Coming Out

So, what’s the catch? 

Now there’s a question. It’s actually a secret. 

Wait, I don’t mean I can’t tell you. I mean that the catch is I have a secret, and that’s a problem. 

The odd thing is that my secret shouldn't really be a secret at all. This is 2023, not 1923. We’ve had an African American president, an orange president, and for good measure a female vice president as well. It’s the era of #MeToo and rainbows and non-binary acceptance. 

Why then, is revealing my secret so hard? 

Wait, don’t answer. I’ll tell you. 

It’s because the only person I really want to accept me and my secret may not—and the thought of that rejection is far worse than keeping a secret with which I can no longer live.

My name is Ricardo, but my friends call me Rico. Since I was ten, I have introduced myself as such. My mom is a humanities teacher at The University of Kansas, and my dad is a nonprofit lawyer. The family joke had always been that being nonprofit wasn’t intentional—it just worked out that way. 

My parents are unique to say the least. They were born both 20 years too late as well as 20 years too early. What I mean by that is they were flower children long after it was cool and ultra-progressive long before it came into fashion. 

This anomaly was of great benefit to me as I was raised to be open-minded and accepting. From the time I was young, my parents taught me that love was love and, unlike those who are hypocritical, they meant it. They didn’t care who I chose to date or marry, the only thing that mattered was if I loved them and they loved me. This was critical because, unlike the other boys at school, I liked the other boys at school. 

In many families, this would have been cause for anxiety and counseling and, in the worst case scenario, conversion therapy. However, in my home, the revelation was greeted with hugs and smiles and encouraging words. This is not to say that my classmates and their families were so open-minded. On more than one occasion, I came home with my eye black and my clothes torn. Honesty and openness, a hallmark in my family, could be dangerous at my school or in our small town.  

There was only one other person who accepted me for who I was, Terry Whitaker. Terry’s family had moved next door when I was nine years of age and a full two years before I came out. We were thick as thieves from the moment we met and, as good luck would have it, the Whitaker household shared my family's open-mindedness, unlike the neanderthal hoard which inhabited the rest of the town. 

The day I told Terry of my attraction to boys, it barely registered a blip. I remember a little sideways glance, then we went back to playing with our trucks before climbing our favorite tree. I’m not sure what the exact definition of friend or acceptance is, but I’m pretty sure if you look either up in the dictionary there will be a picture of Terry’s smiling face.  

Emboldened by Terry’s acceptance and my parents' encouragement to live my “authentic” life, I didn’t give a second thought to being honest about myself when I entered high school. In theory, I did the exact right thing. In practice, not so much. Being gay in my hometown was, to say the least, complicated and, truth be told, it was a recipe for disaster. It was bad enough that everyone knew who and what I was, but what made it worse was no one else in my whole school was gay. Yes, that’s right. 500 kids in my freshman class and over 2000 in the school, and I was the only “homosexual.” Not only that, in a school full of kids from different families, different backgrounds, and different ideals, Terry was the only one who stood beside me, the only one who would admit to being my friend. As a result, the two of us had something in common. We each had only one friend, but to us, one was enough.  

It’s a funny thing about being gay. You have a sixth sense about others as well. I’ve heard it called a “gaydar,” but whatever it is you call it, I had it. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true, I could tell the guys in my school who were in the closet. I even liked some of them, but if I ever tried to act on my feelings, that was when I received the aforementioned beatings. It became clear to me that I could live my true self as long as I did it in secret.  

No one was happier than I was when graduation day arrived, and I was able to walk across the stage and received my diploma. Well, no one except for maybe Terry. The two of us were headed to college where we hoped we would find greater acceptance. We no longer climbed trees or played with trucks, but we were still thick as thieves and we were leaving this one sexually-orientated town in our rearview mirror together. 

When you spend your life feeling like an outcast, trust doesn’t come easily. Neither Terry nor I were ready to take a chance college would be any better than high school. For this reason, we rented a small apartment just off campus instead of taking our place in the dorms. This allowed us to live together, giving us the chance to see if things in higher education were actually different from a safe distance. We were two old friends, inseparable and like-minded, living together. What could go wrong? Or should I say, what’s the catch? 

