Telling friends about orientation.
I have two really good friends who I hang out with all the time and we're thinking of sharing a suite for residence next year. The problem is that I haven't told them of my orientation and since we're thinking of moving in together, I feel that I am obligated to tell them. I'm just worried of how they're going to take it, as we hang out a lot, make macho comments, and I usually hang out in one of their rooms, plus with one of them hailing from Alberta (which has been renowned for being the most conservative out of all the provinces). I want to break it in a way such that it doesn't end up awkward, but fat chance of that happening, right?
My roommate tells me to stop thinking about the worst of what could happen, and his opinion seems right, but I'm still worried of what would happen to my friendship with my two friends.
Thoughts?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Grant Posner on -
Honestly, if they are your friends, they should at minimum understand. A friend of mine went through the same situation, except his room mate was not his friend and freaked the hell out. It changed nothing of my thoughts of him minus that I was a bit upset he didn't hit on me as that tells me I am not attractive ha ha (this is an ongoing joke).. Anyways, I can understand your concerns regarding the conservative province. You may want to hold off for a bit and get a feel for the people first then slowly break the news to them. Heck, they may be smarter than you think, they may be able to tell, who knows.. Just everyone be polite to each other and all should be well.
Hope this helped, feel free to respond!
-Grant
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Permalink Reply by Casey Clark on -
I am that friend in which grant is referring to. The one roommate that freaked out was a special case, and I could tell beforehand it was going to be an issue. And honestly I’m glad things happened the way they did, he moved out of the room in a huge stink, and many people came to me apologizing for his behavior.
That being said, I haven’t had any other negative experiences spawn from coming out.
What I did before coming out was try to figure out how my roommates felt about gay people in general, bring up gay rights in politics or something of the like, just be careful how because sometimes people aren’t comfortable telling you they’re okay with it because they don’t want to appear weak (or something like that, not totally sure). I had prepared for the worst, but when I finally went and told both of my other roommates it wasn’t a big deal, one responded with "Oh okay." and the other responded with "so? it's not like anything has changed" basically if you haven’t tried to make any moves on them and you see them as friends only and they know that you don’t have anything to worry about.
Coming out takes a LOAD of stress off of your life and mind, I recommend doing it, but be tactful. Most people that have a problem with It aren’t worth knowing anyhow =)
Hope that helps =)
-Casey
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