Kevin's Coming Out Story Written October 9th, 2002 One day, at the age of seventeen, I was walking through the aisle of a bookstore in my small hometown. A book was slightly protruding from the rest of the books and caught my attention. What caught my attention more was the shirtless boy on the cover of the book. As I stopped to take a quick glimpse at it, I realized that I was in the ridiculously small gay and lesbian section of the bookstore. I was shocked that there was a section devoted to gays and lesbians, in what I thought, was a 100% straight town that I lived in. Nevertheless, I had to have that book. I had to find out more of the thoughts that had been flooding my mind for the past few years. I needed answers. I needed that book. To embarrassed to publicly purchase the book, being that I knew the store clerks, and the fact of my small town where words travel quickly, I was left with only one option; shoplifting. As a small reward for the torture I had been going through with my own gay feelings, I easily slipped the book in my jacket and walked out of the store. I wonder to this day of the outcome if I had been caught for stealing that book. Not only would I have had to go through a second shoplifting prosecution, but also more terrorizing, I would have been outed without any preparation or permission. Ten years later, on the dawn of National Coming Out Day, I sit in the mega city of Chicago, writing my coming out story for the first time. A place where I am completely anonymous, free, and ridiculously comfortable, truly, a black and white difference from ten years ago. Since then, I have thrown out that book that I stole, in fear at the time that my parents would find it, again outing me before I was ready. It has been six years since I officially came out to friends and family. It has been over three years since I've been single and alone, the thing I used to fear I would always be. I wish I had written a coming out story for every land mark event that has taken place in my life. The day that I came out to myself, which might have been the biggest event of all. The day that I came out to my friends, possibly setting myself up for the ultimate rejection among peers. The day I came out to my family members, where home could turn into a cold place in the heart. The day I met my boyfriend and started in the first long term relationship as a gay man and as myself. All of these events have rewritten my coming out story. I'm sure in another ten years, it will be rewritten again. In any event the most memorable coming out story I have and will have was of the first person that I told I was gay. After the first person, you shorten your explanation, because you feel like a broken record to yourself. Then after about ten people, you just get to the fact your gay and what's for lunch. Anyway, the first person I told was a close girl friend of mine. Coming out to the opposite sex is always much easier than to the same sex, for fear that they might think your telling them for a specific reason. When I sat her down to tell her I had something very important to tell her, she replied back that she did too. Not thinking much of it, I let her go first. To my surprise, making the situation that more complicating, she explained that she wanted to take our friendship to the next level. Talk about bad timing. I then came out to her, with a rather long speech, probably starting back to my day of birth. She couldn't care less, being that she now realized that it would never work out between the two of us. Fortunately, after a few days of letting it all soak in, she became very supportive and helped me with the next steps. Today, I skip the details of those times. Whenever talking about my coming out experiences to people I skip right to the end result; acceptance and love. I was one of the lucky ones. In the gambling of the coming out process, I lost nothing and gained everything. Though I'm very proud of that and feel very fortunate, I reserve my previous thoughts of the opposite out come for the people that didn't have it as easily as I did. What I didn't plan for, when going through the coming out process, was being out. I was left with an empty feeling of 'now what?' I didn't have too many options being in a small town. Still couldn't date, because there wasn't anyone to date. I couldn't go to the gay bars, because there were no gay bars. So after a period of time, I made a decision to move to a larger, more 'out' city, Chicago. Little did I know that I would have to go through a whole new 'coming out' process. Once I settled in Chicago, I began going to the gay bars and dating men. Not only was I a new kid on the block, but also I was a new kid in the gay world. Everyone that I dealt with had already been out, and the issue was an old hat to them. I had to clear out all previous notions of what the gay life would be, and start living the gay life. It was a long and sometimes difficult transition, being that I had been living a straight life for so long. I never felt like I fit into the straight world, and to my surprise and disappointment, I also felt like I wasn't fitting into the gay world. However, over time, after the first few drinks, after a few men, I started to find my place in the gay world. What type of guys, what kinds of places, and where I wanted to go it all became much more fluid to me. Though things were going much better, this doesn't mean that I had experienced everything there was to experience. In fact, I'm still far from it today. One of the main reasons for this was that I met a guy, Matthew, only 6 months after moving to Chicago. I have now lived here for four years and Matthew and I are still together. Together we are still growing and experiencing many new things in the gay community. We realize that it is much more fun and safer to experience these new 'out' experiences together rather then alone. Another thing I realized and had to face was when the excitement of coming out ends. When I had been with guys before I came out, there was much more excitement with the shared secrets between the guy and myself. Once I was out, the atmosphere changed, and the play was expected instead of mysterious. Perhaps this is the same for straight people, when growing up, but I hold these innocent times closely to my heart. Coming out in the early 1990's, it is a known fact that it was much easier than the previous decades. However, the AIDS epidemic arrived, and many people were still not educated enough to know that just because your gay, doesn't mean that you also have AIDS. Therefore, during my coming out era, it was my responsibility to educate, more family then friends, about the positives and negatives of being gay. Also, during the early 1990's, when I was trying to learn more about the gay lifestyle, there was no Internet. Today there are thousands of online communities, for people that are in my previous situation of living in a small town and don't have the resources readily available to learn from, nor one another. I am quite jealous of that fact, and wish I had the Internet when I first started to question my feelings. Coming out was definitely the best thing I have ever done for myself. I can't fathom the thought of still being locked up in that old, stinky, dark closet anymore. Again, I feel extremely fortunate by the acceptance from all my family and friends to this day. I truly know that I am loved and accepted, which anyone gay or straight needs to know. I look forward to the new coming out stories that have yet to happen, as well as, hear and help the newer generations of gays and lesbians. We are in a very exciting era for gays and lesbians, and hopefully there will be days where we won't have to 'come out', where being gay or straight is viewed just the same. *also check out other people's coming out stories @ my friends successful website www.comingoutstories.com