I told two of my friends about my relationship with Jade while I was home, and one of them outed me to someone else.
I was furious.
To be fair, I didn’t say to him, don’t tell anybody. Because I’m not ashamed. I also didn’t think I had to.
But what he did was go to the very top of the list of people I didn’t want to tell, and told her. And she tracked me down and called me at my dad’s house. Let me also say she is at the very top of the list of people I never wanted to talk to again, either. I thought my dad was joking when he announced her name from the caller ID. You’re joking, I said. No, he said. I’m glad I didn’t say anything like “What does that bitch want?” because she would’ve heard me.
Maybe straight people don’t know that you’re not supposed to out people if you’re not sure they’re out.
Maybe my friend couldn’t help himself. It was a juicy tidbit, after all. I think he was still reeling. So I left him a message and told him what I thought.
He had a fairly decent reaction to the news, though. Just a few wows and eyes bugged out. And then said that like Seinfeld, his philosophy is “not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Then proceeded to list gay people he knows in his small community. Most of whom said, don’t tell anybody, but you should know …
Maybe that should’ve been his first clue.
I’m not really pissed any more. Amused, I suppose. Telling the one person I never wanted to hear from again (the person I still have nightmares about) isn’t as bad as having the entire office know and offer you congratulations on your wedding.
Also, to be fair to him, this person called him out of the blue, and he’d just heard my news. I suspect he’s probably also still a bit afraid of that person himself. It probably just came out.
As I did.
In other coming outs, I also told a deeply religious friend as we sat near the water, swinging lazily on an adult swinging bench.
She asked me about the ring I was wearing on my left ring finger.
“Is that something special?”
She actually said something about it earlier, but I kind of brushed it off. We were in a restaurant where the last thing you want to do is say the word gay. Because they will lynch you, forks still covered in maple syrup from the excellent pancakes and crepes.
So I told her. I hemmed and hawed a bit. How do you tell your one remaining friend from high school, one who is a teacher missionary to a foreign country? One whose life has always been about loving her god, about serving her god, about helping others?
It didn’t go that badly. I wanted to tell her the truth. Especially since she would like to visit me next summer and I didn’t want to have to sleep separately from Jade. I also knew that it would be just one more thing she’d have to love me in spite of, because I’m also an atheist. She doesn’t push me too hard on the atheism front, which is why we’re still friends.
She said she doesn’t approve of that lifestyle, but that I’m still her friend, and that she wants to include Jade as part of that friendship, because Jade is a part of who I am.
She kept using the lifestyle word, too. Well, I don’t approve of that lifestyle, but I still love you.
I heard that same lifestyle phrase from my aunt and I am currently not happy with my aunt. My aunt, in fact, was supposed to call me back to hear some news I have, and never did. She was also sketchy about whether she could come and visit me while I was staying at my dad’s, and she never got back with me about that either. I suspect she might be having some problems, and if I were a better person, I’d keep trying to get her to call me back. But I’m not her babysitter. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe she has another problem. But until she can be grown up enough to call me back, I’m done.
I hate that term, lifestyle. There is no one lifestyle. What straight people do is use it as a euphemism for having nasty, disgusting gay sex. It serves as a sanitizing filter in their mind, so they don’t have to think directly about two women making love.
As if sex serves as the only symbol of our relationship. Well, I’m going to say right now: stop using the word lifestyle. There’s no straight lifestyle, and there’s no gay lifestyle. Love does not equal sex. I do not think about you having straight sex. I do not look at you and think, wow, they put the penis in the vagina. How weird and gross! So stop it!
I would be heated too if someone outed me to the person I most didn’t want to know.
I’ve learned to say to myself, now that they know it’s their deal not mine. It still stings, but that is how I cope.
As for the lifestyle word. It irritates me to no end. I didn’t choose to spend my money on becoming lesbian. I didn’t make a down payment and take out a loan so I could afford the lesbian lifestyle.
Geesh people.
C
I know exactly how you feel. When I was coming out, I didn’t even get to tell my grandparents. My cousin got to them first–over dinner, at a restaurant. I got a call from my other cousin telling me that her brother let the cat out of the bag. He SAID he assumed they knew. But, like you said, don’t say anything if you’re not sure.
“I do not look at you and think, wow, they put the penis in the vagina.”
I laughed out loud at this. So true.
It’s funny how easy (?) it is to be married, yet completely not out to so many people.
As I look more closely into the whole marriage thing I think I am having to challenge lots of my assumptions about what it means, and how it operates in the gay world vs. the straight one.
Oh well, it is nice to not be in a boat alone.
LOL. I love the “I didn’t take out a loan” bit. I started in on an argument about morality with my religious friend but she made me stop.
I don’t know what it is that people can’t keep their mouths shut. Probably because they can’t help themselves.
I was also pretty worried that my obnoxious stepbrother was going to say something to me. I really don’t know if he knows, but I’m still angry for all the times he called me a dyke before I was officially a lesbian. I figured if he said something to me during the trip, I was going to stop behaving and hit him good. He’s 18 so he’s good to punch now.
And yes, it is funny to be married, but to not have people know. I don’t know how we can fix that divide. I’d sure like to hope that some day this marriage thing won’t be a big deal any more, and that we won’t feel like hiding our true selves from people who might not approve.
Oh, screw that word, “lifestyle.” I had a friend accidentally out me to her mother and aunt once, and they spent the majority of dinner discussing my “lifestyle.” Arguing over “nature vs. nurture” as if I was some sort of science project. The aunt even had the nerve to say to my friend’s mother that she felt sorry for me because I was lesbian!
sexandsanfracisco: I hate that, that people in the majority, in this case straights, sometimes feel *so* superior to another person that they start discussing you like arrogant, clueless American tourists in a foreign land. Suddenly you are somewhat less than human as they discuss your “plight”
I’m with you. Screw that word. What a wretched dinner that had to have been.