When does "coming out" actually end?

I'm starting to feel like there's a difference between "coming out" and just giving updates to people who haven't found out yet. I finally accepted that I was undeniably gay about 2 years ago and came out to a couple of close co-workers. It was a big deal and I was very nervous about telling them. I told my wife and daughters a little over a year ago and it was a very big deal, and have come out to a number of people since then.

Something changed over this past summer, though. I had a very big shift in how I thought about telling people I was gay. Somehow it stopped being about revealing a secret to them, and it became an almost casual thing, like saying "Oh, by the way, we got a new puppy" or something like that. Obviously, the change was in my own attitude towards being gay. I'm guessing that although I had accepted it, I hadn't fully integrated it into who I was yet, and the whole process of "coming out" to people was really more about reiterating to MYSELF that I was gay, with them as a sort of Greek chorus, than actually telling THEM. I was looking for affirmation or acceptance, and risking denial and rejection.

It's very different now. When I tell people, I don't feel like I'm "coming out" to them and don't really even use that terminology. I'm just telling them what's going on in my life now. There's no feeling of risk or fear anymore, and I don't feel like I'm revealing some deep, dark secret. It's like I have come out now, past tense, and there are just people who aren't quite up to speed about it yet. Some people have told me, "You're so brave!" because I'm very open now. I don't feel particularly brave. I'm just a gay man who is at ease being a gay man in my own little world, and it's just who I am. I've come out, past tense. Nothing to see here.

 

My first few tells - mostly people of minor significance in my life, probably as some subconscious testing ground - were nerve wracking. Telling the head of the organization I work for was a sort of landmark, but completely spontaneous and frankly, I threw it out there at her because to me, the work thing was almost a challenge.

Telling my ex. That was a BIG thing. Even though he had asked me point blank a long time ago. And I think his reaction liberated me. I find that there are only two more major 'coming out' conversations that have me stressing, and those are with my kids.

One is just about the right timing. The other... unfortunately the one that's still home, so will be faced with the reality of it the most and who is in the midst of his own natural phase of sexual awakening... I have no idea how to broach. Yet just yesterday I mentioned the woman with whom I had finally 'breached the friend zone' and he asked if she is my "new bestie", so I know that conversation is the most significant on the horizon.

But apart from my kids? I'm finding that I could care less. Let people see me, I'm not feeling the need for some grand pronouncement for everyone else. Yes. A couple of years ago you knew me as the het-wife. This is who I'm with now. Deal with it. I want to walk down the street holding her hand. I want to give her a kiss whenever the moment strikes me. I do NOT want to hide.

Part of me almost wishes I were the sort that could generate headlines and be 'outed' by the local paper. Just get it over with in one fell swoop. Unfortunately the only way I'd make headlines is with an arrest record and I'm not willing to go quite THAT far. :lol:

 

For me, it's that point when you stop sitting people down for a big reveal about your sexual orientation or stop making it the sole purpose of conversation with someone. When you can casually mention something relating to your sexuality in the course of chit chat at the water cooler, I think you can finally say you are past "coming out".

 

It never really does end, theres always someone to cmoe out to

 

Well, I ended up "outed" to the neighborhood when the womanizing gossipy jock asshole 2 doors down inexplicably had lunch 30 miles away at the same restaurant where Richard and I did, and although I didn't see him, he was close enough to hear the conversation AND managed to see us, umm, "saying goodbye" in the parking lot. Which we have always done quite openly, I might add (which feels damn good too!). He spread it around the neighborhood, and to this day, I'm torn between sending him a thank you card, or getting some steel toed boots and giving him a good swift kick in the most painful location possible. It did save me a whole lot of thinking and worrying about how to gently let the neighbors know, though. The band-aid was definitely ripped off for me that time.

 

I don't think it ever really does...as long as you are meeting new people in your life, it will always be necessary to issue some clarifying statement at some point, such as casually mentioning your partner.

With regard to having a partner, coming out will happen during major life events, where seeing you together will necessarily be public. There really is little choice, to my mind; it would be the deepest insult to hide or exclude the one person who is so deeply a part of your life.

 

I think in my mind, I see a distinction between "coming out" and "being out". "Coming out" is that period when you're still adjusting to yourself and your status, and revealing it it people is as much about reassuring YOURSELF as it is telling them. "Being out" is different. That's about just sharing who you are, in the same way that you'd mention being fond of classical music or big dogs, or the fact that you hair color comes out of a bottle or whatever! Maybe the difference is that momentary blip of the heart rate, that flash of anxiety over the potential reaction. For example, my aunt, the matriarch of my mom's side of the family, sent me an email yesterday saying she was hearing rumors about me and my family situation. I sent her a very long reply detailing everything that had happened, scanned through it to make sure there were no spelling errors and that I had covered all bases, and hit "Send".

When I had sent similar emails to my brother and sister awhile back, I had mini anxiety attacks and had to convince myself to hit that "Send" button, because I was unsure about their reactions, and was very nervous about it. But sending the same story to my aunt, I felt no anxiety (and she's a lot more intimidating than my brother or sister are!). I was just telling her the story. I didn't feel anymore like I was "coming out" to her. I was just giving her an update. That made me feel that, at least in my own mind, I'm done "coming out" and I'm just "being out" now. Feels good.

