Maybe you are overdue to come out of the closet.
Remember no one has to stay in there with you.
When you suggest that someone needs to come out of the closet or they are overdue or slow, there is always someone going on and on that it is an individual’s own choice on disclosure.
This is of course true; it should be left to that individual to decide how to manage their disclosure that they are gay. That doesn’t mean that the consequences of remaining in the closet can’t be discussed or should be repressed.
This issue of self-control on self-disclosure is pushed forward to shift the conversation from whether the closeted person is having a problem with coming out of the closet or has some type of issue to implying that this closeted person is being bullied. It a misdirection to not discuss issue A by saying the issue is B. It is one sided in that it doesn’t consider that it might be possible to take too long or way too long to come out. That perhaps what ever the issues that is keeping the person in the closet perhaps needs to be resolved.
Part of this problem is that the subject of coming out of the closet is seen as exclusively the domain of counseling and the discussion has been constrained to the thinking of counselors who seem to not realize that closeted time is lost time in a person’s life.
In the competition of sympathetic syrupy statements by counselors and therapists’ the issue of gay liberation is drowned. So let me tell you some issues your sobfest counselors and others won’t tell you. There are a lot of closeted gays who like these sobfest assertions since they have friends who are asking them what is their problem, challenging them to get moving and come out.
Another misdirection is to argue back that in some case coming out might be a really bad thing to do. Of course, there are some cases which are hazardous, and you need to make sure you are out on your own and independent and away from homophobic parents or locations. I am not saying that you should come out immediately, nor in every situation. Again, this is a misdirection by closeted gays and their enabler to avoid the topic of discussing the negative aspects of being closeted for an excessive amount of time.
For persons who have homophobic parents and aren’t legally adults or not independent of them I would advise extreme caution regarding coming out. As I said not every situation warrants coming out. This is more directed to those who are legally adults, don’t face a real hazard in coming out, and already have gay peers rolling their eyes or sighing at your excuses.
So, the following are some things closeted gays should consider.
YOU AREN’T GETTING ANY YOUNGER.
Very often when gays come out, they express the wish that they had done so sooner. Life doesn’t stop while you are fussing and fidgeting in the closet. Days, months, and years are passing by and these are the times of your youth. You aren’t getting this time back.
STAY IN THE CLOSET AS LONG AS YOU WANT, BUT REMEMBER NO ONE HAS TO SAY IN THERE WITH YOU.
You aren’t ready to come out, well that is your decision as to when you come out. But closets are small spaces and really cramped for two people.
You boyfriend will find that your closetyness involves endless restrictions on them. They can’t go to the gay day parade with you because someone might see you. They can’t take you to gay places because someone might see you. You will police your boyfriend’s behavior because people might think he is gay and hence you are gay. Holidays you will spend apart. Some of your boyfriend’s friends will seem too visibly gay and you will complain about it. He will hear you tell your parents that you haven’t met the right woman. It goes on and on and on. When parents visit, your boyfriend will have to go into hiding.
Your boyfriend will also get increasingly tired of your excuses for not coming out. One day he will have had it and will be gone.
In other cases, a potential boyfriend will realize that you are closeted and has had experience with other closeted individuals and is not going to repeat the same experience (mistake) twice. There are out gay men out there and why choose you?
YOUR GAY FRIENDS WILL GET TIRED OF DEALING WITH IT.
Gays will complain that they feel pressured. That other gays will push them to come out. Yes, they might, because they are tired of dealing with it.
Closety gays want their gay friends to tone it down when they are out someplace. They don’t want the restaurant table near the window. They aren’t going to the gay day parade and say negative things about going to it. They don’t want their gay friends to drop over to their place because the neighbors might figure out they are gay. When they run into a straight friend their gay friends have to listen to some caution about their behavior so as to not let on that the closeted person is gay. The closeted person will be adverse to going places with gay friends where they are likely to run into straight people he knows.
After awhile Gay friends will go to places without you because they don’t want your closetyness to be a restraint on them. Then you can whine about all the pressure you are getting to come out.
MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE ANTI-GAY YOURSELF.
Maybe the difficulty in coming out is that though you may be having gay sex, you are ashamed of being gay and have negative attitudes about being gay. You regard being gay like a vice that you have given into.
With that mentality, coming out is to you is letting others that you are a bad person.
