Coming out won’t be easy. It won’t make your life beautiful all of a sudden; but it will be a liberating experience, for sure. It is difficult, but why suffer and suffocate yourself in silence when you can come out of your cocoon, all ready to fly and make this world your own?
Hi, I am Claire and that is the only information about my identity that I can reveal. You see, I haven’t come out of the closet officially, but some people who I love and who care about me know that I am homosexual. By not coming out officially, I mean that my parents don’t know anything about this yet.
The following post is a series of experiences of me and my friends and I think that I should write about these experiences just for the sake of awareness and nothing else. I want to give you the real picture of it. If you may know, I read an essay by Hazlitt today; the British essayist taught me to write in an adorned language when I am trying to genuinely reach out to people — I do not want the main purpose to get lost so I am keeping the post simple and direct. Pardon me for writing this without any flourish:
1. In my teens, I had a girl best friend. I was a class topper and studying hard was all I knew. Of course, I did not have a boyfriend. My sister used to tease me saying things like, “You are a lesbian. Go kiss your best friend”. I didn’t know about my sexuality back then. But being teased like that made me feel bad and inferior. For a long time, I thought that being a lesbian is something that one should never be.
2. I had been ‘in love’ with a boy for 3 years or at least I thought it was love. I would think about him the day long and my skin glowed and bushed in his company. When he tried to kiss me, I distanced myself saying that it does not feel right. In reality, I had felt gross when we tried to kiss. It has been two years since we parted ways. I do not feel anything for him anymore (or any other boy for that matter). I realised that all this while, I was just subscribing to the norms and was doing what was expected of me — to love a man. This was not who I was; this was something people wanted me to be because of my sex. I think I like women.
3. I was still wondering how to come out to my parents when I thought of coming out in front of one of my close friends; she was from my generation so I thought she could help me out with this. When I told her that I was a lesbian, she said that I was joking. Later, she saw my face, realised that I was being genuine, and said that she had not expected ‘this’ from me. I thought that the conversation was taking a wrong turn and I immediately lied saying that I was checking out her response for a friend who wants to come out and wanted to know who to approach first, friends or family. She walked away from me saying that I was a homophobe who was lying to her for the sake of entertainment. I haven’t been able to sleep in peace ever since. But I know that I was not wrong.
I still don’t know how to come out now that even people my age have started being disappointed in me, but I want to because I want to be fair to my girlfriend.
I know that coming out is not easy. That is why I brought out these real-life experiences of three people that I know. Having said that, I also want to emphasize the fact that your priority is you. I am not saying that coming out will be a beautiful experience, but it will be liberating for sure. Life won’t become easy all of a sudden, but it will be a better experience to spend it with someone who you want to be with. Take your time, listen to your heart, take that leap of faith, and come out. Who knows next time when I talk to someone, I have your example to give.
This post might’ve taken a serious and unexpected turn, but we think that it is important to let something of this sort out once in a while. Both fun and hope are important, and we believe in keeping a balance between social responsibility and entertainment. On this note, why don’t you check out this blog it-s-high-time-we-understand-that-responsible-behaviour-mutual-respect-has-no-gender on Fuzia?
Originally published at https://www.fuzia.com.