I finally got sick of pretending to be someone else. I was so tired of telling lies. I wanted just to be myself and stop hiding behind the mask that I had created in the few years since I discovered that I am gay.
It was time for me to be myself again and to be open to telling others who I am. Coming out to friends and family is not easy; but for me, it was the right choice to make. When the moment came for me to do the right thing, I decided to be proud of myself and take the next step.
In my country gay conduct is not legal. We could be arrested for any same-sex activities, such as holding hands or kissing. But that does not stop me. At least I am lucky to have a family who understands me now.
When I was 15, I told my parents that I am gay--that I love men instead of women. It was a major shock for them especially since I'm the only child in a Chinese family where they would expect a few grandchildren to carry on the family name. Before I told them, I had a few sleepless nights as I planned what I would say and tried to anticipate the worst thing that could happen as a result of my revelations. Questions like, “Will they throw me out of the house?” “Will they treat me differently?” haunted me. I especially worried whether they would ever talk to me again and if so, whether it would be the same as before I told them.
I'm sure it wasn't easy for them to hear what I had to say.
Most parents expect their kids to be normal. By normal, I mean that they feel attracted to the opposite sex and want to have children. This includes my parents. My dad was pretty disappointed and my mom cried and blamed herself for my being gay. She thought that she had made a mistake in the way she raised me. A few years later, they started to understand that it wasn't their fault. I didn't choose my sexuality. I was born this way. Some people still believe that we choose to be gay. All I know is that God created me this way and that my only choice is to embrace it or I will be forced to reject myself. I have known I am gay since I was 11 years old. My exposure to the Internet helped me understand that I prefer men.
Through chat rooms and gay websites that I learned a great deal. Not only did I start to understand the concept of being gay, but also what gay social life is like. Not only that, some websites like “GYUK¨ (www.gyuk.co.uk) and the “Pink Triangle” (www.pinktriangle.org) helped me to learn to live a life with no shame and not to have to feel weird.
These websites also allowed me to talk to people around the world who faced or are facing problems similar to mine. Once you understand that it isn't something to feel ashamed of, you can begin to face the other issues that Gays have to deal with. Although chat rooms and the Internet helped me to deal with being gay, at the same time I knew that I had to expect certain risks while chatting with people that I hardly knew. That’s why I didn’t meet up with anyone from the net till I was 16 years of age. Also, when I was in a chat room, I would chat only with the guys that I felt comfortable with. I would close a chat the moment they asked for sex or if the conversation was getting out of my control.
Maybe I was born different . Maybe I was meant to be this way, to feel attracted to the same sex. Now I know that people like me make the world more interesting. All I’m saying is that I had to overcome my fear and to believe in myself. From time to time I still feel quite different from others, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I can still remember my coming-out experience when I told my parents that I am gay. In telling them, I took a few baby steps towards coming out. Later, I told my closest friend. I tried to educate them, bit by bit, that it's neither odd nor wrong to be gay. I started to tell the truth and be myself. There is a whole life out there for me that I have never experienced before. Things began to change after I accepted being gay and learned to be proud of it.
By Nick D’Nude
(Special thanks to my editor “Henry”)
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Posted: 07/20/07