Hyde, the more I hear about you the more you remind me of myself. Are you a middle child? Middle children are typically the “black sheep of the family” and I feel sometimes that’s what I am. I’m definitely the most liberal, the most open-minded, the most live-and-let-live. Well, regardless of your birth order, I still feel I can relate to you in that way. I don’t think you’re a bad person. I too have some pretty shady friends, but I love them dearly and hope that I am being a good influence to them. I also have a morbid sense of humor that’s about as black as burnt toast and as dry as poster board. I think Hopscotch to Oblivion, a picture of a hopscotch grid drawn on the top of a tall building, is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen. Just thinking about it right now makes me smile. So as long as you remember to keep God central, I wouldn’t worry about whether or not you fit in with your family. Remember, the standard God uses is not your family. The standard God uses is His own perfection – and Jesus takes your place behind the stand, so you are counted blameless in God’s sight. In short, God sees you as spotless regardless of whether or not you are the odd one in your family. I’m sure that you already know all this with your Christian background, but sometimes it’s good to be reminded that as real as rejection is, we must keep it in perspective. I hope that helps you in some way.

Second thing – being afraid to come out to your parents is perfectly normal. I can’t think of any gay teenager who thinks, “Wow, coming out to my parents is so much fun that it’s a shame I only get to do it once.” Maybe somewhere out there a child does think that way, but I’d seriously question that kid’s grip on reality. My guess is that 99.9% of teenagers will have at the very least some anxiety or fear about this. I know I did. As much as we don’t like to admit it, parents are very important to us and we actually do care about whether or not they approve of us. I’m thinking that this trend may change soon as GLBT people become more accepted in mainstream society. It is indeed a shame that in today’s world the phrases “coming out” and “rejection from parents” even need to be associated with each other, but that’s the way the world is right now. But I’m strongly encouraging you though – if you’re afraid to do this, you may just need to do it afraid. Based on what you have told me, I think you can handle most anything. My only concern, and I think this might be true for you too, is the reaction of your parents. Let this thought be absolutely clear in your mind – your parents’ acceptance or non-acceptance of you is entirely their own issue. It’s their battle to work through. You’d be utterly naive to think that, given who they are, at any time you’d be able to come out to them and they would not be thrust into a struggle. You do realize, I’m sure, that at some point in time, sooner or later, you will come out to them. (I wouldn’t say that to just anyone, this is meant specifically for you. I’m pushing you a little bit because I think you can handle it.) So then that means that at this point you are simply delaying the inevitable and in doing so, you are not allowing them any opportunity to work through the struggle.

You are coming out for your own benefit, Hyde. After you do that your parents, because of their religious beliefs, will be put into a difficult position of feeling like they must choose between their beliefs that homosexuality is a sin and their parental instincts to accept you just as you are. Once you come out to them, one struggle – the struggle of keeping a secret – ends and a new struggle – the struggle of having a family that may not feel they can accept you – begins. Both struggles are hard. The difference though is that the first struggle is entirely within your own power to control. You can choose at what point in time you will come out. However, you can not choose at what point in time your parents will decide to accept you because you can’t force your parents to believe anything. You can certainly speed that process along by being understanding and helpful – and also by allowing the process to even start by coming out in the first place – but you must realize that after you come out, the battle that depends on you is now finished – you will have won your battle at that point and in doing so, your parents enter a new one. Therefore – understand this – if your parents do not accept you, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. If that thought is in your head, place it in a box, place that box in another box, mail it to yourself, and then smash it with a hammer. The reason you come out to your parents is not to determine whether or not you will be accepted by them. That will happen or it will not (and if it doesn’t happen right away, note it could happen down the road.) Either way, you are accepted by God and his acceptance is more important than your parents’ acceptance anyway. No, the reason you come out to your parents is to free yourself from a prison of fear, shame, and self-loathing! That’s what I mean when I say you are coming out for your own benefit. You don’t come out to determine whether or not you are acceptable to others; you come out to prove that you are acceptable to yourself.

I hope that helps. And like I said earlier, I’m just pushing you a bit, because I feel like you are a smart guy who can handle way more than he believes he can handle. I’m not as amazing and fearless at this as I may come across in my messages, (my guess is I’m not even remotely close) but I have come out to my parents at a young age and I must say that I did learn some things from it and now I wish to share that knowledge with you. 🙂 I’ll be praying for you Hyde!

good point gettingthere……..possibly there is not a gay man or lesbian in the world who……once they discover or finally accept the fact they are homosexual……will think WOW!……..can’t wait to tell everyone……they be thrilled just like I am. 😆 😆 😆

I’ve set up somewhat of a game plan. Before I tell my family, I want to tell a few more friends, so I can fall back to them if my parents are worse than expected.

It’s tough though, because I want to tell one friend at a time, and it’s rare I’ll ever be able to talk one on one with one of them. I have a friend named Tim, and as a result of him being a guy and stating his negative opinion on homosexuality, I do not wish to tell him. But he shares all the same friends as I, and he is always there during hangouts. So that makes things difficult.

So it will take time. But I’m not going to let any perfect opportunities slip by anymore.

