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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > And sometimes we don't come out
icon5.gif And sometimes we don't come out  [message #65976] Sun, 17 July 2011 14:48 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



My house guests left this morning. We've known them for some 20 years. They're a traditional British couple with Daily Mirror views. Those views are good enough. They're consistent. They have four great kids. Well three great kids and one pretentious genius. Their kids have great kids. I'm Facebook friends with one of them, her husband and her son. I don't hide being gay. The subject never comes up, not exactly.

So why is it that I feel unable to be honest about being gay with them? They can see my blog via Facebook. It seems so false now, not lying, but not telling the truth either.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: And sometimes we don't come out  [message #65982 is a reply to message #65976] Sun, 17 July 2011 23:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
chrisjames147 is currently offline  chrisjames147

Really getting into it
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630



Some people cannot handle the topic, hoping any gay thoughts won't immerge from the shadows. To you it is annoying and perhaps insensitive, but maybe they are afraid to say the wrong things and offend you.

My parents know I am gay but we never speak about it. Of course they are both deaf as a board so I don't really want to have a discussion at the top of my lungs for the neighbors to hear. But that isn't your situation.

Or maybe they feel it is your private business and respect that boundary. You are a married man, perhaps that increases the awkwardnes they feel towards the subject. 20 years of friendship, they must respect you and your wife a good deal.

I don't think heterosexuals are the best source of a conversation about gay issues, although that is one of your strong points. I just don't think they feel the need to bring it up and perhaps put you on the defensive. That sounds like a good reason to talk about the garden or the weather.



Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Perhaps too ...  [message #65984 is a reply to message #65982] Mon, 18 July 2011 13:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
The Gay Deceiver is currently offline  The Gay Deceiver

Really getting into it
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869




... your being Gay is not what defines you in their eyes; and consequently, this has not ever been considered a topic of any merit in discussing you and your family and your place in the overall scheme of things.

I know that in my own circumstances I would feel decidedly affronted if all that anyone ever would remember about me is that I was Gay.

Being Gay is so very little a apart of what makes any of us who we are, where we have been, where we may be going, how we are going to get there, and what we may do once we arrive. Being Gay is the only element of our makeup that we have little or no control over; everything else we may or may not accomplish in life is subject to change; but not our being Gay.

Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada



"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
Re: And sometimes we don't come out  [message #65989 is a reply to message #65976] Wed, 20 July 2011 13:49 Go to previous message
Cameron is currently offline  Cameron

Toe is in the water

Registered: January 2008
Messages: 70



timmy, if I was one of your friends, staying in your home, I would have looked to you for clues on what to say or do(if anything) about you coming out. Since you didn't bring it up, and you are living in a heterosexual marriage I would have assumed you didn't want to discuss it at home. I think it was your call to talk about it or not. Your friends are obviously very courteous as they followed your lead and didn't bring it up.
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