out

There was no official date as to when I outed myself. I remember it was back in college, where i had my first “real” relationship (i had a previous partner back in high school. He was 23 while I was 15 and we lasted only for 3 months and met only thrice). It wasn’t exactly the way I planned it (well, i really wasn’t planning to out myself that time). A classmate of mine accidentally saw a doodle that I did at the back of my ex-bf’s notebook and that was it. No questions were asked and no one seemed to have frowned upon what they had discovered as if it’s a normal thing. I was actually surprised by how easy my friends have accepted the fact that one of their classmates (or should i say 2 rather) is gay. It wasn’t what i had in mind. The paranoid me always thought that once i outed myself, all of my friends will slowly drift apart as if i have a dreaded communicable disease that one should be cautious of. But that wasn’t the case.

It was a different feeling when i outed myself to my high school friends. I usually categorize my friends in 2 types: “high school friends” and “college friends”. The latter knew it first since me and my ex-bf were in the same class and like what i said before, we got accepted easily (even by our professors). It was a wee bit different to my high school friends. though no one voiced out disappointments, i can sense a feeling of “panghihinayang” . some also got offended when they knew that i outed myself first to my college friends, as if there’s a hierarchy that i must follow or protocols as to who should i tell it first. A sensitive guy (gay) that i am, i easily got offended and slowly distanced myself away from them. Personally, I expected a lot from them. I thought they would be the supportive one and would encourage me to be true to myself since they knew me even before high school. We were classmates for almost a decade. Yet, they were the one that made think twice about what i did.

As for my family, i remain to be in the closet up to present. Honestly, it’s not their feeling of anger that i’m afraid of because i understand where they are coming from since I am the only son out of 4 kids. It’s their feeling of disappointment, much like what happened when i told my HS friends. what if they didn’t accept me for who i am, Who will i turn to now? There should be, forgive me if i am not aware, a support group for this. I know i’m not the only one carrying this burden. There are even PLUs who are even on a worse situation than i am.

I’m not thinking of outing to my family anytime soon. but i have a gut feeling that they know it already, they just don’t want to confirm it. It’s like a giant pink elephant in our house that no one pays attention to. For now, i’ll leave the giant pink elephant be, hoping that no one would notice.