time, I don’t expect you to accept me straight away (look how long it has taken me!). I’m also worried that you might feel awkward around me. Please please believe me when I say that I honestly do not like you or any of our other friends in that way. I never have and I never will, and if I had it would have been impossible for me to deny this to myself for so long.

You’re probably quite surprised about all this, maybe a little hurt and confused and you probably don’t understand. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to fully understand, perhaps you never will. I just want you to know that I’m not terrified of the truth anymore, I’ve accepted it and it’s ok. What I am terrified of is losing those people around me that I care for most. But I’ve slowly come to realise that by not being honest with people, I’m going to lose them anyway. At some point I’m going to have to tell my parents (which I am dreading) and I hope that when I do I’ll have the support of my friends instead of coping with this alone.

Please remember that I’ve told you this because I think you’re two of the best people I know and I trust and value our friendship so much. I hope that one day we’ll be able to look back at this and laugh at what a nervous wreck I’m sure I am right now. Nothing has really changed, I’m still the same person, I’ve just decided to be more honest with you.

Love ------