Am I in Love?

[ClosetCase]

There is no "good" way to actual break the news. Approaching it from a business road makes it souless. Granted, breaking the news to the family over christmas dinner is not the best of ways, but breaking the news leads to the "five stages of greif" process in those who have considered homosexuality as wrong.

Those stages, while applies to grief for death apply to many things.

Denial will be the first "You can't be gay" or "You don't look gay"

Then bargaining, often followed by resentment and/or anger... then there comes acceptance in many instances.

I broke the news to my father when I was 24.... that is 26 years ago... He still hasn't found the acceptance. Which is ironic considering he has a couple of gay friends, and a couple of black friends, and Jewish friends. Just say my father likes to collect tokens, but not because he actually likes them.

I say that to demonstrate how the ones you expect to react one way react another way.

Formal letters tend to work only if you don't want to see them react, or if you fear for your life.

The best method in the case of family is to approach the more "reasonable" or nurturing member. This isn't always Mom...

Letting that person know first, and telling them before hand that they are the first shows that you trust them and need/want their help to take the next step.

I know a guy who decorated his apartment with rainbows and posters of scantily dressed men and threw a dinner party. The funny part is that with all of these "clues" just one person he invited which included parents, siblings and "grandma" the stout and traditional Catholic who never accepted Vatican II got the "hint". According to him grand ma kept on chuckling as each course of the meal was a specific color (it was a six course meal) and had other "clues" as to it being a really, really gay meal.

IT didn't work well, especially since grandma finally couldn't stop laughing and called everyone present "idiots" for not understanding what was going on, and what kind of dinner they were attending. Its my understanding that Grandma had many vices, one of them was the ability to swear like a sailor.

Eventually the family came around, the best part was that Grandma, for all of her Catholic Morality was the first one to totally accept (She knew along time ago) him for what and who he is.

Whilst I wouldn't suggest this sort of dinner party (Come on, dinner parties are the height of social and civil discourse), its not well suited for most people.

If you have friends who don't know, perhaps try out different verbal approaches. Verbal is better than letter, because letters are impersonal and makes it feel like you are not open to discussion, or worse, you already know the person's reaction. While you most likely know their reaction, a person who knows you know will go into denial and then they claim that they would have accepted whatever had you only given them the chance.

Ultimately it boils down to short and simple. Just say "I'm gay."

Then let what ever happens happen.

Thank you for the great insight! I just want to make sure I do it in a respectable way. So if that just means a simple I'm gay then that's all I'll say.