I'm thinking about asking a straight male friend of mine to be my beard or actual boyfriend since I don't want my mom or friends to know I'm queer just yet. The problem is that he doesn't know I'm queer and this might ruin our relationship. The other option is acctually dating him which I'd be fine with. We're both mutually attracted to each other and he has traits I'm defiantly looking for in a relationship. Then the question would be to tell him if I'm queer or not. And if I'd tell him I'm gender-queer or not. I think it'd be better to tell him so he knows but I don't want our friendship to die or even worse, to be awkward. My mom contantly bugs me about my relationships and she would defiantly approve of him. He has expressed interest in dating me and everyone (our parents, peers, siblings) constantly tell us we should date. So in short he'd be the perfect beard and possibly a perfect boyfriend.:icon_bigg Your thoughts?
Hey Lizz, I guess the main thing I would point out is how honest you are prepared to be with him. The thing that is most likely to ruin any relationship you have with him (whether as a friend or something more) is not being upfront and honest with him. Now, as a friend, you don't necessarily have to Come Out to him, but since you have clear questions about your gender identity, wouldn't you potentially be leading him on by dating him without letting him know that upfront? If you have romantic feelings for him and he may return those, then don't you think you owe it to him to be clear about your gender identity? I'm certainly not telling you to do one thing or the other. I'm just trying to throw some things out there for you to consider.
If he's got mom-approval he's in a pretty good category. So the question is: would it freak him out to date a queer person? Or better that he not know? I don't like that second option. You didn't say but it sounds like you're optimistic that he'd at least agree to dates. Go on dates. Maybe queerness won't faze him.
This upsets me so much cause this is the very reason people don't come out of the closet and the reason there is even a closet at all, what will happen when you meet a girl but she doesn't bother cause you're with this "boyfriend"? But I'm still upset everyone needs to be out so that all the stigma with it goes away hence the "empty" closets website
I actually do like him romantically. Quite a bit actually. He was actually my first crush before I started noticing that I liked girls too. And i can defiantly see us in a long term relationship. I'm mostly attracted to personalities rather than gender so being queer wouldn't be a big part of it. And in the past he's been perfectly accepting. I've always acted like I've felt and he's never had a problem. I don't think he'd be all that suprised or shun me for who I am. Here is the course of action I'll take: 1. Tell him about my gender and sexual identity. 2. Inform him and answer all the questions he has. 3. Possibly ask him out.
Hey Lizz, Your course of action sounds completely reasonable. The only thing I might suggest is that you consider trying to get some idea of his views about sexual orientation and gender identity before you Come Out to him. You could, perhaps, ask him about his views on the issue of President Trump dropping the Obama Executive Order on Transgender use of bathrooms and other LGBTQ issues that might be in the news or just naturally come up. Just my thoughts.
Quantumreality has a good idea there. If you're unsure about his feelings toward LGBT people that would be a good thing to do first. Otherwise that sounds like a pretty solid plan.