From: orc@amber.uchicago.edu (David Parsons)
Subject: Re: Finally Doing It ... Coming Out
Reply-To: orc@amber.uchicago.edu
Organization: Department of Catastrophes
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 05:59:00 GMT

(I used this article before as an excuse for flirting, but there is
actually a serious response I can make to it, so I'll do that now...)

In article <1ddgn3INNkoh@agate.berkeley.edu> rsr@soda.berkeley.edu (Roy S. Rapoport) wonders about outing himself to his parents:
|So ... now, the question is, how does one do this thing?
|I can see two main avenues:
|A) Let it drop in during a casual conversation
|   ("Oh, and so I met him, and he's _so_ cute ...")
|B) Sit them down for a talk
|   ("Mom, dad, sit down please....")
|
|Any suggestions?

  As a matter of fact, I do ;-)

  I decided to formally out myself to my parents back in 1985/1986,
when I got my first real boyfriend.  I ended up doing it to the
both of them in casual conversation, but separately.  With my mum,
it was fairly straightforward; I rang her up and said (more or less
- it's been a while ;-) "I'm dating a man", and then explained to
her that it didn't mean I didn't fancy women, but that it did mean
I fancied both sexes.  With my father, I just told him (while we
were trimming the hedge at home) that I was dating a man, and
didn't bother to mention the B-word at all. (I've never thought of
myself internally as either straight or queer, not even after I got
my first boyfriend, where I *wished* I was a K.6, just so I could
be a better lover for him; in this case, I mislead my father about
my orientation to deny him the luxury of going into denial.)

   My mother had a bit of an idea that I was queer earlier, because
I'd chatted with her about the possibility of being involved with
men on other occasions, and I'd certainly made no secret of being
attracted to the odd man or two when I was a teenager.  My father,
well, that was a little more difficult, because I'd become fairly
estranged from him during college, and I think it came as a
complete shock to him; the furthest he ever came to accepting it
was saying "well, it's okay, but don't ever bring a boyfriend
home", and now that he's twigged onto me being bi, he's gone quite
deeply into denial hoping that men are just a phase.

   Part of resolving things with parents is, at least for me,
making it clear that this is not a negotiable issue, and if they
are not willing to accept it, they will lose you as a son.  In a
lot of ways, I've lost most of the relationship with my father,
because I will not change for him, not in this regard, and he's
desperately uncomfortable with the thought that I'd not only fuck
men, but have been known to develop desperate crushes on them too.
It's hard, true, but the alternative of recloseting myself is
unacceptable, and I'd rather force him to change than kill myself
trying to disguise myself.

  (That said, there are two people on this planet that I'm
remaining closeted to; I am still pretending to be straight to my
two surviving grandparents, who are distressingly fundamentalist
Xian, and very old and fragile.  Having to deflect their
increasingly frequent questions about when I'm gonna find a
girlfriend and settle down like my brothers is, well, annoying in
the extreme, and I only tolerate it from them because I fear that
the truth would kill them.  Dealing with them is *more than enough
self-deception for this camper, thankyouverymuch.)

                ____
  david parsons \bi/ orc@sybase.com, unless the office burned down.
                 \/
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