Just one and he and I have still never met in person. I've been part of a little chat room for over a decade, knowing everyone there for as long. Some are adults, others were kids when the room started-up as a place to talk about the Daggerfall CRPG. It's been a good group and we've all become friends. For a lot of the kids there, I became something of a mentor being that I was 12 or 15 years older than they were. Many had absentee parents or just wanted an adult other than their parents to talk to. The room is still going and they've all grown-up to fine young men. I'd like to think I had in that.
One of these kids had just received his first blow job ever from a girl he roomed with at his high school prom. He just couldn't get it up for her and this had him very worried. That summer was miserable for him in a few ways and after a lot of late-night chats he IM'd me while fairly drunk and kept telling me over and over what a bad person he was and how he wasn't worth anything and everyone will hate him.
As he put it, "What's the worst possible thing you could be? The most horrible awful thing in the world?"
"A child molester or murderer?"
"No, really. What's THE worst thing?"
That was the essence of our exchange and demonstrates with the saddest poignancy what so many gay youth believe about themselves. He then told me how he would always be my friend and understood if I'd hate him now for what he was going to tell me. Then it clicked in my brain and I realized, 'He's trying to come out to me.'
"Are you trying to tell me you're gay?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Then good for you! That's great news! Congratulations on coming out!"
That blew him away. He's from bumfeck Missouri and his parents are religious plus he's adopted so he was absolutely positive his parents would throw him out and disown him. As I'm quite a bit older than he is, I told him to do what he had to but if he got thrown out to call me collect and I'd send him bus fare and he could come stay with me if that happened. No friend of mine was going to be sleeping on the streets. We worked it out and made a plan. Two fairly intense days of waiting later I heard from him and he was a different person. His mom wasn't pleased but she told him she'd love him no matter what. His dad was much less accepting however he didn't get thrown out.
Now he's a happy bear living in Chicago, leading an openly gay life, and infinitely happier. He's lost 160 lbs, has a good job, and like many of us, is going through the trials of finding the right person.
Coming out is a nightmare for so many people and the more I looked into it, the more I saw that just shocked me. My family is very well-educated, politically conservative, but socially liberal, and coming out for me wasn't nearly so bad. Still less so because I do live in downstate New York where being gay isn't a big deal. Both my parents are Unitarians so that should give you an idea.
I don't like to plug many things. I will this once. If you have some spare change or time on your hands, please check out
The Trevor Project. They run a national hotline for GLBT youth who are considering suicide or have nowhere to go. They do a lot of good work. I discovered them on the DVD for
Latter Days a great film that deals with a gay youth coming out in the most trying circumstances (Sandvoss is such a cutie).
The film was banned by Madstone Theaters, a cinema chain in Utah, which claimed it was "not up to our artistic quality."
