My Coming Out Earlier Today - Warning, lots of reading ahead
01-26-2013, 10:51 AM
First a quick back story. Last week Friday (one week ago to this day) I came out to a guy I have a crush on at work. He had said some very pro homosexual things during a supply run we made for work. I was hoping he was gay and had to ask him out. Turns out he's not gay, but since then we have been talking more off and on. I don't know why I'm so comfortable to talk to him. He's very open minded and has lots of questions.
Fast forward today and he approaches me. We wind up talking about the usual stuff like why I'm so afraid of letting my secret out. I tell him I don't want alienation and that it's hard enough to fit in. He says people will hate but others will accept it. He says just be friends with people who accept you and tell the other's to eff off. The man is wise beyond his years. I've been wanting to tell people for the last week, but every time I try my mouth would go dry and my head would start spinning. Not to mention the massive butterflies in the stomach.
Right about now another coworker I know pretty well is walking by and I just say "Hey ***** did you know I'm gay?" He stops and is like "I had no idea." Anyways I'm beside myself that I told another person and the conversation ends pretty abruptly as I walk away. Curse my bashfulness. I hear them start talking to each other no doubt about me. My crush is clearly happy to have someone to share this information with. The poor guy had been keeping the whole thing quiet because he told me it wasn't his decision to make it public.
Anyways, later that day during lunch the second coworker is sitting in the lunch room near the exit. He sees me come in and sit down at an empty table towards the back. I glimpse him getting up and I'm thinking, well there's the first guy that can't stand to be around me. Fortunately I was wrong and instead of going out he comes back to me just to talk about how he's making less money due to the tax increases and that he's not quite sure how to tell how much of his paycheck is overtime. It was such an odd thing to say but clearly he was trying to make small talk. I believe it was his way of showing that he was okay with who I am and we could still chat about things. So we small talked about finances and working overtime for several minutes. Then he had to get back to work because his lunch break was over.
Next was my boss and the couple people that work in his office. He called me in to handle a specific set of deliveries that needed to go out. Well I was feeling rather cocky and just said. "You got it. Also I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I'm gay." He's a cool boss but a little younger than me with a wife and kid. He smiles and says "Well good for you!" and it was a big smile. Again I get a serious case of bashfulness and say "I can still deliver those orders right?" He says "Of course." So I high tail it out of there. The office lady one cubicle over looked rather disgusted though. She's the office gossip though so I know my little secret is public information now.
Now here's the unexpected thing. Just outside the manager's office is a staging area. One of the guys there overheard my confession. He's an African American guy, built solid, ex-military, born in Compton, loves to talk guns and is just a general bad ass.
He comes in to the lunch room later with a couple of his buddies. He sees me and starts talking to them about having once lived in a very racist town. Not only were they racist towards him, but bigoted towards his roommate who was transgendered. This bad ass black guy would regularly pick up his transgendered roommate from work because he didn't want him/her to get beat up. Eventually his roommate became a her and got married... to his brother. Wow, this guy is telling his buddies all this and didn't care what they thought of it. Of course they were making the "did you date your transgendered roommate?" jokes and laughing. He was totally serious and I was totally engrossed in his story. It seemed he was telling me this story, but through his buddies. I couldn't turn my eyes away and while he told it he kept looking over at me. I just kept nodding my head in agreement. Now I'm not transgendered, but it was his way of sharing his acceptance of the LGBT community. Later I thanked him later for his story and he told me to "stay strong" and that was still invited to go out shooting with him and a couple buddies some time. (That's his hobby. I told you he was a bad ass)
I must say this day was an emotional roller coaster. I'm extremely glad I came out. So far no bigotry (but it's probably coming though. I know a couple people who are the worst) and it's amazing that these two guys who I'm not extremely close with both showed me support. It was really cool!
Now part two will involve telling the other drivers in my department. I'm much closer with them and it's been hard. I think most of my adrenaline was used up telling the first people. I just didn't have it in me to say anything more and my body felt physically drained. All I wanted was a nap.
