For the last couple weeks ive been binge watching the old Ellen sitcom on youtube, cuz, I'm some kind of stereotype. Tonight I watched Ellen come out to her friends and parents, and the episodes after where things get awkward with her best friends. I resonate with how it was nerve racking for her to come out, then it was relief with friends and hurtful with family, then it got awkward with friends and better with family. I havent come out to family yet, but I wonder if the drifting of some of my friends is that sense I was dishonest with them before coming out. Idk. If they are good friends, maybe they will come around. I do mostly feel relief. I just underestimated in advance how hard the transition would be, beyond actual "coming out" conversations. But I think they are right when they say it will get better.
It's great that we have shows and books and things to relate to, huh? I never watched Ellen, but I watched the clip where she came out. Gay YouTubers really helped me to understand myself. YouTube is like gay-mecca (I love saying gay mecca lately). I'm sorry to hear some of your friends have drifted, and that maybe it's because you came out. If that's true, I'd say they weren't real friends to begin with, and you should go round yourself up some more! Easier said than done, yes, but I think it does get better. Hopefully they come around and the drift was for a totally different reason.
I think the friends who drifted started to move away when I was tryi g to decide whether or not to come out and they couldn't figure out what was going on with me and my emotional intensity. Now I suspect that im still emotionally messy to be around and they may feel like I have been dishonest by not sharing for such a long time about a lot of these personal things. Idk.
I don't think dishonestly is what they would feel, but they probably don't know how to act. Culturally most of the training we've grown up with (at least in my area) is to be very negative and maybe even to try to change the person. In the last decade and a half I've really seen that start to change to a more positive welcoming. But it's still new and unpracticed for most people, they have few roll models to pattern their behavior on in a positive way and are kind of muddling through the best they can. Ex: My Trans niece had a date couple days ago in the area, her date used an inappropriate word for Trans while trying to be LGBT supportive. He had the best intentions, but didn't even have the basic words to not be offensive. I know that I feel dishonest , it is part of that shame/closet thing. I don't believe it's a feeling (dishonesty/shame) based on logic or accurate assessment though. I choose to view it like low self esteem, a collection of thoughts that are inaccurate, and that I just need to work through.
Yeah, bunny, thats a good way to look at it. They might just feel awkward because they arent sure what to do. I think part of it for me is that I had rarely ever shared religious views, just that I wished I could have a church, so part of my coming out was saying im from this uber concervative religious bsckground that im giving up, so consequently, I can come out now, and maybe there is judgement happening about religious stuff. Also, I didnt intend to pull S into the closet with me by asking her to keep my info private, but I think maybe she felt that way and that was stressful.
