One of These Days I'll Write Something Inspirational

I used to be scared of revealing too much on here because I was worried that a random internet passerby would recognize the details of my life and discover that I am gay. I realize now that this is retarded. First of all, what are the odds that one of the 70 (I am being generous) out of 7 billion people that read this blog would know me? Unlike my waist: slim. Also, everyone knows I am gay anyway. I've pretty much made a name for myself as the boy who looks at gay porn during class. (See previous post).

The only thing holding me back now is that fact that I don't like the way I sound when I write honestly. Though I've written off the "closeted-frat-jock-blogs" of beautiful white boys for their lack of complexity and the very real possibility that they are just a facade for middle-aged, overweight pedophiles, I cannot deny that that I secretly wish I could write a "closeted-frat-jock-blog" of my own. I don't want people to sympathize over my imperfections. I want somebody to admire and lust after me the way I admire and lust after them. Him.

Though I am stubborn, I am a realist. And since plastic surgery is expensive and my bicep muscles are not materializing, I might as well spill my guts and beg you all afterwords to love me the way I am.

An obligatory post of a typical "closeted-frat-jock-blog" is the one where he comes out to his family and they have a meltdown for 15 minutes and then go back to loving him and showering him with words like "you will always be my son" and "we will love you no matter what." Then one of the parents goes, "You know, I always kind of knew!" Everyone laughs. A sigh of relief is breathed and the next day everyone eats pancakes for breakfast.

Recently I've been encouraged, and at times pushed, to come out by blog readers who have never met me but swear they have a unique insight into my life. I mean, seriously, I'm twenty-two, it is time to step up and live life honestly. If 15 minutes of pain is all it takes for a lifetime of clear conscience, why not?

One of my earliest memories was getting my first B in second grade reading. When I told my mother she got this grave look on her face. She told me how disappointed this made her and how scared she was to tell our father. I pleaded with her to keep it our secret but she insisted that she had to tell him. This logic was lost on me. When my father found out he pulled out a plastic hanger from the closet, beat me with it until it broke and locked me in a dark room.

The next day, a Saturday, I woke up to find a stack of reading comprehension books ranging from second grade to fifth grade levels. I was to get through all the books and become the best reader in my entire class if I ever wanted to see the outside world again. It took me one week, sitting alone in the dining room to get through it. To be fair, I did become the best in the class and I'm pretty sure the existence of this blog is owed to my deep understanding of parallel sentence structure and dangling modifiers.

But the real lesson learned that weekend was that my parents took my failures personally. Anything I did wrong cast doubts on their parenting ability and they couldn't stand to be perceived as incapable parents. They always say that they sacrificed everything so that I could have a better life. To this day, I am not quite clear what "everything" means: an acclaimed career in ballet. Regardless, not succeeding would represent a complete waste on their part. They could not bear the thought of knowing that they not only failed in their own lives but continued to fail through their children. And if I couldn't make them proud through my actions and abilities, they would bend me by force.

So after taking a failure like getting a B in second grade reading and scaling it up to failure like being gay, I would expect my mother to tell me that my disappointments will cause my grandfather to die. My father will  warn me that nobody in the extended family can ever find out about me. My mother will cry and ask me why I want to ruin the family name and how everyone is going to blame her for giving birth to a bad son. My father will tell me that I should never show my face ever again.

As far as I'm concerned, it would be poor planning to come out now. I mean, I'm still on the family cell phone plan. How awful would it be to declare emotional and sexual independence while still being a child in all other respects. Any sense of relief I get would be offset by the fact that I no longer have a place to call home or a family to speak to... and a phone to speak on.

My current plan is to graduate, get a job, get my own phone plan, adopt a dog, accrue a 500 mile distance from my parents and then come out over the phone (Facetime if I'm feeling particularly brave). I will still be able to witness the mushroom cloud from the explosion of their moods, but at least I will be at a safe distance and I will know that my dog still loves me and my physical world will not collapse around me. And if they don't let me come home for Christmas, I won't care because I was planning on visiting London Preppy anyway.

Needless to say, I'm conflicted by all this. I'm worried about scaring depressed gay middle schoolers, but this is my realistic not-jock-frat-white-liberal view. It is foolish and reckless to think that every parent will react to a gay son the same, positive way. My parents will not console and support me like yours did or most likely will. They will shame me and try to change me.  

Come out if you want, but know that sometimes it doesn't get better. Sometimes you come out and your mother cries for the rest of her life. And when you tell your father, he'll put you right back into that dark room.