Big Gay Closet

Our newest contributor came to us via our new Contact Us form. Apparently she’s been a die-hard romantic for a very long time.

I remember when I was no more than nine years old, and on holiday in northern France with my family. I had made the acquaintance of several lovely older girls from Scotland on the merry-go-round one day.

One of the girls, Vivienne, used to tell me how much she liked my shoulder length brown hair, how shiny and silky she thought it was and could she stroke it? We weren’t exactly friends but we talked whenever we met up by chance around the campsite. I was obsessed with hanging out with these girls, and used to drag my older sister to the playground whenever her teenage self consciousness subsided enough to allow it.

The evening before we left the campsite to travel home, I was walking back to another friend’s tent with her. When we reached the tent we said goodbye and I went to go back to the caravan my family was staying in. The tents for the kids’ activity clubs on the campsite were close by, however. In the tents there were lots of arts and crafts materials, amongst other toys. I snuck into one of the tents and located safety scissors in the half light.

Knowing what I was doing was a kind of secret,and embarrassing, I cut off a lock of my hair, just at the nape of my neck and put it into my fleece pocket before sneaking out of the tent and running over to the playground. The adored girls were there, as usual. I gave the lock of hair to Vivienne and she was really surprised that I had cut off my own hair for her. It was then I realised that my behaviour must have been a little odd, something beyond a friendly kindness, so I went back home, feeling confused and awkward.

The next day I was going for an early swim before packing up to leave, and she came up to me, to say she still had my lock of hair and how she’d remember me by it. I was pleased and embarrassed by her attention and mumbled something akin to ‘anytime’ before scuttling off.

It’s only looking back on this episode now, that I realise that it was the first time I really fell for a girl, and I thought so little of it at the time, until I saw it from a different perspective. It was so natural and easy for me that my being gay should have been easy to come to terms with! Sure, I’m only being consistent.

Keeire talks about her decision to tell her best friend first in Choosing Amy.

EmerCait23 told us about choosing a gay friend to tell.

ButchyMcFab told her best friend while buying booze underage.

I told the first person I saw after I decided to come out

Our coming out stories are shaped by who that person is that we were able to tell before anyone else.

So tell us, who did you tell?

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Today we have a coming out story from another Irish woman, who came out many years ago and is now married with cats & dog.

Coming out to myself was much easier than coming out to those I love. I had dealt with things fairly quickly but dragged my heels when it came to telling the people in my life. My worst nightmare was telling someone and have that person turn their back on me because of my sexuality.

A drink, to celebrate!

I had reached the point were I needed to tell someone. I decided to come out to a very close friend first, a friend who I knew I could trust and who I hoped would help me on my journey. I chose someone who had been one of my best friends for years and who still is one of my best friends. Someone I loved and respected. Someone who is one of those people that everyone should have in their lives. I knew she would stand beside me, hold my hand, tell me to keep my head up and just be there for me 100%.

I chose Amy.

Once I decided this I needed to get it over with quickly before I changed my mind, so I asked Amy if she would like to go to see a football match that was being played in the next town over. Neither of us had any interest in the football match but it would give  us the time to be alone to chat.

I collected her the following evening and we drove in silence to the game. I parked up, turned the engine off and swung around in my seat so I was facing her. For the next 10 minutes we spoke about everything except what I really wanted to talk about. Then the uncontrollable tears….

When Amy grabbed my hand and asked me if I was pregnant, my tears turned to laughter!

“No! I’m gay.”

“Oh. Is that all? Well give me a hug and lets go for a drink and celebrate!”

And we did just that!

Amy was my strength, my shoulder to cry on and she gave me the kick in the ass that I needed  in order to get my new life on track. Amy is also the reason why I was in the George (gay bar in Dublin) that night, the night I discovered love at first sight does exist.

Another guest post. This time, from a young Irish woman who has just started her coming out process.

I only came out very recently to those who need to know. Lots of people still don’t know.

last summer, I told one of my closest friends, who happened to just have come out himself, that I thought I might like girls. I was insisting that I was bi-curious. He was shocked but he was great about it, even more so when I told him a few months later that I was pretty sure I was a lesbian.

