Because I Can: A story about coming out and giving yourself the permission to be who you really are,
My girlfriend, Emily, and I in her hometown of Summerville, South Carolina.
Note: For the sake of privacy, some names have been changed.
I got dumped by a girl I never dated. To be fair, I thought we were dating, but seven months in that apparent delusion dissipated. I was left shedding tear after tear in my bed, choking down a strawberry milkshake and wiping the snot running down my nose onto the sleeve of my most comforting sweatshirt– the stereotypical breakup scene.
I met Catie in March of 2016. I was eighteen, and she was seventeen. I use “met” loosely because I never actually met Catie in person, which was my first mistake. We met online on the gay girl version of Tinder, the HER app. The app is like the less straight, less aggressive, less sexual and hook-up-y, more romantic Tinder. It’s where girls go to talk to other girls, and form friendships that could potentially blossom into something more. The app presents itself as a welcoming community: it is – until the girl you thought you were dating turns out to not really like you and is confused about her sexuality, and you lose all hope of ever finding any chance of love again. Not so welcoming anymore.
I wasn’t out to my family as gay yet when I made the bold decision to try my hand at online dating. I was too young for eHarmony, and I’m not a farmer, so Farmers Only was out of the question. I’d never even been out on a date before, guy or girl. Dating was new for me, as it is for many gay teens coming to terms with their sexuality. Taking that first step into having a same-sex experience is terrifying. You must finally admit to yourself that, yes, you are gay, and, yes, these feelings are real, and, no, being gay is not as bad as everyone seems to make it out to be. You must give yourself the permission, approval, and acceptance that you’ve allowed others to take away from you regarding your own sexuality. But still the anxiety of not being accepted by your own family and friends overwhelms you and that’s the real terrifying part. It’s not that you happen to be a girl who likes girls or a guy who likes guys or anyone on the spectrum; it’s that you might lose the ones you love because of how you innately feel.
My first thought when I realized I was gay my senior year of high school was about how my family was going to react and if I would potentially lose them because I happened to be attracted to girls. To them, I was just Paidin – their sweet, innocent daughter or sister who they assumed was straight and would grow up, marry a nice guy, and have a family of my own. But I never had any attraction to the boys in my school growing up and I always knew I was, in some way, different, but I could never quite put it together. Not until Abby, a girl in my grade, came out to our entire senior class at our fall retreat camping trip.
“I met someone this summer,” she said. “They made me feel special, and I tried to hide my feelings, but I couldn’t and I can’t anymore. I went on dates with this person where we had fun, and we laughed and they made me smile, and I was happy. This person was a girl.” She was shaking uncontrollably at this point, and I couldn’t stop staring.
I went back to my cabin and curled up in my sleeping bag facing away from everyone toward the wall. Coincidentally, the girl who had just made that public confession was camped out on the bunk above me. She was hugging her best friend, who just kept saying, “I’m so proud of you.”
I knew the girl. I played on a few of the same sports teams with her over the years, but we weren’t close. Yet somehow, I was proud of her, too.
I was proud because her coming out speech to our class became a vehicle for me to understand my own sexuality. I didn’t grow up in a household that was openly supportive of the gay community. My brothers and dad were more than openly negative toward gays in general. They had a comment to make about anything involving a gay person no matter what.
“What fags,” my little brother would often say if he saw two guys holding hands in public or a girl kiss another girl on a TV show. His comments always stung just a little bit, even more so now. Now, on occasion, he realizes his word choice and apologizes, but even more often he corrects himself to say, “What fig newtons. Better?” Somehow, calling a gay person a type of cookie is so much better, but in the mind of a fourteen-year-old boy “fig” sounds like “fag” and it’s funny, acceptable.
Before I came out, my dad once said to me in the car driving to dinner a few days after gay marriage was legalized that he was disappointed in our country. “That’s gross,” he said. “I might have to move to a different country now that all these gays are going to be corrupting this one.” I blew this comment off, like how a lot of gay youth having yet to come out do– afraid to say anything and speak up. As soon as you do, you are labeled as gay, and in a lot of situations, are unfairly ostracized.
Back in my sleeping bag, I listened to this girl’s friend repeat how proud she was of her over and over, and I started shaking, too. I didn’t start shaking because I immediately knew I was gay and had this sudden epiphany that I liked girls. It didn’t all just come together and finally make complete sense. I started shaking because this girl, in just a few short sentences, had enlightened me to a whole new possibility that I never even considered because of the way in which I was raised. Something clicked. I didn’t know what exactly that was yet, but I was scared and hopeful. She had given herself the permission to be who she really was, and I was beginning to explore that within myself.
Catie and I texted for a couple of weeks, which quickly turned into months, non-stop and it turned out we only lived forty minutes from each other. We wanted to meet up in person, but I was in school without a car. She was living at home with her parents, who had no idea she was interested in girls, and she didn’t have her license.
I was really into this girl and I thought we had defined our relationship, but apparently not in terms that were clear to her. This was my first experience with a same-sex relationship, let alone any relationship for that matter. Hard enough as it is being gay, just add on the fact that I was still in the closet, except for a few close friends who I had confided in. I didn’t even want to think of the possibility of my family finding out. But, of course, that is exactly what happened, and in the most unfortunate of ways.
