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off my chest

I'm feeling a little introspective (and a little buzzed), and I want to write about my experience telling someone that I'm perhaps not exactly straight.

I little while ago I realized that I'm probably some degree of Bi. I didn't tell a soul - certainly not my family, who are casually homophobic. Not even my friends, who /aren't/ homophobic. And I remember clearly, after a few too many drinks, making my way back to the hotel, talking to a friend - the only one in the group who is (openly) gay. And I admitted to him, in a slightly drunken moment of honesty, that I thought the bartender in the club we'd just left was kinda cute. That was it - we made our way back to the hotel, I collapsed into bed, and the next morning the group of us gathered outside the hotel and made our ways home.

It was a few days later, while I was with my family, when I got a message from this friend. He was asking me - with phrasing that I won't forget - how fruity I was, which I found was quite a quaint way to ask. And I trusted him, I admitted to him - the only person I've admitted it to as I write this - that yes, I'm probably some degree of Bi, or something like that. And just like that, I felt a massive weight lift off me, a weight I didn't even know I carried. It was some massive relief I felt finally admitting it, telling someone, even though I know it isn't sinful or wrong or any of that other bullshit. It was but a tiny act, a few messages exchanged, but just letting it out, telling someone, telling someone I trusted, telling someone /like me/. I didn't even realize how isolated I felt until I admitted that to him. I suppose that, in a way, I was admitting it to myself too.

Please, I beg you, be yourself. Be authentic. Be true to yourself. Reach out to your friends, the people you care about, pour your heart out, and listen to them in turn, as hard as it is to open up even to the people you trust the most.

last updated: 2022-11-09