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Prelude:

When I first came to this site, way back when it was still yiffstar.com, I was still deeply in the closet. Funny thing is that I never considered myself in the closet, hell I never considered myself gay at the time. it's hard to see yourself as straight while watching the kind of porn I watched and harboring the feelings I did for some of my friends, but I've always had a strong sense of denial and so all through highschool and my first two years of college I sat nestled in my cozy little closet, peering out into a world of desire I was far too scared to let myself experience.

I'd like to say something like, 'I have no idea what I was afraid of...' but I do, I know exactly what I was afraid of. I was afraid that if people knew who I really was that they would turn on me; that my friends would start avoiding me; that my family would be ashamed of me; that even if people close to me didn't leave me, that they would still see me differently. With my only point of reference being news clips of gay pride parades and stereotypical media rolls, I was afraid that just admitting I was gay would make people think of me as some flamboyant fairy, no offense to anyone who is a flamboyant fairy, that's just not me.

Worst of all I was afraid of the confrontation of coming out. The part where you have to actually tell family and friends that your gay and face their reactions. I knew my family loved me and I had chosen the few friends I had with great care, and that odds were that none of them would really care. Hell my best friend's brother was openly gay, as well as one of his cousins, and no one felt any different about it. But even that knowledge didn't help much. No one said fear is rational.

What did help was all of you guys, and I use that term ambiguously ladies so don't feel left out. I started reading stories people had posted about their experiences coming out, and knowing that it turned out ok for other people helped me overcome my own fear. So now, three years after the fact, I decided I should give back and share my own coming out tale with all of you. If your in a place like I was four years ago, I hope this will help you, and remember, no matter what happens for you, living in fear is always worse than knowing.

Thanks Jose

A coming out tale

My coming out happened in two parts, first to my friends and later to my family, the whole ordeal spanned probably five months, but it all started on the fourth of July. I was working as a Pizza delivery driver for this place called Cochella, (btw all names have been changed but not by much ;P), while attending Cal Poly. The pizza place had about 60 employees at any given time and threw the most bitchen parties I'd seen, think of a wild frat party that you didn't have to pay for and where the beer and booze never ran dry, it was awesome.

It was at the fourth of July party, and I had been drinking way too much tequila. People who have read any of my other stories know that I have a special bond with Jose Cuervo and this is why. At that time I was on a huge tequila kick and for that particular party I had brought my own handle of Jose Cuervo along with a bag of limes and my trusty swiss army knife for good measure. I'd spent most of the party gathering friends and strangers together to do round after round of tequila shots. I think that was in the living room but im not sure. In the family room there was a beerpong table packed with people playing Civil War, the kitchen had people doing shots of vodka, rum and whiskey, the bedrooms were full of people doing molly and harder drugs and I had claimed the family room, which was closest to the front door as my own personal tequila and flip cup area. All in all it was a raging party.

As the night progressed my memories grow foggier and foggier until I hit that point of blackout where the night turns into a series of flashes of half remembered events. The last thing I remember clearly was that the party had wound down to ten to fifteen people, all of whom had gathered in the kitchen to try and finish the last bottle of vodka, Smirnoff I think... I remember watching the bottle make its way around the circle, each person swigging straight from the handle with no thought of chaser because by this point taste was dead. I don't remember taking my turn though I know I did, because the next thing I remember was Fin, the guy who's house we were partying at, convincing me not to crawl into the kitchen ceiling. I still say that there was a ledge I could have sat on up there and if he didn't want drunks crawling into the ceiling that he should have replaced the missing tiles before the party... either way I got down off the counter and promised not to try again.

The next flash of the night was where things got interesting. To this day I don't know how the conversation started or what the fuck we were talking about that brought me to say it, all I know is that I was talking with my friends Joe and Bone, who were my roommates at the time and in response to something Joe said I responded, "hell I'm bie". To which Bone nodded approvingly and Joe said, "See! It doesn't fucking matter...yada yada yada" I don't remember the rest of the conversation, just a feeling of a massive weight being lifted off my insanely drunken shoulders and thinking to myself, "see? I knew they wouldn't care".

After that my memories fog over again and the last thing I remember of the night is seeing one of my managers walking out of one of the bathrooms cradling his bloody fist and shaking his head to himself. I later found out that he and some of the guys had gone all Office Space on a printer or something and he had cut his hand punching the busted thing.

