Coming out, the sequel!

Encouraged by how well my first coming out went with my friend Eric, I decided to keep the ball rolling. With Eric I knew he would not turn on me but I was afraid that he would become quiet and that would have been very uncomfortable. What I did not mention was that not only did he not go silent, he could see that I wanted to talk so he brought me back to his place where we talked and laughed for hours. It felt awesome to be fully myself with him and in some way it was like we were meeting for the first time again. He was worried that I had kept this hidden so long, he thought it was too stressful and strongly encouraged me to meet other gay people to have someone to talk to. He also said to pick up the phone if I ever needed an ear. This certainly was not the reaction I was expecting from a straight male friend! The next day I had zero regrets about telling Eric and it made me excited like a kid on Christmas morning.

I knew who I was going to tell next, someone who although I am not really close to, I know always has my back, always keeps my secrets and has been at times my greatest Allie in life, my older sister. I put it off for a few days but I figured I should just get it over with. I made an excuse to come over and see something new at the house, we chatted for a while and I suddenly felt it was taking too long and the conversation was not going where I wanted it to. I just turned and said I'm gay, when I said it there was a split second where I almost cried, my bottom lip did that trembling thing and my brows furrowed, it was not from stress but more from relief. I guess feeling sorry for me she said softly "yeah, I know". Shocked I said "you know, for how long", she said "probably for the last ten or more years" I could not believe what I was hearing. I said "crap you mean I put all the energy into hiding from you all these years for nothing" she had a big grin on her face now and said "yup"! I asked why she never said anything and she told me that she was waiting until I felt comfortable enough to come to her, she said that she knew one day I would come and tell her in my own time. Now I just feel so rotten about all the things I did as a kid to get her into trouble, even though she was already good at that herself. A good friend of my sister's that I have known and respected for years was there, so I figured what the heck and told her as well. She was surprised but went behind my chair and put her arms around me and said congratulations, she said that she never suspected I was gay but was happy that I felt comfortable enough to tell her. They both said that they know some gay people and will arrange for me to meet them so that I will have people to talk to. My sister and I talked for hours, I asked her how she knew. She said it was because I never dated or showed any interest in women, relationships, marriage, etc. I thought great, two more in my corner.

I had asked Eric if he knew I was gay, he said no but was starting to suspect for the same reason as my sister did regarding never dating. Eric's wife knows as well but she has gay family members, so she is cool with it. My last big test was last weekend, I used to worry that once I told Eric we would drift apart because he would not feel connected to a gay friend. I went over to his place and I was curious to see if he would act any different. He did not, he was same as ever. He even teased me that he rented Broke Back Mountain, I was glad he did not, that would have been too strange to watch that with him. He even gave me a little crap for only talking to gay people on the net and told me to get out and meet people, not to use the net as an excuse to shy away from meeting other gay people. Of all the scenarios that I played over and over in my head about coming out, none of them came close to how good it was, even at some points it was actually, - well kind of fun.