"Come out, come out, wherever you are...!"

Sometimes, you build up the coming-out thing way so big that you tend to scare yourself much more than you really need to. Not really the great words of wisdom you'd expect (or even want) to hear from the ole man of the mountain, I know, but there it is. Take it from me - the guy who writes behind the moniker of Closetalk/CT/what-have-you from a place called "Talking Closets" - coming out has its comedy of errors, as well as its fair share of melodrama. When I read accounts of how younger (gasp) gay South Asians manage and negotiate their gay-ness, there's a strange sense of "O, wow, I suppose I went through all this at one time too!", mingled with the curiosity of the external onlooker. That's especially true in the case of someone like me, who's "out" in almost all senses of the word - my friends know, my colleagues have no excuse to not guess at least - and yet, like so many other South Asian gay men, I'm not "out" to my family. Well, not officially, at least.



I mentioned in an earlier post, how I'd come out to brother, while we were in the Big Bad Apple. Now, I've had reason to believe for quite some time now that my brother knows I'm gay. Let's see: there was the instance, when I was seventeen, that I confessed I liked both guys and gals (I was lying, I never did have a thing for broads, no offence intended); then there was the completely intimate knowledge of fashion trends and styles, Bombay clubs and pubs, the glitteratti and all that jazz that no normal hetero guy can ever hope to pull off; the various smirks and jokes from dah-ling brother that indicated he knew I'd lost my (ummm..) cherry (?) and planted my own sapling (?) here and there; and of course, the insinuation that I was "busy" every night whenever there was a GB party underway... So... yep, I knew that he knew that I knew that he knew that I was gay. And the world is wonderfully knotty/naughty and comes full ellipse.

But sometimes, the thing of coming "out" is that even though you know that everyone knows, you want to spell it out explicitly. Kick of the sneakers and try out the stilletoes brazenly, as it were. You want to talk about the fact that you're a fag, that you think other fags (well, some of them) are hot/cute/delectable/whatever, and perhaps even that you're in love. And for sometime now, I've wanted to grab that bull by its horns, jerk it around a bit (no pun intended, believe me), and basically come out - officially - to my bro. Here's how it happened...

Plans were made, before leaving for NYC, on how, where, when etc to break the news... perhaps over a coffee, perhaps back at the hotel after a fun day out, perhaps on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building (hope he doesn't jump!)... but all those planned events came and went, and I didn't say a word. In my nightly phone-calls to Irish Coffee, I said, there just hasn't been the right time, the right moment... it has to be natural, I don't want to force it... yadayadayada. So, anyhow, on day 3 (I think), we head to the Met and after a glorious three hours of exploration, I realize that we're separated. I don't have an international phone card on me, so I can't call him. Whoops. So I call Irish Coffee, instruct him to call up the brother and inform him where I'm waiting for him - and I settle down. As simple as that. He eventually does find me, many more hours pass, we carry on our New York tour, and suddenly at around 10.30 pm, on the walk from the subway station back to our hotel, something unfathomable seizes me, so that I turn back towards him and say, "You have known, for quite some time now, that your younger brother is gay, have you not?"

Bro (without skipping a beat): "Yep."

CT: "O... good."

CT (after walking in silence for 30 seconds, and then spills out in the rush to catch a hurrying train): "Cool, cuzIreallywantedtotellyou,becauseI'mactuallyprettymuchouttoallmyfriends,andIthoughtitdoesnt'treallymakesensetonotbeouttoyou,butthenyouknowhwatyourmumanddadarelike,soIkeptquiet,butthensinceit'syou,Ithoughtyou'veprobablyknown forquitesometime,andthere'sreallynoreasontokeepquietaboutit,sothereyouare."

Bro (smiling in the dark): "Ok."

CT: "O, and my friend who called you at the museum today, he's my boyfriend."

Bro: "Ok."

Ummm... ok, then. I must say, I was a bit pertubed about the lack of questions or queries or whatever from him, but I did call up Irish Coffee excitedly from the hotel and broke the news of my coming-out (officially). Was a bit puzzled about the lack of reaction from brother dah-ling, but since he went to bed early that night, there was no room for me to pursue my queries. As it turned out, however, I had little room to worry. The next day, over coffee at Starbucks, he grins at me, and remarks, "So... how come I'm not being introduced to Irish Coffee? Isn't this supposed to be Meet The Family?"



Well, at least I didn't get the coffee-confession thing totally wrong...!