Can I Come into the Out Now?

In DreamWorks’s movie Home the character Tip traps the alien Oh in a refrigeration unit at a gas station. He then poses the question, “Can I come into the out now?”

This is a question that I find myself asking in every relationship I have, whether you be friend, family, foe, or acquaintance. (I did that for alliteration, I don’t think I have enough foes to have it be a category, or an “f” word for acquaintance.)

I have been “out” for about a year now. That dreaded day of becoming public on Facebook is already over a year ago. Just a blip on my wall and an entry in my journal. But it has had more lasting effects than that. It erased all doubt, if people were wondering and paying attention, about me and my attraction to the same-sex. 

Even though this part of me doesn’t make up all of me, it plays a significant amount that I still worry about it. People aren’t me so they can see past that, and I’m grateful, but I still worry what people thing about me, with my baggage and all. I have caught myself still wishing to be considered straight in the eyes of others, for whatever reason, years of suppression and believing that even being attracted to guys was a sin that I’m still trying to overcome, or something like that.

But I sidetrack.

Back to my question. Can I come into the out now? This is a question that I ask every time I am in a new situation or around new people. I am an observer by nature and assess how much of myself I am allowed (or I allow myself) to be in certain situations or around certain people. So I am constantly perceived as being quiet. I am constantly in this mode, so I consider myself a quiet person, even though I know that I open up and can be quite loud when I am comfortable around you.

[Me being comfortable around you is a two way street. If you don’t open up, I generally have little to no desire to open up to you. In the famous words of Rumple/ my experiences in life, “All things come at a price.”]

But I also reserve the right on how open I am with you. I have had friends or situations where I felt comfortable and was more of myself, but due to comments or lack of understanding I retract my personality and revert to being silent because I don’t feel appreciated or understood, so why try.

This also leads to another issue I have with opening up. Because I have many varied options of being open with others, being in public situations is exhausting. Being an introvert is bad enough. But I have to shuffle through how open I am with each person. So here I am in public with my friends, some acquaintances, and strangers…let’s call it a church dance or something like that. I will tend to hang around the people that I am comfortable with, joke with them and make snide remarks about things. With acquaintances I will be pleasant and courteous, very Eliza Doolittle! And even more so with strangers. I’m in observant/ get to know you while assessing how much of myself I can be around you. 

If you don’t know me, the best way to see who I am is to observe me when I am with friends. Or parts of me will come out if you’re hanging around my friends and me, then you get to see me more as me while we get to know each other. Or you read my blog or look at my Instagram.

After all these dizzying realizations of how complex I am, it’s crazy that we have to be anyone less than ourselves. But it also makes sense, well at least for me. Because of being hurt, having my trust betrayed, or just plain stupidity, I don’t allow myself to be myself 100% of the time. I wish it could be different and that we could be more trusting and accepting of each other, but that probably won’t happen any day soon. So I keep going and trying to be as much of myself as I can.

I hope some of this made sense or helped you understand a bit more the madness that is me!

God Bless! Until Next Time!