Checkmate

So I’ve been thinking about my family for a bit now. Specifically, i've been thinking about m y parents. I’m a little disappointed at the fact that after having come out to my parents some months ago, not a word has been said about any of it. We kind of carry on like everything is still the same. In some ways that’s good, but in other ways it doesn’t seem to be so good. More than caring about where they stand on the whole gay topic, I’m concerned that they’re not dealing. And somehow their not dealing feels incredibly unfair to me. I feel like I’m being asked to pretend just because they’d like to pretend, and anyone who knows me knows that I’m just not one for pretending.

I’ve been feeling this way for some time now, but perhaps a forward I got from my Dad made it feel that much more intense. It was some dumb forward about “Man Rules”. It had to do with rules men should follow in dealing with women, wives, etc. I didn’t read it at any length because I didn’t want to read anything that I found offensive. I can’t stand anything that widdles what it means to be a man down to a series of actions. More importantly, I didn’t want to see anything offensive because I knew it would cause me to become irritated with my father for sending it to me in the first place. Yet, I’m irritated anyway. Why would he send me something so stupid? Ok…that’s probably a stupid statement in itself. Plenty of people send stupid forwards. A better question is, why would he send me something that he knows doesn’t relate to my life or who I am in any way shape or form? I wouldn’t send him a forward about “Man Rules for Gay Men”, so why, after all we spoke about several months ago, would he send me something like this?! I know that I’m perhaps being too hard on him. I suppose that seeing me as his straight son is just natural. But my concern, my disappointment, my hurt (to be quite honest), is in the fact that neither he nor my mom seem to be making any attempt to see me as anything else.

When I came out I heard a lot of loving, positive things from them. I was expecting to be disowned. But although what I heard was wonderful to my own ears, I sit here now feeling more confused and awkward than I did before I even came out, and that doesn’t seem fair. I mean, do they think I’m sitting around just waiting for them to come to grips with it all before I move on with the rest of my life? It’s like they heard that I’m gay, but failed to process what that really means. In some ways, I’m trying to prepare them. I don’t want them to be shocked if and when I start dating, if and when it gets serious, and if and when I pursue a family of my own. Yet, I cannot prepare them any more than I have tried to. They don’t want to be prepared.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to be who everyone expected me to be. I’ve spent my life thinking about my family, and evaluating everything in light of how it would effect them. I’m tired of it. I came out to them so that I could dialogue with them about who I am, to give them the opportunity to be fully included in my life. While they didn’t reject that opportunity, they haven’t accepted it either. Instead, they’ve just tried to forget about it.

My mom told me, when I first came out to her, that the whole situation would help me to see just how much my family really loved me. Well, I’m still waiting. And the ball’s in their court, because I’m done.

- Bryan