Why Now - Why Not?

Lately I have been asked by a few people, since I had hidden being gay for so long, why now. They wonder why I finally decided to come out now. Like I had mentioned before there were a number of reasons that seemed to converge to get me to this point. My friends were starting to suspect, I was tired of being alone, I felt time was slipping away, I felt dead inside, I did not want to die without the feeling of being in love, I was growing tired of trying to keep the straight act from flying apart. These and other reasons came together to finally make me feel that enough was enough. There was another reason I started to come out, one important reason, it was a change in my attitude about me being gay. For years I felt that being gay was like having some type of shameful weakness to be embarrassed by. Like a mental illness in a family that nobody talks about and everyone hides from society. I believed that I needed to keep it hidden, that people might use it against me as flaw to exploit. I feared that if people found out, being gay would invalidate everything about me, my views and opinions would no longer be taken seriously, I would become the cliche gay character in a sitcom, only good for a laugh. I was obsessed with hiding my homosexuality, it was just part of my every day life.

I began to see it differently, I remember hearing the line 'gay people are normal, just their sexuality is different' I thought to myself that if I really looked deep inward, I always felt normal, I just could not figure out how to get everyone else to see that as well. Quickly it was easy to see that the world is geared towards the straight male, it is the reason that young women sell everything from cars to - well almost everything! We just don't fit in to that view of society, so now we have to make room. I used to worry about the people that would not accept me, reject me and laugh at me. Looking around however I could see that to this day there are people that will reject someone because of the colour of their skin, that will laugh at someone that is mentally challenged. It became clear to me that I would not have every ones approval, that I did not need their approval and that these people held no power over me anymore, in fact I have a slight sense of pity for the embarrassing way they show their ignorance. I began to understand it is just a sexuality and don't see what all the fuss is about. I don't feel the need to hide , because to me now there is nothing to hide.

I stalled a bit in the coming out department and felt the need to shake things up again. Last week I made plans with my friends to go out tomorrow. I plan on telling the last two of my really close friends. One of them, Elly I think will be OK with it, she loved watching Queer as Folk and was always trying to get me to watch it. She is the one that I think will try to use me as her fag-bangle, not a chance, my only worry with her is she can't keep anything quiet but I will let the chips fall where they will. The other person Bea, I am really worried about, she never said anything bigoted about gay people but she was set against the gay marriage issue that was brought into law in Canada. She is very big on honesty and may feel betrayed by me deceiving her into thinking I am straight. I really respect her and she is a very important friend to me so I would be greatly saddened if she reacts badly and becomes distant, I will not however change my mind, this is who I am, always was and people can't expect me to be someone else.