I had wondered how to tell my parents that I was gay. I had conversations with myself in my mind about how I was going to do it, what I would say, where I would tell them. I had gone over so many scenarios that I had driven myself mad! I wrote my concerns over and over in a diary that I hid in my bedroom. What would they say, how would they feel, would they accept me for who I am?
Well things took a totally unexpected twist one night and if I could rewind time I probably — no definitely — would have done it differently!
There was an argument going on in the sitting room. I was in my bedroom, staying well out-of-the-way as it was between my mother and my brother. They have a very close relationship and i don’t recall them ever having such a serious disagreement!
My brother was very heated over something and eventually stormed out of the sitting room. He came up to my room, sat on the bed and told me what was happening.
His friend Mark wanted him to go to The George, a gay bar in the city. My brother had no problem with that and he had mentioned it to our Mam. Well she freaked out!
There was no way he was going to a gay bar, why would he want to go there, there will be dirty old men crawling all over him, it wouldn’t be a good environment to be in, etc, etc. He really wanted to be supportive to his friend and even though he was 18, an adult and legally allowed to drink, he wanted Mam to understand why he was doing this. He asked me to speak to Mam and try to explain to her.
I headed down to the sitting room, Mam was sitting watching TV. I asked her why she had a problem with Bob going to the George. She told me that she didn’t want gay old men leaching all over him. I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, that it was just like any other pub except with a gay twist, that they weren’t going to see him as fresh meat! So we started arguing about it. Then the unexpected happened.
“Why do you care? You’re not gay, are you?”
I could tell by her face that as soon as she said those words, she knew what the answer was.
I answered her with silence, just looking at her.
Damn it, it wasn’t meant to happen this way, in the middle of an argument over my brother! I sat there looking at my mother with tears streaming down her face, not knowing what to say. Everything that I had planned in my head had just been thrown out of the window in a split second.
I got up, went outside for a cigarette and left my mother in tears in the sitting room wondering what in the hell had just happened.
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