In a word, everything.

From the moment I met Terry, the only feelings we had for each other were platonic. This made sense because, even though I didn’t know it when we met, Terry was never my type. Not only was I gay, but I was also particular. I wanted boys to be sure, but I wanted them big and strong. To say the least, Terry was nothing like that. 

This brings me to my secret. 

The first time I ever really saw Terry everything changed. We had been friends for ten years, but that day in our apartment was the first day I had seen Terry naked. We both knew we weren’t interested in each other. We were friends—that was all. But there had never been a time when being naked would have fit into our friendship. Terry had just taken a shower and, without a towel, walked across the room to get dressed. I tried as best I could not to stare, but how could I not? I was being treated to the most beautiful body I had ever seen. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I didn’t have many points of reference for the naked human body—just what I had seen in a few magazines and from a couple of pornos I had watched online. But this was different. I had been wrong all along about my type. 

Terry was not muscular or at all hairy, but I was floored at what I saw. All of a sudden I saw Terry as more than a friend. I had been too blind to see it before, and now all I could think about was how these new feelings would play out. 

If I told Terry, it might change everything. Heck, who am I kidding? It would change everything. But if I said nothing… Well, after that day, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but so many questions flooded my mind. If I confessed, could we still be friends? Did Terry have an inkling? Or, God willing, did Terry feel the same?  

There is a saying in football that when you throw a pass, three things can happen, two of which are bad. That seemed to be a metaphor for my new dilemma. I could express my feelings, and Terry could say thanks-but-no-thanks, and we could go back to being friends. The more I thought about that option, the more dismayed I became. Even if we stayed friends, there would be a dark cloud over our heads. I could pour out my soul and freak Terry out. If I did that, it was entirely possible I could lose my one friend, another awful outcome. Or I could trust my instincts and find that maybe—just maybe—Terry felt the same. The only thing I knew was that the status quo was not going to work.  

Love at first sight is a myth. I hadn’t fallen in love with Terry at that moment. It was a love nurtured over years. It was trust and acceptance and kinship. It was a shared experience and a unified outlook and connection. It was a deep, soul-level love, and I had found that with Terry. I decided to be honest.  

Public places are the best place for shocking declarations. As much as I knew Terry wouldn’t make a scene, I still wasn’t taking any chances. I set up a table for two at a local restaurant and told Terry I wanted to celebrate all our years of friendship and support. Never underestimate the power of free food because as odd as my request seemed, Terry accepted without hesitation and the “date” was set. 

Terry arrived at the restaurant first and had already ordered a bottle of wine and filled two glasses by the time I entered the restaurant. I was both excited and terrified but was also resolute as I made my way to our table.

Seeing Terry waiting for me crystallized the gravity of what I was about to do. There was no way to know how it would come out, but there was also no turning back. Sitting down with a nervous smile on my face I looked across the table at the object of my affection, my heart began to race and my palms began to sweat. 

I grabbed my wine glass and drank its contents in one gulp. I then cleared my throat and posed the question. “Can you keep a secret?”

“With my life,” came Terry’s response. “You know that.”

“I’m in love with someone who has no clue about my feelings.” The words, in any other situation, would have been normal for old dear friends, but nothing about this was normal.

“That’s fantastic.” Terry replied. “Are you sure they don’t know?”

“I’m not.” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. “Do you know?”

“Do I know? What do you mean?”

“It’s you, silly.”

“You are in love with me?” 

I nodded my head.

“But…”

“Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are.”

“You know I’m a girl right?”

“Yup.”

“And you’re gay.”

“I thought I was, but turns out I was wrong. So, what do you think?” I filled my glass again and emptied it in a single swig. I waited anxiously for Terry’s response.

“All of a sudden I’m not hungry.” The look on Terry’s face reminded me of the day I first told her I was gay, but instead of going back to playing with trucks, she smiled and called for the check.

“Don’t you want to talk about this?” I asked, afraid of her answer.

“Talk? Hardly.” She responded, her smile growing even bigger.

“What, then?”

Taking my hand in hers, and giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek, she said, “Let’s get out of here and go home.”

What’s the catch? The funny thing is it turns out there isn’t one after all.