One of my vacations this year (just last week) was to visit my old best friend in high school. He's an interesting character, self-made, independently wealthy, decided after a failed marriage to have children via egg donor and surrogates, now has four little boys... definitely not a conformist. Anyway, way back in senior year when I confessed to him that I was sleeping with my other (female) best friend, he observed, "Yeah, I kind of thought that's what was going on." So last week as we were sitting at the dining table, just the two of us, I said point blank, "I think I might be a lesbian." He gave me a Spock eyebrow and said, "You're just now figuring this out?" So we had a good laugh, and then I told him I wanted to come out to my family and he said, "Why? What does it matter what anyone thinks?" Exact same words that my former FWB said to me a few weeks ago when I told him the same thing. But he's yet another independently wealthy man so maybe my sample is small and biased. I said, "but what if I want to bring a girl with me to visit my family sometime for the holidays" and he said, "so bring a girl." I don't know, it bothered me, I feel strongly that coming out even without a relationship is important to me. I do care about my label. Maybe it's just because I have no evidence of lesbian (or any) attraction in my life right now, and I want a label in order to feel like I have some identity. Or I am trying to make a statement to myself that I am no longer fearful of what others think. I don't think of coming out as trying to get approval. Just the opposite. I see it as once and for all saying, your approval does not matter to me. Or, I refuse to be held captive by what others think of me. It's a statement or a thing I would do for myself in order to STOP others' opinions from having power over me. I guess the solution of these two men is literally that they have no one in their lives that doesn't completely support and accept them. They fulfill no family obligations, they don't do anything for others except their own children honestly. But I can't relate to that, even if I was fabulously wealthy I am not sure I'd relate to that. My relationships with the little bit of family I have do matter to me. They have been kind and I feel they deserve my honesty before I would simply avoid them. If they rejected me, then I could justify staying out of their lives. But I would not want to stay out without giving them that opportunity. It just recently hit me that my silence has implied agreement all these years, with their heterosexual and monogamous ways of thinking and living. It's fine for them but I have hated having to lie or hide or pretend that I relate to it at all. I am so tired of it. I am fifty-one years old. How old do I have to be, to say that I am an adult and that I want to make my own choices? What on earth am I afraid of?
I think what may be liberating for one person can be oppressive for another. So in the end what matters is you have to do you. For me, coming out was a powerful way of accepting myself. I wanted acceptance of my loved ones, but by saying this is who I am, I was also saying, take it or leave it. I understand your drive for wanting to come out. It's liberating for you, it feels empowering. And that's what matters. They (your frirnds) don't have to understand why you are choosing to make the statement you want to make. It can be frustrating to have others view your actions from the opposite lens of how you view it. But in the end, what matters is being authentic to you.
