PRIDE and Coming Out, My Story

PRIDE and Coming Out

            It is June and it is PRIDE month. All across the nation, cities will be hosting PRIDE festivals and Parades. There will be PRIDE marches. They will come from far and wide to join in the festivities. To gather in mass, for a weekends long celebration.

            I had my first gay experience when I was 7 years old. Now keep in mind, I had no idea what being gay meant. I had never even heard the word, homosexual. I was clueless that it was a horrible thing to homosexual, coming from a Christian upbringing. I had never heard anyone mention homosexuality at church or in my home.

            It was my dad’s best friends, oldest son, whom, I had my first homosexual experience. I will not mention his name, to protect his identity. Like I said, I was 7 at the time. He was 13 or 14 years old. It all seemed so natural to me. Yes, even though I was young it felt natural. I hadn’t been corrupted by the negativity that is associated with being homosexual. I didn’t feel weird or worried. Like what was happening was wrong. In looking back I’m not so sure that that was a good thing or not.

It wasn’t until much later, I found out that according to my family, church, and certain former friends. Being gay was wrong, an abomination, and a sin. So I began to watch and listen, to what people said and how they reacted and responded when the words, gay, queer, fag, homo, came up. Let’s just say it was eye opening.

            I kept my sexuality to myself, all through high school. And even after graduation. I felt it necessary to keep this part of my life secret from family and friends. My family is deeply religious. And at that time, I didn’t have any plans to come out or start dating a guy.

            When I was 22 years old. I was working for Stanley Furniture. My friends would come home from college and get summer jobs there. They would work with me for the summer, then around the middle of August, or first of September, they would head back to school for the fall semester. It bothered me, when they left. I decided to do something about it.

            I decided to go back to school. It was depressing to see my friends leave at the end of summer. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working at Stanley. Looking back, this one decision, completely changed my life forever. It may seem simple, but it wasn’t. I was such a closed and narrow-minded person. That all changed once I decided to go to college.

            Going back to school and moving away from home, was a huge step. It opened my eyes to a whole new world. It exposed me to people from many different walks of life and back grounds. It opened me up to different ways of thinking and life in general. I’m not saying it was a bad thing. Just that if I hadn’t gone back to school, I’d probably still be in Robbinsville, clueless of what life has to offer.

            I moved to Sylva. I got an apartment with my friend Bryan. He transferred from the University of North Carolina Asheville, to Western Carolina University, so we could be roommates. We got an apartment at Wards Cabins on the river, not far from school. Some of our friends moved a few cabins down from us.

            Moving away from home was a unique experience for me. Freedom to be myself and the sweet smell of independence was like a drug. I didn’t have family watching over me. Critiquing my every move. My church wasn’t there to tell me that going to college was a bad idea. It was liberating to be out from under those yokes of oppression. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and my church. They didn’t like that I was moving away. They didn’t like my school of choice.

            Not long after moving to Sylva, a friend of ours came out as gay. His name was Shane. He was from Robbinsville. He was in our circle of friends. His coming out, totally freaked me out. I didn’t want to be around him. I was afraid people would think I was gay. Which I was, but I wasn’t ready to come out just yet.

            I got a job working at a convenience store, while I was going to school, to help pay bills. It was an easy job. I became the assistant manager. It was while I was working there, that I met and later became friends with a young man named Andy. Andy is gay. He came into the store one Friday night to purchase gas. What struck me odd about Andy, was the T-shirt he was wearing, when he came in. It had two guys on the front of the T-shirt facing each other. They were wearing leather pants, no shirts, and wearing military style hats that you would see on the TV show Hogans Heros. Something went off in my head, saying this guy is gay. We made small talk while I was ringing up his bill. He asked me about the score of the football game. The local high school, Smoky Mountain was playing. I had no clue about the game. I wasn’t listening to it on the radio.  He smiled, said thanks and left.

            He started coming in regularly after that. He’d always wear a T-shirt that would send off bells and whistles in my head. We would talk each time, becoming more familiar. Then one night he brought a friend with him. His name was Chad. Chad was a nice guy. Very talkative. Like Andy, he was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cow print Versace pants. The T-shirt sent off bells and whistle, this guy is gay also.  It was not long after, that Andy came into the store one evening. He said that he knew I was gay. I guess the look on my face was priceless. He also told me that he brought Chad in to meet me, to see if he thought I was gay.  Chad told him, that he thought so, but that I was still in the closet so to speak. And may not even realize, that I was gay.