In that time I had also told two of my other best friends. The difference in their reactions was amazing. One was great about it and said that nothing had changed. The other one was unsure. She kept telling me that I just had no self confidence, and that sooner or later I would meet a man. Since then she has slowly come around to the fact that I am actually gay.

I told my father after he kept pressing me to know where I’d been one weekend. I’d told him I was going to Dublin and it wasn’t a lie, but he knew something else was going on. All that I had planned to do was go to a gay club, nothing criminal-like. My father is pretending I never told him, so we don’t speak about it. My brother doesn’t talk about it either, but we’re alike in many ways so he doesn’t really care who I date.

I first told Natalie. I was 16 and we were in an off licence (liquor store). She asked me why I was bothered by some homophobic remarks that someone we were hanging around with had made. I looked at her and told her that I was gay. She shrieked at the top of her voice, “You’re a lesbian?”. Everyone went really quiet in the shop and looked at me. I just grinned at them. Natalie soon told everyone including my two younger brothers. Dave said that he didn’t care which way my gate swung, and Dan was more concerned that I would become a vegetarian. I guess being gay is less horrifying than not eating meat to him. I made them promise not to tell my mom.

What was your first clue?

I went to Uni and still hid it from everyone. A week before my 19th birthday my mom phoned and told me that she had been talking to Dan and that he had told her something. I knew immediately what was coming next. Before I could say anything she made me promise not to kill Dan and that she already knew that I was gay. The Xena posters I had when I was younger tipped her off. I really wish she had asked me, all that worrying for nothing! She also told me that pretty much everyone on her side of the family knew as well and were fine with it. It was kinda anti climatic. In my head I had visions of her disowning me and I had planned out what I was going to say to her, I didn’t plan for this and was a little lost for words.

It wasn’t till I was about 25 that my dad told me that he knew. I knew that he knew because he knew I was living with my then-girlfriend and there was only one bedroom. We had a don’t ask, don’t tell thing going on. After I broke up with my girlfriend, I went round to my dad’s one night. We got talking and he told me that he knew, and that he had known since I was little. Growing up I had told him about various girls I wanted to marry. I was 6yrs old when wanted to marry my best friend Nicola, then when I was 8yrs old and wanted to marry one of my female teachers. The Xena posters also kinda confirmed his suspicions.

I wish that he would’ve brought it up years ago. I wish that I had the courage to bring it up. We had a serious communication breakdown. So much worrying for nothing. My dad told me he watched some program about gay people to better understand the whole ‘gay’ thing. He’s not the most open minded of people so I was a little shocked and touched that he had done that.

I’m lucky to have family and friends like this. I really thought that when they found out that I was gay they would hate me. It turns out that they all knew before I did. I wish they would’ve told me.

…told someone else.

I hadn’t planned to tell Keith — ever. I didn’t even know him well. We’d dated once. It had been a total disaster.

I’d dated his best friend, Jon,  for a while, and it ended amicably. We’d been much better friends, but I hadn’t heard from him in a very long time and because that happens in university, I thought maybe our season had passed. Keith said Jon had moved to Australia with his new girlfriend.

I told Keith because he was the first person I had seen since hiding away in my huge summer sublet apartment for a couple days.

He asked, “Anything new?”

I said, “I’m gay.”

Two weeks later I got a phone call, from Jon. He was back in town, and wanted to chat. He was single again.

We met in the waterfowl park after dark. We didn’t get caught by the “duck police”, as we called the solitary warden who patrolled the park at night. We sat quietly on a bench.

He told me Keith had told him about me. He started to talk like he had to come out himself. I encouraged him. It hadn’t been easy for me but it had been worth it.

Jon said, “I just want to meet some one, and be happy.”

I said, “You’re a nice guy, you’ll meet someone.”

“That’s the problem,” she replied.

We lived together for two years while she and I came out. Her coming out was harder, more obvious, and more fraught with shrinks, doctors and hormones. Mine was the gentler coming out of finding new friends, new memes, new ways.

Both were successful and totally worth it.