Facebook - Not sure I've done the right thing.

Hi,if family have noticed the change,how long before your mum does if she is also on fb,even if she does not see it for herself ive no doubt the rumours wil soon get back from family etc.

How do your brothers feel she will take it?

Do you have any clue of her thoughts,or if she maybe has her suspicions?

Maybe you still have time to get in first and tell her yourself,which in my opinion would be the best way for her to hear it.Maybe it would be easier to tell her you changed your status on fb as if you were out to her,if she seems shocked about you just say you thought she knew but it was never realy talked about.At least you have age on your side,from about 18 onwards parents start letting go and let you make choices for youself and generally by early twenties you have an indipendant life,also by your age you should be past the confused stage or at least have a good argument to convince her so!

If you can get in first and get her on side it could make things better with any other assoles in your family with the same opinion as your cousin.Dont let them get in first spouting their homophobic bullshit,telling her you need help.

If your mum is not really clued up on being born gay,doctors say it cant be changed etc then this is the time to do some educating,maybe even more educating from straight brothers would help.Just dont let others get her believing some religious bullshit that you can be cured etc.

Good luck,let us know how thing go.

 

All of csm123's post is good advice.

My only other thought was that I was surprised to read your cousin even noticed. My "Interested In" has been changed to "women" for months, but no one ever noticed because it doesn't show in your feed that you changed it. Most people who know you don't generally go specifically to look at your interested in, it's going to be people who you don't know you as well who are looking.

Not saying that you shouldn't talk to your mom about it even if she won't notice, you should talk to her anyone in case she or someone else does.

Good luck with all of that! Keep us updated

 

I would say it's probably just bad timing with your cousin defriending you.... people have friend clear-outs from time to time and facebook also seems to be randomly defriending people.... I've had a couple of people vanish from my friends list without either of us doing anything. No one really looks at who you're interested in.... unless your birthday's coming up? That's usually when I look at my cousins' interests trying to work out what to send.....

 

The weirdest thing about Facebook is that you end up not being remotely sure who's seen it, which means you don't know who knows. But that can be good, too, because you kind of start to think of it as public information. Having it on there is basically saying, here is this ordinary fact, which anyone can find out who is interested enough to look.

Also, in regard to parents, depending on how old they are they may be kind of clueless about FB. Before I was out, when I was still kind of in the midst of coming out to myself (I still thought I might date men), I was going with my dad to the airport. I was "dropping him off at the airport," but what this generally means when I do it is that he drives to the airport (because he is in a panicky hurry and wants to violate traffic laws, ostensibly in order to get there faster), and then I drive back. So, he's driving, and I'm in the passenger seat, and for some reason we are talking about FB. He's telling me all about the old friends he's gotten in contact with.

He was very puzzled about one of his friends, because her profile said that she was interested in Women and Men. He thought those were kind of strange interests. (He did not understand that this was referring to romantic interest, but thought it was just part of the general interests, like if you have an interest in poetry or fly fishing.)

I explained the significance of the "interested in" field on FB.

"Oh!" said my dad. "I mean, there were some pictures of her at some sort of Pride thing, but sometimes people just go to those anyway... Well, I guess she's just a free spirit!"

Now, the really funny thing is that my dad is married to C-----, who has dated women and men, including a trans man, and who was once literally queen of the Pride parade. So, when he's saying this odd thing about his friend being a "free spirit," I'm thinking, "what, like your wife? Like me?"

I almost came out to him right then, but I don't think it's a good idea to tell people shocking things while they are operating motor vehicles. I mean, if he'd run off the road and hit a mailbox, he would definitely have missed his flight.

So, yeah, some older people don't fully understand the whole newfangled social networking business.

 

I was actually going to do the same thing... Because I find it difficult to tell people with my voice, it would be great to hear how it goes.

 

i think i am the only person in the United States that refuses to do Facebook. I don't care if they shoot bamboo up my fingernails I will never give in !!!

 

But you will.
In time.

 

a lil anecdote to ease your mind

I had to come out to a homophobic friend who had told me to my face that "queers gross him out and frighten him", because i found out that he was on an online dating site that i'm also on and he'd seen me on there (it tells you who has been viewing your profile)

It turns out that he hadn't noticed my orientation at all and was absolutely shocked.... he was on my profile to get ideas about what he should write on his. But it all worked out wonderfully, it made him reconsider his position, and if anything we're better friends now than we were.

It doesn't always work out for the worst.

 

I've had mine as interested in men since I started attending university. Now I'm not the best person at making friends, but only like 2 of the ones i added on facebook seems to have noticed, and they're my best female friends anyway, so they had probably guessed before I told them in person anyway.

Most people would probably assume it's not true unless you're obvious, since it's the first thing people change if you forget to log out of FB on some public computer

 

I only changed mine once I told my parents ... but my friends didn't know.
Surprisingly, they haven't mentioned it at all, but I also think it's because they don't think it's any of their business. Which is awesomesauce.

But tbh, if you changing the 'interested in' shows up on the recent news feed, there is an option to remove it, so then it wouldn't be there for everyone to see and that way, if people notice it and call you out on it, you can just hand wave it away as if it's no big deal. Because by you changing it casually, that's what it looks like, and people won't come up to you and make a big deal because it would make them look silly and over the top ... know what I mean?

Though I think maybe you should have told your mum first. Maybe you should tell her before she sees it on FB? That way it looks like you told her first?