I think you have a good plan, Hyde. You are right to be pro-active about this situation. It’s certainly not something that’s going to accidentally solve itself, it will only happen if you do something about it. I’m happy to see that you are going to take action and I’ll be eager to hear what happens after you do. Just remember, you never know who can surprise you with their response. My best friend too is a guy who had a negative opinion of homosexuality, but since coming out to him, he seems to have loosened up a lot. It’s not an unusual scenario. As AVB often says, the enemy is ignorance, and when your friends are no longer ignorant of gay issues, it will be easy for them to accept you. Some of the biggest supporters of gay people today were once proud of their homophobia – just look at Andrew Marin or Mary Griffith. You are heading in the right direction, Hyde and I hope this encouragement helps you.

As for getting them one-on-one, I don’t know what to tell you about that. I’m sure anything I could tell you already realize and I really did a poor job in that area. I usually came out to people over online chat, which is probably not the ideal way to do it, but it worked. There was one time when I did come out to somebody one-on-one, and I told her in advance that I wanted to talk to her and we set an appointment. Then on that day, I talked to her alone and it was pretty good. But you may actually need to set an appointment for something like this, as I’m sure you realize that one-on-one encounters with people rarely happen spontaneously. If no opportunity comes, you may just need to manufacture one. For example, you may just say “Tim, I’d like to talk to you alone sometime about something important. Would you be able to meet me at this place at this time?” And a benefit of doing that is that you can control a lot of the variables (place, time, etc.) and this can help the situation be much calmer. Again, hope that’s helpful. 🙂 Praying for you.

Thanks, it is helpful =]

I’m always tempted to come out over online chat, but I wasn’t sure if it was the best choice, simply because I wasn’t sure if it was news to be stated via text. Is it, perhaps, not as bad as I think? Or would you still advise one on one?

And, still being fearful of telling Tim, here’s a good example of what I described before. I’m going to hangout with 3 of my friends after supper, and it was just going to be us until BAM, Tim asked to come along to. I kind of wanted to tell those three people. So much for that idea.

And, with the few girls I want to tell, I’m weary to ask them if I could talk to them in private, and pick a date and whatever, because they’re all looking for love. I’m afraid that I’ll get their hopes up, then be like SHA-BAM, I’m gay. And that’s why I asked you here.

Thanks, it is helpful =]

I’m always tempted to come out over online chat, but I wasn’t sure if it was the best choice, simply because I wasn’t sure if it was news to be stated via text. Is it, perhaps, not as bad as I think? Or would you still advise one on one?

And, still being fearful of telling Tim, here’s a good example of what I described before. I’m going to hangout with 3 of my friends after supper, and it was just going to be us until BAM, Tim asked to come along to. I kind of wanted to tell those three people. So much for that idea.

And, with the few girls I want to tell, I’m weary to ask them if I could talk to them in private, and pick a date and whatever, because they’re all looking for love. I’m afraid that I’ll get their hopes up, then be like SHA-BAM, I’m gay. And that’s why I asked you here.

Ah, I see. Okay, that makes sense. (And wow, you are apparently much more popular than I am… but then again I’ve been fairly out at school, so I guess it would be an unfair comparison… )

Coming out over the Internet is not a bad idea. You may think this is “too important” to be done over the Internet, which I understand, but… it’s better to do it online than not at all, right? I’ve done it several times and it serves it’s purpose. There are several pros and cons though. I’m sure you realize what the pros are, or else you wouldn’t want to do it. The main thing is you should recognize what the cons are so that you can compensate for them. I think the biggest one might be the feeling that this is only something that can be talked about “in writing” or “online” and that outside of Internet land we just don’t talk about it. I suffer from that, but I don’t find it that big of a deal. I think a lot of it may also be attributed to my environment as well and also that I’ve reached a stage where I no longer feel it is very important that people know I am gay. For you though, just be aware that it may be a natural consequence and you may find it difficult afterwards to talk about being gay if all you do is write about it. Trying to explain this is hard, but I know this happened to me a lot, where I’m totally comfortable writing to someone about being gay but when it comes to talking it’s hard.

Also, you will miss out on a lot of body language, which means you may easily misinterpret what the other person says. Words make up only a small part of what a person says, most of it comes through inflections and body language. Be aware of that. I could say more but I think then I’d only be making you concerned about things you don’t need to worry about. I’d say the two I mentioned are probably most important. If you do come out online, I highly encourage a follow-up in person. And once again, I’m suggesting something I didn’t do. Ehhhhhhh… I kind of did something similar which was watch for changes in people’s reactions which you’d probably have done even if I didn’t tell you to do it. Anyway, don’t worry too much about that, just remember that in the end a relationship is a two-way deal and after you talk about yourself you need to make sure that you properly understand the other person’s reaction. The motive behind that should be in to preserve and strengthen the relationship, not to determine whether or not you are an acceptable person. Some friends will be uncomfortable if you start raving about guys all the time, some friends may encourage this. Be aware of that and appreciate your friends no matter where they fall on this spectrum, because in the end there is more to friendship than how they feel about you being gay. Certainly there are things about the other person you might be uncomfortable with. Understanding is key. And I’m rambling now.

So to summarize, yes, you can come out online, just make sure that you properly understand the person afterwards because the Internet is an imperfect form of communication. (lol… probably should’ve just said that in the first place! Hah.) 🙂 And all things considered, I still highly recommend you come out face-to-face if at all possible. Think of this as Plan B, not Plan A.

Scratch that, she stopped talking to me.