The scariest and most liberating!

Coming out is one of the most liberating things that can happen in the life of gay person. It doesn’t have to be an announcement on the 7 O’ Clock news or anything as serious as that. Telling someone, anyone, a stranger, allows you to breathe again. 

Why?

I cannot speak for all homosexual people or even for all gay men, but for me personally coming out was the scariest thing I have ever had to do. In everyday life, very little scares me. My siblings and I have a standard saying that goes: “My mother didn’t raise scaredy-cat children.” Or in Afrikaans, as we say it: “My ma het nie bang kinders groot gemaak nie.” I will face just about any danger head on, but this was something I did not bargain on.

I had just been divorced, yes from a woman, whom I owe a debt of gratitude. Do we still get along today? NO!!!! Most of our marriage together was loveless and abusive in ways that I do not care to express here. She made the divorce, as with our marriage, as messy as possible and of course allowing everything to be about her only. I could write a book on those six years alone, but no one would believe me in any way since she has the ability to appear like such a wonderful woman who has been wronged by life. But even though my hatred for her is fast, she was still the one that orchestrated me getting kissed by a guy at a club for the first time. For some reason she always wanted me to kiss a guy and even finger me during sex, but I always stopped her from doing so. Then that one night at the club she managed to get a guy to kiss me, well not kiss me. Pin me to the wall of the dance floor and snogg the living shit out of me, is more like it. In the divorce she said that I cheated on her, that night at the club. Be that as it may, I realized there and then that kissing a guy is sooooo much better. No offence ladies! I have had my share of women in my life. Hell I have had about two men’s share of women, but that night I knew that my live was about to change! 4 Months later I was single and ready to explore the world of men. I had a hot little body back then and I loved to love men. I was like a wild animal released from a cage and I knew that some or other time someone would find out. I had to tell my house mate first. A wonderful woman named Lindy Tuck, and someone, whom even though we have drifted apart, I still love with all my heart. Lindy was her normal loving self and didn’t make any issue about anything. To everyone else I said that I think I am bi-sexual but would like to explore. Time went on and soon I think the cat completely fucqed out of the bag. I was terrified that my siblings would hate me. And up until three months ago I was convinced that my brother did hate me and wanted nothing to do with me. I was angry with him and wanted to confront him, but maybe it is a good thing I didn’t. Thankfully everyone else was completely supportive.

You must understand. I wasn’t a kid when this happened. I wasn’t 15 or 16 and had to cope with just the irresponsible life of a teen. I was in my twenties, my mother had just passed away, I got divorced and lost just about everything material that I had, including every single bed that I had in a fully furnished three bedroom house. I had nothing and here I stood the chance that I might loose my loved ones as well.  I was terrified.

A few months after I met Paul and everyone obviously knew about me being gay, my phone at work wrang and it was my biological father. I am just gonna call him Pierre, which is his name. I cannot call him dad or pa or anything of the sort cuz he was never one to me. He would appear and dissapear at certain intervals in life and although I am sure he is a good man, he was never a good father to me. Besides I would not dare get in the way of his wonderful relationship with his second son. The everything in his life.

He wanted my ex’s telephone number and when I asked him why he said it was to discuss a rumour he had heard. I told him that he will have to be more specific than that, as even back then there were a lot of rumours about me. People seemed to always love to gossip about me. What he said next shocked me to shit. I didn’t expect it from him. And even though he was never a huge player in my emotional life there was still some part of me that realized that I am his flesh and blood. I hoped that somewhere in some world that would still mean something. But it didn’t.

Gay hate speech, it's sick

I was told in no uncertain terms that he heard I was a moffie (English: faggot) and that because of that I will always be a fucq-up and will never be worth nothing more than a bum on the street. He carried on insulting me for a good ten minutes, until I eventually very calmly said; “no one speaks to me like that” and I hung up the phone. 

As a kid I was teased by my sibling for being gay and a 'moffie' and it is only when Pierre said those things to me that all of those insults came back to me. They were and still are like lashes that fell on my back from a salted whip. Today the welts remain but I wear them proudly. Pierre’s wife contacted me a month ago. She wanted to know if they can visit and attempt to get Pierre to meet with me. This is not the first time after that telephone incident where I have tried to speak to him about having some sort of a relationship. But as always he didn’t show and he clearly is not interested. I have finally grown to accept what my Mother use to tell me: “The only thing you can rely upon with him is the fact that you cannot rely on him.”

So I do not care if he reads this blog or if some he knows shows it to him. I do not really care if it even hurts him to read the truth.

But I didn’t write this blog to gain sympathy or “shames” or anything like that, I wrote this blog to make you understand, that coming out is the scariest thing that your loved one can do. And how you react to it can and will have a lasting impact on their lives. In extreme cases the impact has caused suicide, hate speech which led to manslaughter and mutilation. You may not agree with being gay but your loved one is not asking you to be their lover, they are simply asking you to understand and accept that this is what life is about, to them. It doesn’t change him or her in any way. I am still the person I was before I came out. Remember, a hug is one of the most powerful tools in this world and can go a long way!

Mwah!