Why wont I come out?

Long story coming, thank you in advance for sticking with it.

I'm 21, coming up 22 and I've known I wasn't straight from age 10. By age 13 I had narrowed it down to Bisexuality. I'm fine with it, I'm a reasonable enough person to see it's not wrong, it's not bad and there is certainly nothing I could do about it (Not that I much want to). But here's the problem. My family and my best friend(Lets call him Sam) don't know I'm Bi. Basically all of my other friends know, including my other best friend but he's off at Uni and I spend almost all my time with Sam. He's not homophobic per se, but he doesn't understand it at all. My best friend at Uni is gay and gets 20 questions from Sam whenever they're around each other and is happy to educate, but it doesn't seem to make an impression on him. Sam is fine with him, but I can't help feel it'd be different were it me. Despite living in a rural area, the people around here are surprisingly tolerant and my parents are still on the liberal side. My mum's best friend is gay, I have a Bi cousin and a lesbian cousin and my mum treats them like everybody else. She's asked me before if I'm gay and I've answered no, which is truth but not the whole truth. I'm pretty certain she will be fine with me being Bi, my Dad too for the most part. He's quite a manly man and not too fond of anything too "effeminate" but I've seen him interact with the most camp people I've ever met and not bat an eye lid. Again, I can't help feeling it'd be different from his son. So to sum up, sorry for waffling on, I can think of no reason to not come out to my best friend and my parents. I think in both cases they would be fine with it, the only problem I can see is that our relationship will definately change. Maybe for the better, maybe worse, it might remain on a similar level of good, but it will be different now and I don't want that. I like my relationship with my friends and family, I don't want them to stop and think about whether they might be offending me before saying something they would normally have just said. But similarly, I don't like the fact they don't know the real me. Because I've been comfortable with my relationship with them, I decided that I wouldn't come out to them until I got a boyfriend, but I decided that at like 16. I expected to have a boyfriend by now but I've only had girlfriends so I don't think that plan is working.

Essay over. xD

 

Thanks for the replies guys ^_^

Corey: I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this kind of issue (Didn't mean that to sound like I'm glad you are, I'm just terrible at communicating what I mean ). You're almost certainly right, Sam will be fine with it. But I'm certain it'll lead to him tip toe-ing around certain areas. I've never really considered what it'd be like to tell my parents both that I'm bi and that I have a boyfriend. I've just always felt there wasn't a need for them to know now, so why tell them? Probably just me chickening out. As I said, my mum has asked about whether I'm gay or not but she's never done it infront of my dad so I don't know if that is on purpose. I'm thinking I'll do it soon, but then I have to consider method and timing. I sort of want to come out to my Mum first as I'm certain she wont care, if anything she'll be relieved that I finally told her who I was whereas with my dad, I'm less certain, but I couldn't do that to my dad.

2112: You're probably right, I know compared to many people who have to come out I've really got it easy and I feel even worse about it when I think about how many brave people came out to devout/right wing parents at age 16 or whatever and here I am, 21 with liberal parents and still fretting about it like a little girl. I think, were I gay, I'd have done it by now. I think they both understand homosexuality but as far as I am aware neither of them have come across Bisexuality in their personal lives. Also I've sort of hoped that I'd just meet a girl, fall in love and live happily ever after with her and because I've never had a significant male partner, they'd never have had to know. But I can't hedge my bets on that anymore.

Thanks again for the replies

 

I did it. I finally decided I needed to let them know. I gathered all the courage I could and went to speak to my parents, I figured I owed them face to face after waiting so long. My dad wasn't in so I told my mum and she didn't bat an eye lid. Like I said, she had asked if I were gay a while back. She said shouldn't care less who I love. I held back the tears. I asked her how to tell Dad and she told me that it'd be best coming from her. I wasn't so sure but she insisted. Dad still isn't home yet and I'll have left before he is so I'm still pretty worried about it. But I've jumped into the icy lake now, all that's left is to adjust and enjoy the swim.

 

Thanks, and I'll say nothing about your lateness if you say nothing about mine! ^_^

Now my parents know and they're both fine with it. My dad apparently reacted very much the same as my mum, in a whoop-de-doo fashion as if we were talking about the weather (The reaction I hoped for). My brother knows now as well, he said he figured I was gay so it's no bother to him. But I've still not told Sam. I will, I'm not too worried about it to be honest I just don't want to have to throw it on him out of nowhere. Also he's been going through a lot of stuff at the moment and even though my coming out is pretty big (To me at least, maybe I'm just being conceited?) I'd still rather just help him with his problems instead of saying "Sorry to hear that, let's talk about me now". So I'm torn, I need to let him know as he's my best friend and I can't keep lying to him but when all I want to do at the moment is reassure him and make our talks all about him as I feel it's what he needs. But I'm currently floating in a sort of coming-out-fervour and I'm slightly afraid if I wait too long I'll become complacent again and decide not to tell him at all.

TL;DR I'm torn between outing myself to the last important person who doesn't know and just helping them sort themselves out which is what they seem to want to do at the moment.

 

I've decided he needs to know, it's only fair after all that he has shared with me recently. But I have no plan to meet up with him until next friday so now I need to decide if I want to wait and tell him face to face or get it over and done with and text him?

 

Thank you ^_^