Thursday Flakes: Pull Up A Chair Edition

Sit right back, and you’ll hear a tale. | Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Making a guest appearance with writing Flakes today, let’s take a three-hour tour together (my in-laws are the Gilligans)

SpartyOn here filling in on Flakes today. I thought a little about what I wanted to open with, and was thinking I’d write a little about family after attending my Uncle’s wedding this past weekend. However, after remembering the date tomorrow, I decided instead I wanted to get a little personal and talk about my coming out as tomorrow is International Coming Out Day. Just to be clear, I’m not writing this to be preachy about changing attitudes or invoking some political argument here. That is the complete opposite intent of my intro story. I am merely sharing my own personal story in the spirit of what “Coming Out Day” is, which is sharing who you are, and adding a few tips for how to talk with people who might someday tell you they’re LGBT. So consider this a friendly disclaimer that I’m not saying this to start an argument, and you can feel free to scroll past the intro to the flakes below if you prefer.

Without further ado, here is an abridged version of my coming out (to a degree, you do this all your life so I still come out when I meet new people so to speak). I knew I was different than the other guys in my class by the time we were entering middle school. I wasn’t super happy about it and tried to convince myself it was just a phase for a while. However, by the time I was getting to be an upper class-man in high school, it was obvious to me I was gay. I finally started to get sick of hiding it completely and told a few people in my school, which was not exactly huge. I am from a small town, so surprise, surprise, I told the wrong person and word got around (interestingly, that person has since come out to me that he is essentially bi-sexual and apologized for what he did).