I guess that wasn't so bad...
Mar. 13th, 2004 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeSo I came out to my parents... *checks watch* last night.
I gave them a lot of advance warning, so they figured it out for themselves, which was kind of good. See, my father travels a fair bit, so I reserved him three weeks ahead of schedule to make sure he wouldn't be out of town. Except that kind of tipped them off that something was up.
So they apparently sat down and talked about it amongst themselves and went through the list of possibilities and narrowed it down. Their first thought was the lottery, but that got discarded quite quickly, then they thought I might be pregnant, also discarded, and eventually they decided I was gay.
Yes, my parents are smart. S-M-R-T, that's them. *faint smile*
Their reaction wasn't very different from the one I'd expected, though. A little bit different, but not terribly different. I expected my mother to be more surprised, but since she was prepared, she tried to be nonchalant about it.
Heh. When she asked me why I made such a big deal out of it I told her something along the lines of, "Well, you're a little bit homophobic," and she replied, "Oh, I'm extremely homophobic!" which for some reason I thought was rather funny, coming from the horse's mouth, as it were. (Even funnier, later in the conversation she claimed to be good friends with a number of gays, which is true. My mother *is* friends with gays and lesbians, just as she has arab and chinese and hispanic friends (not many, but some), but is unabashedly racist. It's a rum old world, ain't it?)
She's not thrilled, though. She told me "Don't expect me to take up your lifestyle," as though I expected her to suddenly become gay. I laughed at her and told her I didn't expect her to become a lesbian, and she actually looked slightly relieved.
The other comment that told me she was unhappy was: "Don't give us another dinner like this. Don't sit us down and tell us: 'I've murdered someone.' Because that's where I'll draw the line."
*shrug*
Otherwise, it went pretty much as I expected it to. They changed the subject as quickly as they possibly could, onto the fact that I don't have a job yet and that I'm a burden on them. My mother especially is withdrawing into Happy Denial Land, where she feels most comfortable. To quote the Simpsons: "Now let us never speak of it again."
I don't think I can reasonably expect more from them.
I've been telling myself this for weeks now, possibly months, rehearsing this over and over in my head, going over all the possible permutations in my head, until a scenario close to this one kept cropping up as the most likely outcome.
It still hasn't prevented me from crying until I thought my heart would break, once I got safely home.
I gave them a lot of advance warning, so they figured it out for themselves, which was kind of good. See, my father travels a fair bit, so I reserved him three weeks ahead of schedule to make sure he wouldn't be out of town. Except that kind of tipped them off that something was up.
So they apparently sat down and talked about it amongst themselves and went through the list of possibilities and narrowed it down. Their first thought was the lottery, but that got discarded quite quickly, then they thought I might be pregnant, also discarded, and eventually they decided I was gay.
Yes, my parents are smart. S-M-R-T, that's them. *faint smile*
Their reaction wasn't very different from the one I'd expected, though. A little bit different, but not terribly different. I expected my mother to be more surprised, but since she was prepared, she tried to be nonchalant about it.
Heh. When she asked me why I made such a big deal out of it I told her something along the lines of, "Well, you're a little bit homophobic," and she replied, "Oh, I'm extremely homophobic!" which for some reason I thought was rather funny, coming from the horse's mouth, as it were. (Even funnier, later in the conversation she claimed to be good friends with a number of gays, which is true. My mother *is* friends with gays and lesbians, just as she has arab and chinese and hispanic friends (not many, but some), but is unabashedly racist. It's a rum old world, ain't it?)
She's not thrilled, though. She told me "Don't expect me to take up your lifestyle," as though I expected her to suddenly become gay. I laughed at her and told her I didn't expect her to become a lesbian, and she actually looked slightly relieved.
The other comment that told me she was unhappy was: "Don't give us another dinner like this. Don't sit us down and tell us: 'I've murdered someone.' Because that's where I'll draw the line."
*shrug*
Otherwise, it went pretty much as I expected it to. They changed the subject as quickly as they possibly could, onto the fact that I don't have a job yet and that I'm a burden on them. My mother especially is withdrawing into Happy Denial Land, where she feels most comfortable. To quote the Simpsons: "Now let us never speak of it again."
I don't think I can reasonably expect more from them.
I've been telling myself this for weeks now, possibly months, rehearsing this over and over in my head, going over all the possible permutations in my head, until a scenario close to this one kept cropping up as the most likely outcome.
It still hasn't prevented me from crying until I thought my heart would break, once I got safely home.