I sometimes wonder whether my coming-out story is less interesting than other people’s, mostly because I don’t really feel like I have a proper coming-out story to tell at all.
There was no big announcement, no sitting my family down, no carefully rehearsed speech or dramatic moment where I finally told everyone something I’d been keeping secret for years. In fact, I can barely remember how everyone found out. I think I just gradually soft-launched it.
I think some of us, particularly in our mid-twenties, can get the idea that there is a particular way you’re supposed to introduce this information to the world. As though there is a correct order of people to tell, a right moment to do it, and some sort of official point where you’ve now successfully come out.
But there isn’t really a hierarchy to it. You don’t have to start with your parents, then your best friends, then extended family, then announce it to everyone else.
I mentioned that I was speaking to a girl, told a few friends what was going on and, from there, I suppose other people just worked it out. There was never really a moment where I thought, right, today is the day I come out. I was much more likely to mention it in passing, usually when someone asked whether I was seeing anyone or what was going on with my love life.
It was more, “Oh yes, I’m seeing a girl” and then carrying on with whatever conversation we were having.
Which is probably why I can’t really remember who I told first, or when I told them, or whether I even technically told them. I just started talking, and somehow the information made its way around.
The slightly more complicated part was what was happening in my own head.
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I’d realised that I liked someone in a way I hadn’t expected to, and after years of dating, sleeping with and falling in love with men, it was a fairly surprising thing to discover about myself. It wasn’t that I’d suddenly looked back at my childhood and realised I’d secretly known all along, or that I’d spent years wondering whether I was attracted to women.
The feeling just appeared, and once I recognised it for what it was, I couldn’t really pretend I hadn’t noticed.
Then came the overthinking.
I’d lie awake at night thinking: was that flirting? Did we just flirt? Or am I completely reading into this? I didn’t want to assume anything, but then what actually was that? Why was I suddenly feeling like this? Could this be something that completely changed my life, or could it be absolutely nothing?
And then came more questions. Wait, am I attracted to girls now? Does she know I’m not gay? Or maybe I am gay? But I’ve always loved men, and I still do.
I hadn’t broken up with a boyfriend because I’d suddenly realised I wanted women. I hadn’t been secretly waiting for a reason to leave relationships with men, and I hadn’t decided that everything I’d felt for them was somehow wrong. I’d genuinely loved those men and been happy with them.
I’d just met a woman and realised I liked her too.
Was this one girl an exception, or had I just discovered something about myself that I’d somehow never thought to look for?
The first people I told were my closest friends, and I remember sitting in the local pub crying my eyes out while trying to explain something I was still trying to understand myself.
I wasn’t upset because I was worried about how they’d react. I was emotional because this was completely new for me, and as someone who has never been particularly good at keeping things to myself, I needed to talk about it.
The people I told were people I trusted, but they weren’t necessarily all my best friends either. Some were friends of my exes, people I’d known for years who probably wouldn’t have made it onto any imaginary list of people I was supposed to formally come out to. But they were people I knew I could talk to. I could tell them what was happening without making it into a bigger event than it needed to be.
There was a lot of trust involved in that, and I feel very lucky that I had people around me who made it feel safe and normal to talk about something I was still figuring out.
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The reactions were quite funny, particularly because some people apparently “always knew”.
It’s a slightly irritating thing to hear when you’ve only just worked something out yourself, because you can’t help wondering what exactly everyone else had been seeing while you were just getting on with your life. Apparently there were signs. I’d quite like to know what they were, because I was clearly missing them.
Other people were completely surprised, which was probably just as reassuring. At least I knew I hadn’t been walking around with an enormous sign above my head that everyone except me could read.
Telling my parents was slightly different, although still fairly low-key.
I can’t hold things in for shit, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it to myself for long. We were in a coffee shop when I finally said, “I think I like this person more than a friend.”
I remember getting upset, but not because I was worried about their reaction. I’d just built it up so much that the anxiety sent my adrenaline through the roof.
I haven’t rushed to tell everyone else in my family, either. I’ve moved away from home now, so I don’t see them nearly as much, and I’ll tell them when I’m ready, probably the next time I see them in person.
I don’t feel in any rush either, and that might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
We hear about people who get married, have children and then, years later, realise they’ve been living a lie, or at least that the life they’ve built suddenly looks very different in hindsight. We hear about people who knew at school but spent years hiding it, or who carry the question around with them for years before finally deciding they’re ready to answer it.
Mine doesn’t really have that.
For a while, I wondered whether I’d somehow done myself a disservice by not figuring it out sooner. Maybe I should have explored it earlier, or maybe there were signs I’d completely missed.
I suppose that’s partly why I’m writing this. Not because I think I’ve got some definitive answer to give anyone, but because I wonder if any of this will sound familiar to someone else.
I could have done with reading something like this when I was lying awake at night asking myself whether I was imagining things, whether I liked women, whether I still liked men, and what any of it was supposed to mean.
Something that said you don’t necessarily have to have a dramatic story, or know exactly what you’re doing, or have all the answers before you start talking about it.
Maybe that’s all coming out has to be sometimes. Telling the people you trust about something you’ve realised about yourself, letting them react, laughing about the fact that some of them apparently knew before you did, and then getting on with your life.
I still can’t quite remember how everyone else found out.
I think I just soft-launched a girl and let everyone get the memo.
Liv x
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Olivia is a London-based journalist who loves writing about entertainment, lifestyle, and relationships, with a soft spot for dating, sex, and modern womanhood.