And then I woke up. On a couch at my friend Amy's house, still drunk, bordering on a hangover, and having to be at work to open in twenty minutes. I spent most of that day and the following weeks piecing together my memories from that night, and trying to figure out if I had really come out to my friends or not. The feeling of relief I had felt that drunken night was gone and I once again slipped back into a fearful anxiety, to afraid to even ask "Dude did I come out that night?" because if it had been a dream I would be outing myself in possibly the worst way possible. It sucked.

Over the next few months I largely forgot that brief feeling of freedom I had felt that drunken night with Jose Cuervo. But something had changed. I had decided that I needed to come out in an official and permanent way, I just hadn't decided how.

There's something you should know about me. I'm and honest person. Yes I will deflect questions I don't want to answer in the normal ways and there is no better feeling than using sarcasm to tell someone your darkest truth and have them not believe you, but when asked a question one on one point blank, I never lie.

Fast forward five months, its thanksgiving and I'm in Eureka California, ya real place, where my family gathers every year at my favorite uncle's house for thanksgiving. I've spent the last few months trying to find a good way to come out where I won't be faced with a ton of questions and won't have to repeat the process twenty different times to twenty different people, as you can imagine, I wasn't having much luck.

So on thanksgiving day, while the "grown-ups" are all in the kitchen cooking and talking the "kids", all ranging between 20 and 26 at this point but labels never fade, are in another room shooting pool. It's me, my two older sisters Kammy and Jinny , and my younger cousin Krystal, and we were all joking around giving Krystal a hard time about her first year at SF state; once again slightly drunk on Jose Cuervo, though this time in the form of homemade margaritas.

"So how do you like living in San Francisco?" Kammy asked.

"Oh I love it!" Krystal replied, "it's so warm, and there's so much to do!"

"so, living in the bay, have you become a lesbian yet?" my sister Jinny Laughed, taking a sip of her drink.

"hahaha! It's ok, we wont judge you if you did!" I put in laughingly. So, friends in the closet, you know how whenever the gay subject comes up you shut your mouth? Afraid that if you say anything, even if attention is directed away from you, that someone will connect the dots and call you out on it. It fucking happened...

"What, next you're going to tell us that your gay Ryan!" Jinny shot over at me.

I froze. Remember that honesty thing I was talking about? This is where it comes into play. With one otherwise innocent jest I was put in a crossrodes. Do I admit to being Bisexual? Or do I laugh it off and keep up the illusion? On one had this is not how I planned my coming out at all, but on the other, if I deny it now, it'll just make it harder later on! And I did want to come out anyway... didn't I?

I couldn't decide, a simple jest turned into an awkward silence as all eyes in the room turned to me, sensing that something was wrong.

"Ryan? This is where you're supposed to deny it?"

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Bi" I said with a shrug and my best attempt at a nonchalant grin. I picked up a pool stick and moved around the table, my mind screaming in panic while I tried to display an outwards confidence I didn't feel.

"OH. MY. GOD.", Jinny intoned as Kammy and Krystal stared on in shocked silence. Oh fuck me here it comes..... "MOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Jinny screamed, 26 years old and running across the house screaming like an excited eleven year old, "Ryan's coming out of the close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" god I still hate her for that....

I winced at her scream, cursing inwardly to myself but knowing that getting excited over it would only make things worse.

"Really?" Kammy asked, finally finding her voice .

"Ya", I replied, placing the que ball and lining up a shot, "I really didn't want this to be a big deal".

"hhhok" she replied stifling a laugh as the whole extended family of aunts and uncles came filing into the room. I had instinctively maneauvered to the far side of the pool table, keeping it's solid oak protection between me and my family, glass doors behind me opening up to the back yard in case I needed an escape route.

Aside from looks of shocked disbelief everyone took the news pretty well, there were the expected questions, when did this happen? Since middle school... what made you come out? A really cute guy named kyle that I thought was into me...ya thought... I kept hold of the pool stick the whole time, sticks were always comforting to me, and I was grasping onto anything I could to hold onto my nerve at that point.

Despite all the tension I felt while it happened, the whole affair only lasted less than ten minutes, there was still thanksgiving dinner to prepare and after a quick toast to family, we all sort of moved on. I didn't want it to be a big deal and they all respected that. We spent the rest of the night reminiscing over turkey and stuffing and rolls and ended up playing cards after dinner, just like every thanksgiving before or since. They were my family, and they loved me no matter what. In the end It didn't matter whether I was gay or bi or straight, I was still Ryan, still me and that's all that ever really mattered.

True story.

Author's note: for those of you still fighting to figure out who you are, I hope my story helped.