            Well, the cat is out of the bag so to speak. So, each time Andy would come in, I’d question him to death. He was patient and would answer my questions. I still had not officially came out. But I was closer to making a change in that area of my life. I knew that I was tired of hiding who I was. I was tired of being lonely. All my buddies had girlfriends. I wanted that closeness with another person.

            A few months later. By an accident, just waiting to happen. I walked into Scandals Night Club for the first time. I didn’t know that Scandals was a gay club. I soon found out. It nearly scared me to death, when the door attendant asked me if I knew what kind of bar this was. I said no.  Then he told me a gay bar. I still wasn’t ready to come out, not yet anyways.

            Instead of leaving like a smart man would do. I go over the bar. The bartender whose name is TJ asked me what I was having. I told surprise me and make it a double. Yeah, I got shitfaced drunk. So, drunk, I don’t remember how I got home that night. When I came to the next day, I was home in my bed.

            I was so paranoid that someone I knew, would find out where I had gone the night before. I completely shut everyone out. I would go to school and work. Once I got home, I would lock myself in my bedroom. I stopped socializing with my roommates and our friends. I am surprised that Bryan and my roommates didn’t kill me, looking back on it.

            It took a month for me to calm down.  I was so stressed out. Bryan was ready to kill me. Bryan and our friend Melissa were going to a party. I didn’t know at the time that Andy was the person throwing the party. Bryan was working with me at the store so he had met Andy at the store a few times also. Well they were talking, and evidently Bryan brought me up in conversation. Andy didn’t realize that I hadn’t come out to my friends. I was still hiding in the closest, and hadn’t come out at all. During their conversation, Andy said some things. And understanding dawned on Bryan, as to what I was going through. As Andy realized to his horror, that He had just outed me, to my friends.

            Bryan confronted me about being gay. He told me that he already knew that. He had known for a long time that I was gay. He said he knew, when we were in Atlanta at his moms, staying one weekend. She told him I was gay. It is a good thing that she liked me. I asked him why he didn’t say anything. He told me that he was waiting on me to figure it out, and come out in my own time. He was just so cool about it. I had stressed for nothing, it made me a little bit upset with him. Lol. It was not what I was expecting from my friend. Come to find out, my roommates didn’t care one way or another. Michael said, you like to hunt and fish, so you are OK in my book. Eugene, said just don’t get any ideas and laughed. I told him not to worry. I wasn’t attracted to any of them…lol They were just happy I was back to normal and being a part of the team again.

            I slowly over the next few months came out to various family members and friends. No, it wasn’t an easy process. But the more I came out to those special people the better I felt about it. I wanted those closest to me to know. But I was also terrified about how my immediate family and my church would react to this revelation.

            I didn’t have to wait long to find out. A friend of mine, her name is Lynn. We went to school together and had been friends for years. She found out that I was gay. She went to my pastor’s house and told him and his wife. I couldn’t believe she had done that. My church was having a mid-winter Bible Conference at the time. This was at the end of February. I went to the service on Wednesday night. I had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary. The service was good. My cousin Liss kept looking at me strange, with a scowl on her face all through service. She is a preachers wife.

            It wasn’t until after the service that I found out what was stuck up her crawl. I was just walking out the door to leave church and head back to Sylva. When my pastor Bro. Jimmy, called out and said he wanted me to help him for a few minutes. We headed back toward one of the Sunday rooms that functions also as the tape room and men’s prayer room. When we walked in the room, it was packed with men, friends of mine that I had gone to church with for years. Visiting preachers and church members. My pastor has ambushed me and I had walked right into this trap, without a clue.

            I was totally blindsided and unprepared for this type of confrontation. Most everyone in there was friends of mine. But I wasn’t about to start a battle of wills and debate homosexuality in the house of God. I was calm and collected, but my insides were in a knot. My Pastor started by saying that he wasn’t ganging up on me and that everyone there loved and cared about me. I didn’t doubt that. He went on to say, that what I was doing was wrong and a mortal abominable sin. He also said that he knew that it was a mistake for me to move to Sylva and go to a secular college.  He then asked if we could pray. I said yes.

