Accidental out

I've been wanting to somehow get out on Facebook because that would save a lot of one-on-one talking. Yet I couldn't completely bring myself to do it, because it's a big, wide and public world out there and more than a little scary.

But a minute ago I wrote something to a friend that it won't take much reading between the lines to figure out what I'm really saying. I didn't totally say it, though, so maybe this was a good way to break the news...subtly. Whatever: it's done. I wish I could take the saying closer to heart: Those that matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter. Big world indeed!

Indulgence

I spend a lot of time inside my own head. I hash stuff around, fantasize, indulge then eschew guilt; I ponder how to arrange the rest of my life and generally bounce around inside my cranium. All this time spent wool gathering puts me in a pretty self-centered, self-indulgent head space. While this perhaps isn’t always healthy, my fallback excuse is that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. So I examine…and the rest of it.

The greatest danger with self-indulgence is in its interaction with other people. In the first place, if I don’t carefully monitor how I act and what I say, my actions can turn selfish fast. Self-indulgence is one thing; self-centered and selfish are entirely different kettles of fish.

Pressing my process—coming out—on other people is not necessarily selfish or self-centered, but it is by every metric self-indulgent. Honestly: who wants to hear about someone else’s sex life all the time? Understandably, people don’t go around constantly talking about sex; it would lose its mystery and become unbearably mundane. People may think about sex a lot—I do—but we aren’t always particularly self-disclosing about it.

One school of thought is that gay people should voice their preferences and orientation. Theory behind this strategy holds that straight people can thereby learn there is nothing weird or scary about gay people. That enlightenment reduces prejudice and frees closeted gays to more honestly enjoy their own lives and enhanced sexuality.

So on the one hand, it is considerate not to belabor others with my sex life. On the other hand, I am not fulfilling my responsibility as a gay man if I don’t tell others: hey, I’m just a regular guy. I’m gay, but I’m the same guy I always was. Nothing to be scared of in that, is there?

Of course, I’m not the same guy I always was. There is more to me now. But enough about me. Yeah, right!

Truth behind the windshield...

Coming out can be no easy task for anyone; I am no exception. Difficult as the process is, my newfound freedom is liberating. I figure the process must take place slowly; telling only a few close friends identifies who my closest friends really are.

I've learned not to spread the news too far too fast. It is self-indulgent to dominate conversation with my own stuff. I told one old friend and asked him not to tell his wife, even if she threatened to break his fingers. He told her, though, because he knew if she discovered it in a roundabout way, she would break his knees too.

The first thing his wife did was run to the phone to tell folks I’d just as soon hadn’t heard the news like that. But that's part of the deal with coming out. It is easy to lose control of information. My friend explained that although coming out liberates me, it also places responsibility for the information on whomever I tell. I can only hope in the long run truth enhances his understanding.

I've found it's a lot easier to tell women than men because it pushes men's buttons and I never know which way they are going to jump. I told one woman, an old friend I knew was lesbian. I figured she would commiserate and could give me advice.

"Well, I guess you'll be coming down to the Front Range pretty often," she observed. "There aren't a whole lot of gay people up here in the mountains."


At first I thought I could meet men of similar persuasions without travelling, but that hasn't proven to be the case. It takes 8-10 hours round-trip to get to the city, depending on weather over the Continental Divide. A quick hookup doesn't seem appropriate, which among other things, argues for a longer-term, more lasting relationship...wherever.


Well, I guess it's time to go gas up the car.