 

Good point, after all, coming out has also been called "having a difficult conversation"...remove the difficulty and you are indeed effectively, simply, wonderfully, joyfully and openly "out"!

 

For me there definitely is a distinction between being out and meeting new people and "coming out". I "came out" for about a week twenty-some odd years ago and then I just was out. I stopped hiding, stopped censoring myself, stopped keeping track of who knew and honestly have always assumed--after that first very difficult week--that everyone would take the information in stride.

From time to time I will realize that someone just figured it out--I'll mention my partner to a client and realize by the momentary motion of their eyes that this is not a situation that has arisen before. But I honestly don't think about it--at all. In fact the reason that those little moments arise is because I don't even keep track of who knows and who doesn't. I tend in fact to assume that everyone knows.

The last person I can remember "coming out" to was a coworker. She had only been with us for a couple weeks but her time was being split between two offices and she was transitioning away from the other office so I actually had only met her a few times, but she had been around the office and met everyone else and every one else knows so it really never occurred to me that she wouldn't know. I didn't tell her I was gay I told her my husband was picking me up after work--not as a way to convey information about my sexuality, but because what I was doing after work came up. Her eyes widened, she said "oh, I didn't realize... (long pause) you... (another long pause) had a husband." And then we went on with the conversation...:lol:

 

So just imagine if most everybody were gay and it was the straight people that had to come out

 

I read an article yesterday, written by a hetero woman titled "7 Ways Sex is Way More Awesome In My 50s Than It Was In My 20s" and her #1 reason was that people are more comfortable with sexual fluidity. To exemplify this she told a story of being contacted by a 35-year-old bisexual woman on ok cupid and having to tell her she had to pass because she was straight. The woman's response? "I didn't think anyone was totally straight anymore."

:lol: How awesome is that? :eusa_clap

 

I had another coming out experience of sorts yesterday....a reporter for the religion section of the metro area paper contacted our gay Catholic support group to see if anyone would give them a few quotes about what it meant to be gay and Catholic. Having more guts than brains, I sent a lengthy email and ended up having a half hour interview with the reporter. While I insisted that she not use my last name in deference to my wife, who can't seem to decide which stage of grief (or psychosis) she's in about all this, there will certainly be enough clues in the final article for anyone from the parish with a brain who reads it to figure out EXACTLY who John the longtime organist is.

While I'll admit to a little anxiety over her unpredictable reactions and how it would affect her, and a momentary flash of panic after I hit "send", it occurred to me that I really was OK with whatever came of it. After all, if I'm going to say I'm out to "anyone who asks", I can't very well avoid giving them the OPPORTUNITY to ask.

Back in June, my boyfriend and I went to Pride and a picture of the two of us got posted to Facebook publicly instead of privately, and I went into such a panic that I had him take it down. There's definitely been a significant shift in my comfort level since then, I guess!

 

For people who define "out" as "everyone they know knows their sexuality", there is no end; can be no end. As Mr. Whale says, as soon as you meet another person, there's someone who doesn't know your sexuality.

BUT, I've never defined "out" that way. I see "out" as a state of mind that says "everyone who needs to know knows; and I don't care who else finds out". To me, if that is your attitude toward your sexuality, then you are out. Sure, occasionally somebody new will "need to know"...but then tell them, without stress and without angst, because *you don't care who knows*.

 

This is how I look at it. Once it becomes just another thing about you--an important one, but just another thing--that some people know and some people don't and you really don't give thought to who knows and who doesn't, then you're out. But I mean really, no considering your pronouns, no editing your partners or attractions out of your conversation.

I liken it to other interests. I love musical theater--I know, I'm breaking stereotypes left and right. I do parties for the Tonys like other people do for the Oscars or even the Super Bowl. I have hundreds of cast recordings. There are numerous shows that I have four or five recordings of different casts doing them that most people have never even heard of. It's a thing about me--it's a thing that I enjoy and that I'm not embarrassed about (I suppose some would say maybe I should be:lol. I make no attempt to hide it--when it comes up I discuss it, when I encounter someone similarly obsessed I discuss it in great length and I don't worry about who overhears, a whole wall of my living room is cast recording and I don't put them away when company comes over. Nevertheless, I would say substantially fewer people know that about me than know that I'm gay--simply because it doesn't come up as often.

The fact of the matter is that most of the way me being gay comes up is through my partner. We go to events together, we go shopping together, he often picks me up from work, we live together. When someone asks what I did last night or over the weekend the odds are good that I did it with him. If you are a salesperson and try to get me to make a major purchase I will respond that I would have to talk to my husband first. If I was not in a relationship maybe being gay would be a little more like liking musical theater. Probably fewer people would know, but I would still discuss it whenever it came up, make no attempt to hide it, not keep track of who knew and who didn't, not worry about who might tell whom. And in my way of thinking still be fully out...