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    Zuri
  • Zuri
  • Author
  • 02/18/2022
  • 626 Words
  • 1,071 Views
  • 4 Comments
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Ex gay husband - 2. Coming out

When I think back to my coming out, a few key data come to my mind: I came out to my parents on my eighteenth birthday. In the preceding weeks, I had already come out to my brothers, my aunt and my grandma. But in case of my parents, it was different: Even though, they were tolerant overall, I had huge difficulties to tell them. Since I'm twelve or thirteen, I know that I'm gay, but until my eighteenth birthday was coming closer, I hadn't given coming out any thought.

Sure, one could argue that coming out is not a necessity since straight people don't have to come out either, but that's comparing apples to oranges. There's an organization called "SpeakOUT", where volunteer speakers hold speeches about LGBT* topics at schools. They have an exercise where each student thinks about three traits that constitutes them. Then, they start discussions in groups while avoiding mentioning these three traits. This exercise should emphasize how hard it is, to hide an important part of oneself. And this was one of the reasons for me to come out: I accepted my orientation once I was certain about being gay and even though, I hadn't encountered homophobia personally, I experienced heteronormativity in my everyday life. For instance, if I was asked if I had a girlfriend yet, there were a few possible ways to react:

Denying it since having a female partner was simply ineligible

Denying but translating "girlfriend" to "boyfriend" in my head since I was single anyway

Coming out by correcting "girlfriend" to "boyfriend" verbally

The problem with this is, that I were forced to react to this in one way or the other. If I didn't come out, I would hide a part of myself; if I did, someone else determined when I had to come out. That's why I decided to flight forward: I came out on my eighteenth birthday.

∞

Mark and I didn't need to come out to each other, because the community where we met was specifically for young gays—so this was certain from the very beginning.

The day after my surprise wedding, Colin continued our conversation we had in the group chat. He hemmed and hawed and eventually informed us that he had to tell us something important. All with a sudden, he was unsure on how to begin. All the confidence he had yesterday when making his marital choice seemed to be gone. Yet, he was sure about one thing: That he wanted to tell us something. He wanted to tell us something, he seemingly hadn't told anyone ever before, or just very few people he trusted no matter what. Either way, that meant that he didn't only trust me in being a good husband, he also trusted us in general. The trust seemed to be that strong that he wanted to tell us something with which he had huge difficulties to call it as it was.

The safe space the group was eventually seemed to be enough to give him the confidence he needed. "I'm gay", he blurted out.

∞

A little later, he told us how the hare was set running: At school, Mark had always teased him, that he had to be gay. Of course, Mark couldn't have known how right he was—part of it was just his humor and the other part was just an assumption that could have been wishful thinking just as well. That recently reached a point at which Colin asked Mark to stop making these jokes, because he was indeed right. Surprised and happy to be right—exposing a gay person hadn't been his intention—Mark reduced his insinuations, because a complete discontinuation of his badinages might have been suspicious.

Copyright © 2022 Zuri; All Rights Reserved.
  • Like 9
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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James K

if I was asked if I had a girlfriend yet, is an example of why you needed to come out, to pre-empt being forced into saying, no you aren't into girls. It doesn't convince me about the need to come out, only to be out. You would want to tell your friends, maybe your parents, all depending on age and safety, but you will still come face to face with the same type of question from those who don't know you are gay. My answer would be to inform the person when it happens. Of course, sometimes this leads to bizarre reactions, like: "You don't look gay!" This prompts the response, "What do gays look like?" Other times the reaction is more: "I never knew you were gay." No, of course not, but I just told you, so what?

Your autobiographical extracts of navigating through life's paths are very interesting. I am a little upset no one has commented, because you deserve at least recognition for putting bits of your life out there. Plus that is difficult when English is a second language. Explaining your inner feelings and emotional thoughts in your own language is hard enough. Something that becomes apparent in the next chapter, friend crush. How do you know if a friend feels what you do? I have had a huge friend crush and the boy never knew I was gay. It turned out he didn't like gays, or maybe understand being gay. I was glad I never did anything, even though his little touches and way of being made me more and more attracted to him. Later, some years later, he was living abroad and sharing a house with his new best friend, who was gay! How weird is that? So, I think finally he changed his mind about gays and it wasn't he didn't like us, maybe he didn't understand, maybe he just never thought about it, maybe it just took time? 

  • Like 2
Zuri

Hey @James K, thanks for stopping by!

4 hours ago, James K said:

Of course, sometimes this leads to bizarre reactions

I had both possible reactions (both "I had a certain feeling" and "wait, what?") ^^
In the end, I guess, it comes down to if you are willing to stand the constant microaggressions, heteronormativity creates.

4 hours ago, James K said:

Your autobiographical extracts of navigating through life's paths are very interesting.

I can assure you, it was as interesting to write. Before that, I thought, autobiographical stuff would be easier to write down, but it turned out, that this had its very own challenges ^^ Sometimes, I couldn't remember certain details such as dates or the exact order in which things happened. Let alone, scrolling through endless instant messenger conversations 😂

It's said, that fact is stranger than fiction. I didn't give that much thought until I wrote this story down. There were so many occasions where the protagonist did something incredibly stupid despite the obvious solution.

4 hours ago, James K said:

I am a little upset no one has commented, because you deserve at least recognition for putting bits of your life out there.

Much obliged.

 

4 hours ago, James K said:

Plus that is difficult when English is a second language. Explaining your inner feelings and emotional thoughts in your own language is hard enough.

Oh, don't get me started 😂 That's the second story, I'm translating from German into English. The first one was a short story (thank god) and I frankly absolutely hated it because it was quite exhausting. I wanted to stay as close to the original while, at the same time, having an as authentic as possible result. I'm glad, this process works a lot smoother with this one. But I must say, writing directly in English is just so much more fun 😉

 

Thanks for sharing your story as well. It was quite interesting :)

  • Like 1
drown

I never realized how you had to come out again and again in your life.

Came out as gay to my dad at the age of 17, that was … a shit show lol. Then moved, went to university, and had to come out all over again. Wasn't easier in the least. Then started working, and again I was closeted, and had to come out again.

Probably took me until I was 30 that I stopped caring. Such a long road. Now I easily correct people when they just "assume", and sometimes I wear pride colors just to give an extra hint so people stop bothering me. So freeing...

  • Like 1
Zuri
12 hours ago, drown said:

I never realized how you had to come out again and again in your life.

Came out as gay to my dad at the age of 17, that was … a shit show lol. Then moved, went to university, and had to come out all over again. Wasn't easier in the least. Then started working, and again I was closeted, and had to come out again.

Probably took me until I was 30 that I stopped caring. Such a long road. Now I easily correct people when they just "assume", and sometimes I wear pride colors just to give an extra hint so people stop bothering me. So freeing...

Sorry for all the detours in my story, but that's just how my head works, in general 😅 Everything comes with a fun fact as a footnote 😉

I actually wrote a blog post about the apparent need to come out. When I wrote the chapter, I didn't seem to know the term "microaggression" 🤔 ^^

Yeah, I stopped coming out a few years ago in my mid-twenties, and since then, it's not a big deal anymore. Funnily enough, once I started to just casually drop that fact within a conversation where it seemed needed, it wasn't such a big deal for the other person anymore either as compared to the "I have to tell you something …".

 

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