You may say all the gay liberation things and you may go to the gay clubs and do this or that, but you are 32 and we are still being told excuses. Maybe you are an anti-gay gay. Everyone knows one. Except for other anti-gay gays, no one wants to be around you.
Incidentally anti-gay gays usually are alone, not simply because not a lot of gays want to have a relationship with anti-gay gays, but also because a relationship takes an effort and if you are anti-Gay, you don’t value the relationship enough to sustain it.
Or it could be that you don’t have the usual anti-gay ideas, but being gay doesn’t fit into your plans of who you imagining you were going to be. Maybe you thought you were too good to be gay. Again, gays who are out will not want to be around your attitudes about being gay.
Your closety ways and negative attitudes offer nothing to out gays, and you will find yourself left behind with other toxic gays like yourself where you will you can complain about gays flaunting themselves and things like that.
YOUR PARENTS OR FAMILY OR RELATIVES WILL REJECT YOU.
When are you going to start living your life? That is when are you going to be living your life as a gay person rather than living a life someone else has chosen for you.
Sooner or later, you going to want to live your life and not some other one that some other people have chosen for you. Living your life might as well as be now rather than later and you have wasted some of your life.
You only get to live once, make sure it is your life and not a life that someone else have chosen for you.
DECEIT.
At some point living in the closet is about deceiving others. More and more straight people will feel somewhat offended that you didn’t tell them. For people who have figured it out, it will be somewhat insulting to their intelligence and a statement that you didn’t consider them as friends, as you continue to represent yourself as straight to them.
They know from media that coming out can be difficult and will give you a free pass if you are young and the whole process hasn’t been years and years. When you are in your late twenties and it has been going on for some time, they are just going to find it annoying and tiresome to play along with it.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE FOOLING?
It happens very often and is comical. A gay person comes out with his mom and finds out that she has known for years. He finds out that mom didn’t discuss it with him since she had figured out that he was uncomfortable discussing it. The family is relieved since they don’t have to play along with his deceptions and pretend, they don’t know.
There are other cases where everyone has figured out that the person is gay but the gay person clings to the idea that they have kept it a secret.
I remember one particularly flamboyant gay guy and it came up in conversation that I could tell he was gay “50 yards away.” He squawked at that, and I was somewhat perplexed by his attitude of alarm. A friend told me, who knew him in everyday life, that this person thought no one knew he was gay and that it was a complete secret. I was flabbergasted, this gay person put the “flame” in flamboyant, and no one, absolutely no one would not think he was gay. That is when my friend told me, “That is why they call them closet cases,” because they are delusional, they are psychological cases.
PLEASE KEEP THE EXCUSES TO YOURSELF. MAYBE YOU ARE A LOSER.
A lot of time some excuse is made up, the closet case would come out except there is some factor in which he has no control and so he must remain closeted. A parent has a heart condition, there is some tragedy is in the family, there is inheritance to be lost, maybe there is a quarrel going on in the family, maybe a third cousin failed a math test. In the 1970s I was amazed how often gay people had parents with heart conditions.
Coming out for most gay people is challenging and takes an effort. Maybe you aren’t out because like in many other tough situations in life you can’t make a decision and fuss and fidget and have little moods and procrastinate hoping whatever it is goes away. Maybe the reason you haven’t come out is that with being gay it is like other things in your life, you don’t take responsibility, you have lots of excuses, you generally mess things up, you don’t go anywhere with your life when faced with any challenge, so why would coming out be different. Yes, you are a loser gay, and you will find support from other fellow loser gays and you can whine about those awful gay liberation types who you and the other loser gays will, as mentioned before, complain are “flaunting themselves.”
FREELOADING.
Gay liberation depends on there being visible gay people in everyday life which dispel stereotypes. It depends on people in general knowing gay people in their lives and hence being concerned that they are treated fairly.
When the gay liberation movement started the slogan was “Out of the closet into the streets.” (It is a book by that title by Karla Jay and Allen Young.) Now with the therapists it is out of the streets and into whining in the therapy room.
IT IS YOUR CHOICE.
It is your choice. I won’t be outing you. No one else in the gay community will be outing you. However, we don’t have to listen to your rationalizations and excuses, in fact we will be moving along and likely not around to hear them.
At some point you will have wasted a large part of your life which you will never get back. As time goes on your closetyness will close in on you and you will be this anti-gay gay person phobic about all things that might be gay and worrying about what the straight people will think.
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