I’m 100% in the deepest corner of the closet, although I believe that my family and closest friends/coworkers all suspect that I’m gay. After all, it’s not too difficult to guess when a middle-aged man has zero dating history with any female human beings.
The biggest hurdle is my family. The irony is that I do have a very loving and supportive family. This, however, as ridiculous as it may sound, is a double-edged sword. I don’t know if they would mind or care, but I am certain the people around them would. So I cannot get over (or even bear) the thought of bringing negative impacts to their lives. I have no fear about the consequences of my own decisions and choices; unfortunately, I have crippling hesitations when my personal decisions and choices can and will affect the lives of those I love and care about. I don’t know if this is just my lame excuse to rationalize my own cowardice.
My mother, given her age, is surprisingly open-minded (or at least she appears so). She’s a die-hard fan of an openly gay superstar. More than once, she has applauded the audacity of that superstar’s coming out journey in my presence. I am not even sure if that’s her clue to encourage me to tell her something that we all know. But I keep telling myself that “it’s OK if it happens to someone else’s son. It will be a completely different story when it is YOUR son.”
Once in the not-too-distant past during a heart-to-heart conversation, my brother indirectly hinted at me that “we will love you and support you no matter what your decisions are about your life.” At that moment, I fully understood that there was no ambiguity in what he was alluding to. Still, I shied away from the golden opportunity to give the proper, ultimate response and pivoted the dialogue to something else. I know, I know, I know — I am exhausted by my own weakness.
It’s funny that two of my best male friends are gay, one of which is openly gay and happily married to another man. The other one is in the closet but is out to me. Yet, I don’t have the guts to be honest with them; I don’t even understand myself. They’ve even told me, on separate occasions, that they saw me as a mystery, that they didn’t even know who I truly am or what I really want. I suppose the mystery will stay as is until I have the courage to face myself one day.
Sometimes, I’m so tired of myself and I feel people around me are tired of me. Maybe I am constantly and needlessly fighting an imaginary battle against the worst enemy in the entire world: myself.