thelesbianlifestyle.com

there are two things I hate about being gay :

1- the fact that I’m not the only one to be the target of stereotypes and all… I hate that my family can be targeted as well when they shouldn’t… we’ve been lucky so far only a couple of friends of my parents had somewhat mild reactions after knowing I’m gay… but my folks are just the greatest and they handle it like pros

2- the fact that it’s never ending… I mean whenever you meet new people, whenever you change jobs, you gotta come out all over again… straight people don’t have to do that… *pouts* lol and I hate that because I always get so comfy about my orientation and I get people around me comfy as well (I think so anyway lol) that I always end up having worries or apprehensions when I change jobs…

case in point… about 3 years ago I was studying in an intensive program… I’ve realized I was gay during that program and debated for a while if I should be out to my fellow classmates or not… dunno why really… just had the stupid worries that maybe it’d influence who would team up with me and all that (small group of 25 people being together almost 24/7 for a year and a half… *eek* lol) and I ended up coming out to them… some of them didn’t take it too well, but as expected they weren’t the ones I got along with a lot in the first place… + they weren’t the mean kind always coming after you… they were just the “silently disapproving” kind lol so I got used to that, and my classmates as well… I am one who doesn’t mind making fun of myself to make other people laugh or get my point across… so that worked well with them, we were making jokes from time to time and I was pretty impressed by how supportive they were…

then at the end of the program I had an internship… I go damn… I’ll have to go through this again… lol internship was in an hospital for people with mental problems… I worked with 3 ladies… one about my age, the other one about 7 years older and the other one a good 20 years older than me… I figured I wouldn’t tell them since I’m only there for about 10 weeks or so… but one day we were all out eating together can’t even remember why… and for some reason they start talking about homosexuals… and then the pride parade and discuss all that… having a lot of questions, wondering about several things about gay people… and then they talk about how many young people commit suicide when they find out they’re gay (that hospital has a world reknowned doctor doing research on suicide because his own daughter was a patient of the hospital in the 70′s I think and she committed suicide cause she was mentally unstable, not gay related…) but anyways so after debating with myself about it I decide to participate in the discussion and also to come out to them at the same time… went great, they all had scientifical backgrounds, so they just kept asking questions cause I think they felt comfortable with me so they felt they finally had the opportunity to ask the questions they never dared to ask other gays before…

so after I finished my internship with them they hired me for a short term contract and then I was out of work again… here goes the apprehension again and the “oh no, I’ll have to do it all over again…” lol

I end up getting hired at a bank… where I still work at the moment (well I’m on a sick leave right now, but ya get the picture) I started the long training (banks are so private and so complicated that you have a lot of security and ethical trainings + all the puter stuff to know how their systems work) and like always, I’m internally debating about if this place could be a place I come out to… I guess I always get sent signs to help me decide in some way… lol in this case I knew when we went through the work conditions, the part about how the bank won’t discriminate nor tolerate discrimination based on gender, race, handicap, sexual orientation (that’s where I went hmmm maybe lol) then our teacher talked to us about our insurance plan and how same sex partners were recognized by the bank (then my brain went woo hoo and did the happy dance on its own lol) that’s when I knew it’d be ok to come out…

I did end up coming out during the 8 weeks long training… and then to the team I was assigned afterwards… I make constant jokes about it… not as to make fun of gays, but I guess it’s just my way to remind people yeah I am a lesbian, but I still can make fun of it… it’s not this big scary topic you gotta put gloves on before approaching because you gotta be worried about being PC and all that crap if you don’t wanna end up being sued… at least not for me… I’m like everybody else, so that means I can take a joke when it’s meant to be a joke and not as a mean comment to hurt me…

the part I love best is when the people I work close to poke fun at me from time to time… you know like when they’re complaining about their bfs and then they look at me and they say something to the effect of “lucky you, you don’t have to put up with that” lol or they wish they were lesbians or whatever lol… or when I poke fun of them for being straight and they laugh… we’re just really getting along well so I love it

honestly, looking back, I don’t think I could be able not to be out at work… being a lesbian is a part of me and I just cannot deny it… and just like everybody at work feels free to talk about their partners when something is up or when they’re exctatic, I feel the same way about my gf… if I haaaad to not be out at work I think it’d be really hard on me… let’s just hope it’ll never come to that

I’m not doing anything out of my way to come across as gay… I mean people dress the way they want, I don’t try to blend in and just dissappear in a crowd, I just wear what I like to wear (which happens to be cargo pants and t-shirts most of the time… lol) so I respect other gays at work if they dress up more “gay” whatever that means… because unless someone admits to be trying to blend in so nobody knows they’re gay, I just consider them as dressing the way they like and acting the way they are… and I’ve got not problems with that… but whenever there’s a conversation about coworkers’ partners, or about gays or about whatever… I’ll never hide the fact that I am a lesbian, that I have a gf not a “partner” that I am seeing a girl instead of saying “I’m seeing someone” and all that, I’m done hiding female pronouns and all that crap… did it for a couple of months when I first realized I was gay and hated every single second of it… so not going back there