            After the prayer. He laid out what he had been told. In front of 50 men. He had just outed me. He asked if I had partaken in the homosexual lifestyle. I told him, if he was asking if I had had sex with another guy, that no I had not partaken in any homosexual activity. I couldn’t decide if I should be mad or embarrassed for this invasion of my private life. But I let him talk and listened to what he had to say. None of it was good. He told me, If I didn’t renounce being a homosexual and give up the lifestyle, and never again go to any club’s gay or straight. Then I would be excommunicated from the church, and not welcomed.

            I hadn’t even come out to my Mom and family yet. But my pastor outing me here and now would surely get back to her, in short order, I knew my Mom would know within a day maybe two what had happened in here. Instead of going straight to her house and telling her myself. Which in hind sight would have been the best route. But no, I waited to see what would happen.  I was a nervous wreck driving back to my apartment that night. When I got there, I told Brian and my roommates what had happened. They couldn’t believe Bro. Jimmy would do that to me.

            By Friday the news had circulated through town. Mom heard about it from some mean hearted gossip queen.  I was on my way home from work that Friday evening. I had a car phone. My Mamaw Pauline called me on the car phone. She had never done that before. She wanted to know what I was doing. I told her I was on my way to the apartment from work. She said ok and hung up. Strange very strange. But it sent off warning signs in my head.  When I got to the apartment my dear sweet mother, had left me a 10 minute voice message on the house phone. It wasn’t a nice voice message. Lets just say she talked mean to me. It started on how could you shame me in this way. And went downhill from there. I had just finished listening to this scathing message, when my phone rang. With dread I picked it up and said hello. Mom lit into me with both barrels blazing. I swear if I could have tape that conversation it would have been identical to the one she left on my answering machine. Mom talked to me like I was a dog. The lowest form of scum known to man. She droned on and on about how would she ever be able to go back to church or show her face in public ever again. It was gruesome.  Once she finished, she just hung up. Just like that, no I love you. No nothing.

            My roommates came in about half way through mom chewing me out. They could hear every word she said no problem. She was screaming at me. I think it scared them a little bit. They had been around my mom many times. They thought of her as this little sweet lady. But I always told them don’t ever let all that sweetness fool you. She can go from sweet lady to dragon lady in 0seconds flat. They saw and heard just how right I was.

            For the next several weeks, I avoided going back home to Robbinsville to see my family. Mom didn’t call me once during that time. I didn’t call her either. It was her with a problem not me. And I wasn’t about to knuckle to her demands and sob story. I had made my decision. If she didn’t want me in her life then I would have to live with that and move on. I was tired of living my life to please everyone else. I wanted to live my life to please me. I stayed up at the apartment going to school and work. That was about it.  I occasionally ventured up to Asheville. As I was learning my way around the whole gay scene, I didn’t realize how cliquish the gay scene was. Well I did have some new gay friends who made introductions for me.

            Probably the best thing that happened was that with these new friends a few of them looked out for me. I didn’t know it at the time. Andy introduced me to a couple of the bartenders at Scandals. Craig and Mike. They were a couple. Come to find out Craig grew up in Andrews, NC and we had met before. They became my biggest guardians. Now I’m not a movie star, and a hunk. I’m just a good ole country boy fresh of the farm.  And as naïve as they come to the gay scene.  Craig and Mike had all the bartenders, barbacks, bouncers, and drag queens, looking out for me. Guys that would try to hit on me or pick me up, were shot down. I’d be talking to someone turn away for a moment and BAM, they would disappear into thin air.

            I was eating at the Olive Garden one day at lunch. And my waiter just happened to be a guy that a few weeks earlier had talked to me at the bar. I asked him why he just disappeared, that night.  He looked at me strange, then told me that while we were talking, that one of the barbacks at the bar, threatened to beat him up if he didn’t scram. It was my turn to look at him strange. Come to find out, Craig and Mike had made it known that I was off limits.

            After leaving the restaurant, I headed to Craig and Mikes. Yes I confronted them about this. I was a little mad. But after talking with them and listening to their reason behind what they did. Upon reflection, I think they did me a huge favor. By them being concerned for my welfare, it gave me time to get a sense of the gay scene. To learn the ins and outs of gay culture.  Giving  me that extra time to learn a few things, they probably saved my life in more ways than one. Yes I was nothing but raging hormones, with no clue the workings and goings on of being a young gay man. I believed in the goodness of everyone. But life isn’t always good. Growing up in small town USA, where nothing bad ever happens. Moving to the city, where things move at light speed, I was ill prepared for gay life and what I was walking into.

