Coming Out Since "coming out" seems to be such a important part of the "gay experience", I thought I would add my little post-it story to the world wide bulletin board. The first person I came out to was Dannelle. It was the freshman year of college, summer break. Her and I were the only two of our posse that had stayed behind to take some summer classes. Basically, we didn't want to go home to our parents and siblings just yet. We were loving college. During the last two weeks of semester while everyone was going about studying for their exams, my classes afforded me a lot of leisure time, that I spent walking around the city. It would just be me by myself, thinking and looking at the passing strangers, one of my favorite past times. As well, I got a lot of time to do some personal reflection. At the end of May, pretty much all of our friends had left, and summer school hadn't started, so we spent a lot of time together; regularly going out to this seedy little bar to dance the night away (gay club, but I pretended I just liked going for the pop music!!! - how gay was I?)

One day, the internet connection in her room down the hall did not work, so she came into my room to check her e-mail and watch some TV. It was HOT outside, so we decided to turn on the air conditioning really high and just stay in. I was sitting on the bed, kind of blankly staring at the TV. I had made up my mind a few days ago that I would come out to my parents this summer when I went back home, but I had not planned to tell Dannelle anything until the fall when we got back from our summer breaks. However, I was just so excited by the prospect of coming out of the closet, that i sat up and said, "Hey Dannelle, I have something to tell you. I like guys."

She said, "Yeah, I have a crush on my next door neighboor Jim too." Luckily, her reaction was pretty consistent with what other people's reaction have been. It seems that all of my roommates had pretty much guessed my sexuality, they seemed to know instinctually. During Thanksgiving, one of them actually had come out to his parents as well. At that moment, I was elated. It's incredibly cliche, but I did feel that "boulder lifted off my chest" feeling. For a moment, I felt like I was floating above myself, looking down at myself. My first time admitting out loud that I was gay was an extremely out of body moment for me.

From then on, we grew almost inseperable. Best friends. We spent countless hours talking in our rooms, down in the cafeteria. We went out to try and nab her her next door neighbour and me another catch.

I felt that it was a good idea to come out to Dannelle first, before going back home and telling my parents. At the end of the summer, on the plane trip back home, we experienced quite a bit of heavy turbulence, but unlike other times, it did not disturb me. I was so happy with having coming out of the closet, I was too consumed with happiness to go home and tell all my friends and family the news. It was the best summer of my life, I felt I was on the cusp of an exciting and big adventure.  ¶ 1:22 AM 1 comments