My Issues With Coming Out

Let's be honest. This blog isn't going to make me famous. It's not going to get multiple followers and/or I will get tired of it in about a month and forget about it. That said I just had somethings to get off my chest. (and since I have the emotionally maturity of a 16-year-old girl I had to do this in private...on the internet.)

Coming out of the closet sucks. I did it. It was fine. Been out for years now. But from all the movies I watched your life is supposed to change exponentially once you have come out of the closet in the following way(s):

A) You obtain a brand new level of understanding for him/herself and while the future looks intimidating, and not just a bit like what one would expect the inside of Cher's closet to look like (for those not in the know that means lots of silly things you wasted time and money on), you still approach it with eyes chock full of cliched hope and wonder.

B) You get a boyfriend. No monkeying about. No passed notes of do you like me? Check yes or no. Simple; you come out of the closet you get a boyfriend. That's why you come out of the closet most of the time anyway. You got caught feeling up the best friend whom may or may not have been reciprocating. Either way, you go through all the trouble of telling the truth and being honest with not only yourself, but Mum, Da, and the Mr. and Mrs. Common last name from down the street, you get a reward: boyfriend!

C) You attempt (maybe succeed) suicide. (And before you get mad and yell at me I will point out that this is the life view I was given about coming out from film and television.) Hey, being gay is tough. Why bother with the hard stuff like trying to find your way in the world and making yourself count even when you don't think that you do. Suicide is quick (can be), easy (if you know what you're doing), and painless (not so true on this one. Killing yourself hurts). Also it adds quite a bit of drama to the lives of all the straight people you know.

No my problem with the a fore mentioned is that none of that happened for me. Obviously not dead. There's no beau on this arm. And I know less about myself at twenty-hrmhmmmm than I did when I was 16. What is that?

Nothing changed in the ways it was supposed to. I didn't understand me any better so I could understand and become with my family. Not all that close already, me being gay got me the same disapproval that cooking hamburgers for Thanksgiving did that one year. (It was ground turkey!) I didn't come out because I had a boyfriend. And at older-than-nineteen, I've never actually had a a boyfriend. Not once did it ever cross my mind to kill myself. (well one time, but I was being dramatic and unrealistic. Cupcakes can't do that.)

When I came out, I was just me. Not even just me and gay now. No. Just me. So I feel like I'm supposed to be waiting for something. Something magical! For me to really understand myself or to *gasps* get into a relationship. I think the pressure to "come out" made me feel like once I conquer this mountain I shall be rewarded happily in such a way. All that pressure all that worry and when it was over essentially I'm still just me. Nothing special added. Booo!

I don't understand why there needs to be such a big production around being gay or telling people. If you happen to see my kissing a bloke than hey I might be gay. And if I see you snogging a girl, well then you might be straight. No guarantees on either of those two, but there never is. Putting the act of coming out of the closet, I think, puts everything after it in this realm of slight delusion. You expect something, because you did something, and really, nothing will be coming to you.

Now I could get up on my soap box and say "Hey, I totally think it's rubbish that I have to do this extremely difficult thing that has given me unrealistic expectations on a future that I now feel let down by because it all seems so very mundane now. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it. Or if I should even try to do anything about it. It's better that the high dramatics didn't accompany me on my way out of the closet? But then that leaves me with two questions.

If I feel this way and I'm nothing special does that mean other gay people feel that way? And if they do then why, are we putting ourselves through the ordeal of coming out.

Let's all be honest. It's never for straight people that we're doing it. Or other gay people really, though it does make dating easier. It's for ourselves.

So why do we make it suck so much?!?