            A few days before Easter. I had just pulled into Steinmart parking lot on Merrimon Ave. I was going to buy a new Easter frock. I really didn’t have anywhere to go. I hadn’t spoken to my family in 6 or 8 weeks. So going home was out of the question. But it was a tradition that you always got a new outfit for Easter. As I was getting out of my car, my car phone started ringing. I picked up the phone and it was my Mom. She wanted to know if I was coming in for Easter. I told her, I wasn’t planning on it. That, there really wasn’t any reason to come to Robbinsville. She had said her peace and made her point perfectly clear over the phone weeks, months earlier.

            Mom told me that she missed me and would really like to see me. Then she asked me to come home again. We talked on for a few more minutes then she asked again. I finally said I would. But if I was coming home to get a lecture and to be yelled at I’d immediately leave and I wouldn’t be coming back, not ever. I wouldn’t take any calls from her, or anyone else in the family.  She promised that that would not happen.

            I found out later that day, that my step-dad Jimmy, had went to bat for me. He told Mom, that cussing me out without giving me a change to give my side of the story, was wrong. He also told her that if she wanted me in her life then she would have to get pass, my being gay. It was up to her. All she had to do is look back over the last several weeks, that I had not called nor had I came home. If that is what she wanted then she got her wish. I was gone and out of her life. Jimmy was officially my hero.

            Mom and I made up, of course. I love my Mom. My Mom loves me. No, she wasn’t happy that I was gay. I think she was angry, because I didn’t tell that I was gay. Instead she had to hear it from a busy body gossip queen. I asked her about it. She wouldn’t tell me who told her. Slowly Mom, and other family members came around. At first they didn’t like it that I was gay. Mom went back to church and held her head up high. And dared anyone to say anything ill against me being gay. I know that is funny right…lol

            I’ve dated 3 guys serious since I came out. My first love was and is Tracy. Then I dated Jack and then Adam. Mom met all 3 of them. Mom even became close with all 3. She loves them all. each in some special way. She is friends with them on Facebook…lol Yeah my Mom on Facebook. She can barely use a computer. She made them all feel like family. That was good since they were a part of my life.

            Coming out isn’t always easy.  The first several months after I came out were very trying and stressful. If it hadn’t been for some very special people, who I have to privilege to call friends, I probably wouldn’t be writing my coming out story. I would have either ended up in the nutt house or killed myself.  But my friends were my rocks, to with stand the tide and my support system to see me through the dark days of coming out.

            There is no right or wrong way to come out. There’s no 5 easy steps to coming out handbook. For some coming out is as easy as breathing air. For others it is very painful and traumatic experience. The most important thing for someone coming out is a good support system. Friends, and family that will be understanding and be there to help you through it.

            I’ve been out and proud for over 20 years now. That is not to say I didn’t lose friends along the way, when I came out. But I made some new ones that have been there through thick and thin. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

            It took me a long time to come to terms with my sexuality. The reason I say that is because it went against the religious beliefs that I was taught as a child. According to my pastor and other preachers, I couldn’t be gay and be a Christian. So there was turmoil if my life due to that. But after years of soul searching and studying. I finally came to realize that God made us all. Great and small, black, white, brown, and cream. Gay, Straight, bi-sexual, he made us all. He doesn’t make mistakes. We mere mortals do the mistake making.  And once I figured out God loved me regardless of what others said or thought. I found peace.

            I’ve been to PRIDE festivals, PRIDE parades, and PRIDE marches. I even went to Washington DC, in 2000, for the Millennial March on Washington. One million plus gay, lesbian and bisexual folks strong. It was eye opening and educational for me to meet so many people like myself, from so many different walks of life. Each with their own story to tell.

            I’m gay. I’m my own gay man. I’m not a typical gay guy. I don’t fall into anyone category. I’m just me. Life experiences have taught me on how to live and be happy. I try to do what is right.  I try to always treat others as I would want to be treated. My Mom raised me to be a gentleman, with manners and respect for others. I hope I never lose that.  And most of all I am a PROUD Gay man. Not because I’m gay but because I’m me….

            There is more I could have wrote. But I feel it is too long already. Lol Maybe at some later date I will add to it. As I write this, things keep popping in my head of those early days. Memories that want to be shared I reckon….lol

Written By: David M. Shuler

29JUNE217