When I hung out here at PC from '08 to '13, I was a closeted gay teenager. I did not feel comfortable with my sexuality. Gay people in my country were, and still are, often bullied and teased, due to a strong Roman Catholic presence and very traditional family values. Even a post that asked if I was gay in TCTI hurt me so much back then, because I did not want to be called that.
As I grew up, I realized that I wasn't going to stop being gay anytime soon. So I just hoped for things to change. I still wasn't comfortable with being gay, but I wanted to be. I remember being so distraught when my parents kept asking why I didn't want to attend a certain private Roman Catholic Jesuit university, even though I managed to get a scholarship for it. I didn't tell them, but I was secretly scared of all the priests that I was bound to encounter there; and if the students were the same, I'd be doomed to stay in the closet forever. I opted to go to a university that I felt was more accepting of the LGBTQ+, and thanks to the good reputation of my chosen university when it came to rankings, they didn't mind. In retrospect, the Jesuit university was actually pretty liberal, so my worries were completely unfounded.
Anyway, when I left PC, it was at the end of my freshman year of uni. I was still gay, but I slowly came to terms with it. When I befriended a guy that I'm still close friends with to this day, he ended up confiding to me that he had a boyfriend. And so I felt that it was right to share that I was a single gay man, myself. I managed to tell a few more close friends in that university about it, and pretty much all of them were supportive. I wanted to move to telling my parents, but I graduated without having the guts to do so.
So yeah, while I am still in the closet for the most part, my closest friends irl do know I'm gay. And people I've met on dating apps know as well. As for the future, I hope I'll be able to tell my mom on my 24th birthday. One of my brothers seems to know and not care, but I might as well tell him, too. I don't know if I'll ever tell my dad or my sister. My dad makes fun of gays and lesbians on TV, and my sister is incredibly religious.