I'm posting this here for all to read in hopes that it may give someone else that little extra edge they need in coming out. Good luck and prepare for an amazing roller coaster ride!
Fast forward today and he approaches me. We wind up talking about the usual stuff like why I'm so afraid of letting my secret out. I tell him I don't want alienation and that it's hard enough to fit in. He says people will hate but others will accept it. He says just be friends with people who accept you and tell the other's to eff off. The man is wise beyond his years. I've been wanting to tell people for the last week, but every time I try my mouth would go dry and my head would start spinning. Not to mention the massive butterflies in the stomach.
Right about now another coworker I know pretty well is walking by and I just say "Hey ***** did you know I'm gay?" He stops and is like "I had no idea." Anyways I'm beside myself that I told another person and the conversation ends pretty abruptly as I walk away. Curse my bashfulness. I hear them start talking to each other no doubt about me. My crush is clearly happy to have someone to share this information with. The poor guy had been keeping the whole thing quiet because he told me it wasn't his decision to make it public.
Anyways, later that day during lunch the second coworker is sitting in the lunch room near the exit. He sees me come in and sit down at an empty table towards the back. I glimpse him getting up and I'm thinking, well there's the first guy that can't stand to be around me. Fortunately I was wrong and instead of going out he comes back to me just to talk about how he's making less money due to the tax increases and that he's not quite sure how to tell how much of his paycheck is overtime. It was such an odd thing to say but clearly he was trying to make small talk. I believe it was his way of showing that he was okay with who I am and we could still chat about things. So we small talked about finances and working overtime for several minutes. Then he had to get back to work because his lunch break was over.
Next was my boss and the couple people that work in his office. He called me in to handle a specific set of deliveries that needed to go out. Well I was feeling rather cocky and just said. "You got it. Also I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I'm gay." He's a cool boss but a little younger than me with a wife and kid. He smiles and says "Well good for you!" and it was a big smile. Again I get a serious case of bashfulness and say "I can still deliver those orders right?" He says "Of course." So I high tail it out of there. The office lady one cubicle over looked rather disgusted though. She's the office gossip though so I know my little secret is public information now.
Now here's the unexpected thing. Just outside the manager's office is a staging area. One of the guys there overheard my confession. He's an African American guy, built solid, ex-military, born in Compton, loves to talk guns and is just a general bad ass.
He comes in to the lunch room later with a couple of his buddies. He sees me and starts talking to them about having once lived in a very racist town. Not only were they racist towards him, but bigoted towards his roommate who was transgendered. This bad ass black guy would regularly pick up his transgendered roommate from work because he didn't want him/her to get beat up. Eventually his roommate became a her and got married... to his brother. Wow, this guy is telling his buddies all this and didn't care what they thought of it. Of course they were making the "did you date your transgendered roommate?" jokes and laughing. He was totally serious and I was totally engrossed in his story. It seemed he was telling me this story, but through his buddies. I couldn't turn my eyes away and while he told it he kept looking over at me. I just kept nodding my head in agreement. Now I'm not transgendered, but it was his way of sharing his acceptance of the LGBT community. Later I thanked him later for his story and he told me to "stay strong" and that was still invited to go out shooting with him and a couple buddies some time. (That's his hobby. I told you he was a bad ass)
I must say this day was an emotional roller coaster. I'm extremely glad I came out. So far no bigotry (but it's probably coming though. I know a couple people who are the worst) and it's amazing that these two guys who I'm not extremely close with both showed me support. It was really cool!
Now part two will involve telling the other drivers in my department. I'm much closer with them and it's been hard. I think most of my adrenaline was used up telling the first people. I just didn't have it in me to say anything more and my body felt physically drained. All I wanted was a nap.
I'm posting this here for all to read in hopes that it may give someone else that little extra edge they need in coming out. Good luck and prepare for an amazing roller coaster ride!
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
Gemini
