Lez Keep It Real

This week’s Come Out & Play post spotlights Jeremie. (Jeremie asked that only her first named be used.) Jeremie contacted me on the Planet Podcast Forum and offered to share her coming out story with the Lez Keep it Real readers. I give her a lot of credit for putting herself out there.

The following is Jeremie’s story:

It was my freshman year of high school. I thought everything was going pretty well for the middle of the year. My grades were up, my friends were abundant and even my teachers seemed to like me. One night well talking to my friend online, after finishing my homework of course, I felt really close to her. We were just talking about anything and everything really.

I was sitting there thinking about how great our friendship was…and then there was a pause in the conversation. I was thinking of what to say next when I thought about something. Recently I’d been working out in my mind that I was gay, but I hadn’t fully accepted it in myself. But that night the electricity in the air was palpable to me. I felt like I could do anything, with my friend by my side.

So when I began typing I had a mission: I was going to tell the first person ever to know that I was gay. As soon as the words hit the screen my heart started pounding, blood started rushing to my head, and I was beginning to feel dizzy and nervous. The words: YAY! Popped up in the conversation window next and I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. She was happy…happy! She was the first person I had told and she was happy for me. What could’ve been better?

“Please,” I typed “Keep this quiet though, I’m not sure how many people I want to tell yet.” I waited. “You bet buddy, I’m just glad you finally did it!”

The conversation carried out for almost the rest of the night until I felt too tired to continue. That night I slept peacefully. A weight had metaphorically been lifted from my shoulders and I could breathe easy, because now I was not so lonely.

The next day at school was like any other. I went through classes, got my homework and rode home in the car with my sister. As soon as I got home I was starting my homework when I got a phone call. It was a friend from school. “Hey there.” I said “What’s going on?” “Oh you know,” the person at the other end of the line replied, “Just that…I heard you’re gay. Is that true?” Immediately my face burned red, although there was no one to see it. My breathing became shallow and I tried to fight off anger and frustration…and tears. “No.” I grit out through my teeth. “Why would you say that?” “Well someone mentioned that you said that to them last night, but I’m not telling you who. But I just wanted to see if it was true or not.” “Of course not. Listen, I have to go, I’ve got..homework.”

I hung up the phone as a million things ran through my mind and a million emotions flashed inside of me, but the biggest emotion of them all was Betrayal. I had never felt so betrayed in my life. I quickly called my supposed best friend and there was no answer. For the rest of the night I tried calling her and she kept avoiding me, and later that evening she failed to get online. I had a sneaking suspicion why.

That night was restless for me. I don’t think I slept at all. When I was at school in the morning, I was in seek-and-destroy mode, someone leaked my secret and that someone would pay!

“Hey” I yelled and ran up to my friend. “What’s up?” She asked innocently. “You know what is up? I got a call from a mutual friend last night and they said that you told them I was gay…I told you to keep it quiet!” “Look I thought they should know ok? It’s not a big deal, it was only that person.”

I was furious, and so the best thing to do at that moment, was for me to walk away. Which is what I did. Through the day people kept coming up to me and asking me if I was gay and I kept saying no. I was miserable, and more than anything I was angry. At that point in time I felt like, if this was what being gay was about, I didn’t want anything to do with it. I trudged through the day, fearing that my whole high school life would be like this from now on.

We exchanged some words and tried to work things out, and I was pretty mad at my friend for a while. I didn’t know what she was thinking. I didn’t expect this from her. Eventually the questions died down and the rumors became yesterday’s news…and I did end up forgiving my friend. A part of me was glad that she had done what she did, but the other part, kind of wishes she would’ve let me come out on my own time. Either way, I came out, and my friends all know, the school knows, and I even got around to clueing in my mom and sister. Later that year I found out that my mom was also a Lesbian as was my sister. Bizarre no? But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You can visit Jeremie on the Planet Podcast Forum under the name writerboi.

Tune in every Friday for the Come Out & Play series, featuring coming out stories of celebrities, every day people, personal reflections, advice, tid bits and everything else concerning the complicated world of coming out!

Got an interesting coming out story to tell? Contact me and I will feature it in an upcoming post of Come Out & Play.

Have YOU heard about the “fag bug?”

[Come out and play, coming out, the closet, planet podcast, planet podcast forum, gay, lesbian, boi, high school, gay teens, coming out in high school, fag bug[/tags]