My Coming Out Story

by Benjamin Allen Hogue on Monday, October 11, 2010 at 5:19pm

Since it is October 11th, National Coming Out Day, and it’s been nearly a year since I’d consider myself “out”, I’ve decided to share my story with you all…

My Coming Out Story

I’ve always known that I’m a lot different from the majority of the population and not just because I have the rare ability to speak Spanish with a British accent…

I’m gay…  What I mean by that is I am attracted to men… 

I say that because people often come up with their own definition of the word so I just thought I would clarify…

Growing up east county San Diego, I learned quickly that it is not socially acceptable to be gay.  Gay people were non-existent in my elementary school and middle school, and at my high school of approximately 3,000 students, there were 5 members in the GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) Club, who were treated with very little to no respect…  

I wanted to be like everyone else.  I wanted to be normal.  I wanted to have friends.  Therefore, I kept this part of me a secret from the rest of the world and didn’t tell a soul… 

It was an extremely difficult internal struggle that I wrestled with for the first 18 years of my life.  I went through several stages of denial, but over time, I realized that it’s just the way I am…  I am going to need to learn to accept it in order to be truly happy in life someday…  The question was… when was that ever going to happen?

In the summer of 2009, I moved out and started college early at SDSU.  I made a lot of new friends within the program, which I was participating in and became close with a select few people.  One night, during late conversation via instant messenger, I finally decided I wanted to tell one friend my secret.  The entire duration of our chat went on for about five hours, and it took me about three of those hours for me to simply communicate my secret to him.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life…  The hesitancy…  The anxiety…  The uncertainty…  The insecurity…  I felt so vulnerable by unveiling my secret that if I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for, I’m not sure what I would have done…  But I did.  Turns out, he was gay too.  I was 17 years old, and I had met my first gay friend…

After that, my confidence grew exponentially.  It became less and less difficult for me to say after each person I told.  Pretty soon, I started telling some of my close friends from home.  All of them being straight of course, some very religious, some very conservative, and some supporters of the recent Proposition 8, so it was even more nerve-racking.  I felt like it was the right time though…  We are all graduated from high school now and we were all mature.  They all know me very well by now, and they can rest-assured that I will not be any different from the person they know and love already…  I received great reactions from all of them and it made me feel on top of the world knowing that I have the greatest, most genuine friends in the world!

I was content with how things were going at this point.  I told most of my closest friends about me; all the people I felt that I really deserved to tell.  And I even felt somewhat guilty for hiding that part of myself from them for all these years.  The only other people that were really on the list were my biggest fears… my dad… and my brother…  But I was nowhere near ready to tell them yet…

Fall came quickly and the school semester began and that’s when I fell in love for the first (only) time…  One of the people I met from the summer program had a couple friends from his hometown come to visit, whom I was lucky enough to meet.  One friend specifically had such an infectious personality that I was immediately drawn to and that’s how we started talking…  Anyways, that’s a different story, but we started dating a while later and he became my first boyfriend…

I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life.  I was so content with my relationship and I was falling in love with this person faster than I could have ever anticipated.  It was unbelievable and I was having the time of my life…  However, it was a gigantic struggle having to keep it a secret from my family and a lot of my friends still as well.  It was incredibly difficult to be SO happy, but unable to tell people about it…

I started having nightmares…  I was having trouble concentrating in school…  The anxiety was really having an effect on my life because I didn’t have the strength to tell my family…  I’ve had countless opportunities but failed to seize any of them…  Soon, I came to the conclusion that I really needed to just get it done and over with…

My dad works with computers, so the easiest way to get a hold of him is by instant messenger.  Of course I didn’t tell him this way, but I used it to create a situation I was unable to run away from and be forced to tell him.  So all I needed to say was, “Dad, I really need to talk to you about something” and he immediately invited me over with worries of what I wanted to talk about.  He probably feared I was on drugs or failing school or got someone pregnant.  Haha.

I felt extremely uneasy and kept wishing I had never created this situation, but I was there already and there was no escape.  He told me to just spit out the words to him, which is a lot different from the way I went about telling anyone else.  So I just told him.

My dad is a man of few words so it was somewhat of an awkward conversation, but what he did have to say was very comforting and it took a HUGE weight off my shoulders.  My dad still loves me!  My dad is still proud of me!  It’s all I’ve ever wanted from him and it’s such a big relief to know that this doesn’t change anything.  I was so ecstatic that I scheduled a dinner for him and my stepmom to meet my boyfriend over dinner just a few weeks later, which went fantastic.

I decided to make it official at this point, and change my relationship status on facebook.  ;)

There was really only one person left to tell… my brother… my closest family member… 

We weren’t always close.  I believe the moment he started hanging out with me was when I was in middle school and I found a porn magazine in his room and I left him a note saying, “if you don’t get me one, I’ll tell Dad!”  So I figured, he thinks I’m cool because I like girls.  So that’s really how we started hanging out.  He introduced me to concerts and got me into hardcore music…  I would hang out with all of his high school friends while I was still in middle school…  I thought he was the coolest guy ever and I wanted to be just like him…

By changing my relationship status on facebook, I basically created the same situation I made to come out to my dad.  Once my brother saw that, he got really excited and commented, messaged, and texted me asking who “the girl” is…

I avoided his questions until the next time I saw him, which was on Christmas Eve 2009 at my dad’s house.  He was convinced that I was dating a girl that was featured in a lot of pictures with me on facebook, so he asked if “she” would be here for Christmas the next day.  And so I awkwardly replied that it isn’t “her” name and I told him the truth…  It was extremely shocking for him so he grew very silent.  I decided to let him think about it for a while and we discussed it later on.  He basically had the same things to say as my dad, which made me feel better about it…

But with my brother, it’s barely about how he took the news…  We are now closer than we have ever been before.  I was originally afraid that he would feel embarrassed to be my brother after knowing this… but it really has seemed to have had the opposite effect!  He tells me how proud he is of me every time he sees me…  He brags about me to his friends…  And he has my BACK more than anyone I know!  I have never felt a stronger bond than the one I have now with my brother and it’s an amazing feeling…

 —————

That’s pretty much my “coming out story” in a nutshell.  (I tried to condense it as much as possible)  It was an incredible struggle keeping that secret bottled up within me for all those years…  I feel like I came out at the right time; however, I also think it has had a lasting effect on me internally…  I feel that due to this, I’m not very in touch with my feelings anymore…  It’s hard to explain, but yeah.

I have had such a positive experience coming out and it is the most liberating feeling to not have to keep such a huge secret anymore.  I hope this has been an enlightening story for anyone trying to understand the struggles of LGBT and I encourage anyone out there to accept yourself for who you are and get it off of your chest.  If you need a stepping-stone, you can always come to me…  I have had a few people share their secret with me, and having been in that position before, I of course respect their confidentiality.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story!

Ben

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