Who did you come out to?

[Emiliano]

So, on balance, do you think that made late adolescence more bearable?

I don't know, I guess so, but not that I think I'd have hidden it or lied about it otherwise. I never made an effort to pretend I wasn't gay, never dated a girl or anything like that. I also have a very loving, supportive family in every other aspect, so I don't think I ever would have worried in the same way some do about being rejected by their family or kicked out for being gay. From about age 9-15 I was going through a lot of shit, those were sort of my dark years, and I wasn't very sexual or social at all. I had an idea I was gay but it wasn't a burden on my mind compared to my preteen existential crisis.

I think I was just mortified by my mom outing me because I tend to be private about all that kind of stuff. The rest of my family is not. So just the fact that my sister and my mom were discussing trying to get me laid (the conversation came up because my sister thought it was time I lost my virginity) and that my mom knew something about me that I had never vocalized to her or anyone else... I mean it made me want to drown myself in my cereal bowl. I'm not exactly a prude, but I'm a very private person in a family of very openly sexual women. I've talked about my crazy family and their obsession with my sex life before on here.

Whether my family knew or not didn't really affect how I related it to my peers and friends though. Again, just because of how I'm private about my personal life, my sexuality doesn't come up much in day to day conversations. But if someone asks me, I say I'm gay.