From: gandalf@dworkin.ccs.northeastern.edu (Thomas M Farrell)
Subject: Re: an anonymous posting
Organization: College of Computer Science, Northeastern University
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:25:07 GMT

<sigh> When I came out (only two years ago) I had the unfortunate experience 
that two of my closest friends stopped talking to me. All of our mutual 
friends and acquaintences, as well as myself, universally feel that these
two of my friends are both gay and may even both have had feelings about me,
but that they couldn't deal with my coming out.

One of these friends has resumed contact. He says it was all a misunderstanding
and that he never really meant to stop talking to me and that he lost my phone
number (we live 2000 miles apart) and lots of other excuses. He also is now
engaged. (to a person of the opposite gender.) He is trying very hard to 
convince me that he is straight... despite the fact that I have never expressed
any doubt that he is. (Not before now, anyway, and never to him.) 

The other friend has, as far as I know, fallen off the face of the Earth, never
to be seen again. I don't even know how to go about getting in touch with him,
let alone convincing him to talk with me. He left a big gaping hole in my heart
when he left, because he (unlike the other) made it quite clear that he no
longer wished to speak to me and that it was because I am gay. He also outed
me to some acquaintences, and threatened to out me to my family. (So I came out
to my family a little earlier than I had planned.) He and I had been quite 
close (so close I often wondered if he was coming on to me) and I never would
have thought it of him.

On the whole, I had a very, very positive experience coming out. I have now
come out to everyone I know except one aunt and uncle, but I heard they know
anyway. My family took it well, on the whole, with no more problems than are
to be expected with 70 year old fundamentalist christian grandparents. All of
my female friends had no problem with it. All of my old male friends (with the
exception of the two above) have since come out to me. Yup, all of 'em.
Every single friend I had in high school was gay, and none of us knew about
the others. I have had the honor of being thanked by some of them for 
providing them with the courage (by example) to come out themselves.

I went from a scared teenager who was so afraid to be found out that I 
memorized the meeting information for my college gay student group rather than
write it in my appointment book to a guy who proudly wears blatantly gay
t-shirts everywhere I go (except my office which has a dress code). And I have
(thank God) more friends now than I ever did before.

Coming out was, without any doubt or hesitation, the best thing I ever did in
my entire life. It changed me completely, and all of my friends and family
members agree that it's decidedly for the better. I can't begin to describe
how much stress it lifted from me. And, to take the cake, my coming out
somehow cleared the way for me to finally start to strike up a friendship 
with my father, with whom I had been fighting for 19 years. (I think dad felt
that I had been lying to him, which was untrue [I had never purported to be
straight to him, I just didn't claim to be gay] and my coming out showed him
that I was making the effort to be honest with him.) Just two months ago, 
for the first time in my life, my father told me he loved me. I cried with joy
for days, because it took me 20 years to get him to say it.

Come out of the closet, because wow, isn't the sunlight beautiful!

			Tom