Enzo94: ‘How did your parents react when you came out?’

It didn’t go to well for me; honestly it was one of the saddest moments of my life.

Do they accept you now?

At first, my mom was OK with it. When I told my dad, he freaked out, said I was going to be unhappy the rest fo my life because I wouldn’t find anyone to love me, and then my mom jumped onto his ship. Now my mom completly accepts it and is OK with it, my dad just pretends that conversation never took place. And my sis was rather unfazed about it, she had known for years.

I’ve never told my parents but it’s clear they know (putting know in italics because it’s synonymous to have-enough-proof-to-prove-it-but-are-comfortable-in-denial). Despite neither of them having heard it from me (but easily implied from the porn they’ve discovered countless times, etc), they seem to be holding out hope that someday I’ll be straight.

My mother vocalizes her disdain for gay people (and boy does she really hate them) and expresses a muddled understanding of my sexuality, i.e. ‘We don’t know what Kevin likes,’ or ‘Kevin probably won’t get married and have kids,’ then other days she’s trying to hook me up with some girl from her job. She basically outs me to my family by suggesting that I am sexually confused, which pisses me off. In the meantime every step I take and every aspect of who I am and what I do is carefully observed and critiqued. She controls the friends I hang out with (as best she can, but I hardly bring people around her anyhow), because she doesn’t want them ‘influencing’ me. She wants to regulate my clothes, so I don’t dress too gay (but I don’t tolerate it because how can I be fierce and bad ass wearing baggy jeans and shirts?!).

I guess it bothers me because if and when I come out to her, she’ll flip. Ultra conservative and flippantly so, she’s stubborn and doesn’t care much for feelings. My father on the other hand is a pastor and we’ve never had much of a relationship. I would do the deed and just come out, but I feel like I should allow them to keep living in their world of make-believe. It doesn’t really impact me if they don’t know for sure and they’re just ‘guessing.’

There’s so much more to it and I could write pages, but coming out would be a proverbial shit-hitting-the-fan moment in my life. It would be the actualization my worst fears.

What I don’t really understand is why everything is fine as long as they don’t know, or you haven’t said it from your own mouth, but is clearly deducible.

You can submit your own story to mrgayscom[at]gmail[dot]com