At The Rubicon – How I Came Out At Work

I never go out with work colleagues. Yes, it’s because of privacy issues related to gayness. I especially avoided it when in African cities. I realised quickly that the religious and conservative environment meant that often people could be singled out by their supervisors for things they did on the work night out or just in public and were seen. One of my colleagues ended up losing his job for something that was not even related to the company, something in his personal life that leaked.

However in the UK, it’s far easier. There is a certain feeling that everyone has been there and done that and people don’t really care who you shag or if you shag at all. And there’s a certain camaraderie that’s built up by those after work drinks.

I work in a female-dominated environment and they have all been very nice and easy to work with. We’ve had a few big nights. One of them in particular was so bad I had to be helped home. I had thoroughly underestimated their bar prowess and paid dearly for it the next day.

So on another night out, I was chatting with one of my colleagues when she started to get a bit flirty. At that point, I took a few minutes to gather up courage and then told her “Listen yeah, I’m gay.” She laughed and said “we all know!” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked how she knew and she responded: do you not remember??

On the big night that I’d gotten so drunk, I’d told many of the coworkers that I was gay. I don’t even remember any of it. And so it had been passed on as part of the usual office gossip and was old news. I was the only one who didn’t know I’d been out at work for weeks. A few things suddenly began to make sense.  I’d detected a softening towards me from many formerly frosty members of staff that hadn’t been there before and now I knew why. For some reason I felt weird at work. It wasn’t that I was upset that I was careless with my private life – it’s legal to be gay in the UK and I knew my job wasn’t in jeopardy – this was all uncharted territory for me and I had never even considered telling work colleagues. All my energy so far had been expended in figuring out how to tell family with the plan that I’d work on work folk later should it be deemed necessary yet the reverse had happened.  Eventually I decided to let things flow and not overthink it. So far things have been good, no one has made anti-gay statements, made me feel uncomfortable or tried to set me up yet (thankfully!).

And the love and respect I have for my coworkers continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

 

The Melancholy for Can’t-Be and The Nostalgia for Never-Was

I met him online. His profile was empty and I was very wary in the beginning but we connected very quickly. He sent me some really interesting pictures – while he was good-looking, he seemed like he’d be comfortable in an office, outdoors or in a psych ward. Very versatile.  We finally met up for coffee and spent a couple of hours just talking. As he was leaving, he shook my hand then held on to my shoulder, rubbed for a minute like he couldn’t let me go and looked into my eyes. I froze. I have never been one for public displays of affection and when it comes to PDAs of the gay kind, I shut down entirely. But when he touched me, right in the middle of a train station, I felt like there was no one else there – only the two of us. I looked into his eyes and saw the longing I felt for him being returned. I didn’t want him to let go either. We met up for coffee many times after that and finally started dating. We both liked each other but neither was in a place where a relationship of any kind was possible, he because he’d recently come out of a relationship where his ex moved to a different country, and I because there are so many things going on in my life now that I am unable to settle down.

While I would never admit to it in public, I believe in the power of connections and would commit to something if I felt strongly enough about it. However like Lady Gaga once said: “If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”

 

Transient Playgrounds and Fleeting Friendships

Years ago I read a science fiction short story about a wildlife reserve that one could experience in two ways – as a tribesman who is a full participant in all the activities of the habitat or as a spectator who could observe every event that took place but not engage in any of it. Reading posts often gives me similar sensation to the latter experience: of being an observer and witnessing the experiences of another person without actually being a part of the event. Other times I feel like I’m reading a constantly evolving autobiography in small parts as opposed to reading a summary of someone’s life that has been whittled down and prettied up for public consumption.

 

How NOT To Win Friends and Influence People

Friends are hard to come by and for some reason, good friends who are gay are even harder. Yes, everyone says that being gay isn’t enough reason to be friends with someone – people need to have other things in common to be friends and while that is indeed true, I find that true friends who are gay are ridiculously difficult to find regardless of the magnitude of compatibility on the friendship scale. The backstabbing, the gossip, the cattiness,the love of gayscapades – these are things that I cannot handle all the time and so I keep to myself and treasure the few friends that I have who see life as more than just a stage to show off how much drama they can create. 

 

Tagged: Is Being Gay Ever A Good Thing?

“In what way is being gay a Good thing?”

Being gay is HARD make no mistake about it. Is there even anything good about being gay to begin with? Not much in my opinion. Which is why it still baffles me that in 2012 some people still believe anyone would ‘choose’ to be gay. Looking back on my relatively short life however, it seems my answer lies in how being gay has affected my life positively.

 

After He Was Outed…

Recently a friend of mine got ‘outed’ by another friend to a group of his close friends (me included). It wasn’t just the “do you know he’s gay?” line. It was sordid

 

Too Many Rules

Why do we have all have so many scruples with regards to relationships? Everyday I hear of another odd law that apparently I have to abide by. Here are some of my favourites: