Even though I have been gay since birth it properly dawned on me when I was about 14 and still at school. At that point I was happy… Even excited about the idea of a future as a gay man but other than a few school friends nobody ‘officially’ knew. I threw in the quotation marks because it must have been pretty obvious to most people.
Regardless of that I was still mortified by the thought of telling my mum and my sister. One time my sister just asked me during a phone conversation. She told me that a friend of hers who was gay said he wished his friends and family had just asked him to save him the hassle of announcing it. This didn’t work for me. I remember feeling flustered and embarrassed. Even though my family could tell (let’s just say I was flamboyant), until I actually said ‘I’m gay’ they could never be totally sure.
“I was tired of keeping secrets and trying to pretend to be someone else.”
One evening when I was about 16 I left some concrete evidence that got the ball rolling so to speak. I was home alone and decided to write a list of the things I want in life, one being a hunky boyfriend. The next morning, I came downstairs to see my list still laying on the coffee table. Realising I had forgotten and just left it there the panic set in. My mum was pottering around and I just knew she had seen it. I grabbed the paper and quickly put it away. But when I had a chance to look my mum had written next to the hunky boyfriend comment;
Naturally I was mortified and not a word was said about it but as the dust settled in my own mind I felt relieved that it was somewhat out in the open. I was tired of keeping secrets and trying to pretend to be someone else.
“It took some time for me to speak openly about being gay.”
A short time later my mum came home and told me a story. That afternoon she had a conversation with a friend of a friend who told my mum her son was gay. She recalled the conversation to me and mentioned that she told her she thought I was gay. The friend of a friend mentioned some gay bars her son went to and I simply mentioned that I had been to one of those bars. I have no idea if my mum made up the story as a way to help me open up but it worked nonetheless.
Later on, we’re having lunch together and she asked if I had told my sister yet. I admitted that I hadn’t and at this point I felt we both had a mutual understanding of where I was at. It took some time for me to speak openly about being gay but my family were (luckily) always supportive.
Coming Out - James Samuel
James Samuel is a Skincare, Lifestyle & Fashion blogger. Go check out his content!