Usually, a friend accidentally mentions your sexuality to another person and the news spreads like wildfire from there until your second cousin, twice removed, hears from a friend of a friend through an Instagram post shared by your English teacher’s daughter, who happens to go to your same orthodontist, that you’re gay and have a girlfriend. In my case, my cell phone was that friend.
My sister, Jorgie, decided to update her new iPhone one day. My phone is connected to hers through the same Apple ID and every gushy, giggly, puke-worthy, sappy message I ever sent to the girl I thought I was dating transferred right to my sister’s screen for her to read, analyze, and realize that her sister was, to put it bluntly, extremely gay.
I’m assuming from there that Jorgie took the liberty of showing my two brothers these private messages between Catie and I because Declan, my youngest brother, caught me off guard one day when he asked, “Who is Catie, and why do you call her ‘Sweetheart’?” I was dumbfounded. Declan’s question left me in a state of shock and I didn’t know how to answer him. I just hoped that no one had told my dad.
A month or so after Declan didn’t get a response to his question, I needed a car so I could go see Catie for the first time. I wasn’t thinking of the outcome when I asked my dad to borrow the car for a night to go out on a date. I didn’t specify with who, just that I’d never been on a date before and I’d really appreciate it for just this one night. He agreed, but started asking too many uncomfortable dad questions, to which I gave extremely vague answers.
“So, where did you meet this boy?”
“I know them from school.” That was a lie.
“What’s his name?”
“Dad, why does it matter?” I was embarrassed and red at this point and gave my usual homework excuse to hang up the phone.
He called back five minutes later and asked if I was going on a date with a girl. “Padraic said you need the car to go see some girl you’ve been texting. What’s that about?”
There I was, alone in my apartment with my mouth hanging wide open, unable to form words, and my phone laying on my lap. He was waiting, expecting a response, and I didn’t have one. The only thing that was going through my mind was that I’d never be able to go home again. I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t be the little girl who used to dance on the mantle of the fireplace singing, “Daddy is my best friend. Daddy is my best friend.” I had possibly just lost that person forever. My dad isn’t perfect, but he’s still my dad and I grew up never wanting to disappoint him because he was always my biggest fan. I stared at my phone, the very thing that had outed me in the first place, and I waited for the shit to hit the fan.
“Are you there?” he asked.
I made an utterance, not quite a word, to indicate my presence, and I continued waiting in the agonizing silence.
“Paidin, you know I love you, right? I just want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Tears started forming in my eyes and I wiped them away, finally taking a slow, deep breath. I couldn’t find the words to talk to him after this, but what I felt was relief. “I just want you to be happy.” These are the words that every person coming to terms with their differing sexuality hopes to hear, but what most never do. I was lucky; I am lucky.
Being gay hasn’t been easy. I have people all around me, some I know and some I don’t, who will say hurtful things just to get me down. But they don’t know me. They’ve put me in a box classified as “gay,” and “gay” equals “bad.” They don’t know my personality. They don’t know my life and what I’ve been through. They don’t know that I’ve spent countless nights stuck motionless in my bed with thoughts whirling around my head about how I’m disappointing everyone just because I’m gay. They don’t know anything about me, the real me, and they don’t care.
“Gay” equals “bad.”
Coming out is hard. We can only hope that the people we are trusting with this deeply personal information won’t shut down on us the moment we say the word “gay” or “trans” or “bi.” We don’t know for sure what the reaction is going to be, which is the scariest part. The scary part isn’t being gay. We’ve accepted that about ourselves by the time we’re ready to come out. The scary part is not knowing if your best friend is still going to want to sit with you at lunch and sleep over at your house on Friday nights; if your brother will continue to make ignorant jokes right in front of you; if the stranger walking by will physically harm you when he sees that you’re holding your girlfriend’s hand; if your dad will still love you.
My dad still loved me, and now I could breathe without feeling a tinge of pain every time I inhaled. The anxiety that had built up in my chest could be released like poison being sucked out of the body. The scary part could get less scary. I was one of the lucky ones, but many in similar situations aren’t so lucky.
I never went on that date with Catie. The car was having troubles and my dad felt bad for not being able to get it to me in time. But I’m glad things worked out the way they did. I think meeting Catie in person would have made our split harder than it already was. Meeting her would have validated something that never had any real validity. Whatever I had with Catie opened me up to being okay with who I am. It allowed me to love, to care, and to feel deep emotions for someone who is the same gender as me, and it made me not afraid to do those things. I am quite content with being gay – it’s just who I am and I wouldn’t change it even if given the chance. Being with, or not being with, Catie gave me the vehicle I needed to accept a part of myself that I tried to deny causing outward pain and inner turmoil for so long.
What caused me so much confusion, doubt, and pain was that I thought I needed someone else’s permission and approval to feel the way I feel and to love who I want to love, but that isn’t the case. And that isn’t the case for members of the LGBTQ community. Through all of the depression, anxiety, self-harm or thoughts of suicide, some of us forget to stop and consider what will make us happy. We look for permission and signs of acceptance in the actions and attitudes of other people, especially those we care about, and we let that overpower our own wants and desires. We let that make us afraid to come out and truly be who we really are.
I recently asked my current girlfriend, Emily, why she loves me. She said, “Because I can.”
“Who gave you permission?” I questioned her.
“I did. And you. But I don’t think I need permission to love you.”
She’s right. Emily doesn’t need permission to love me and I don’t need permission to love her. We just do. We don’t need permission from anyone else to be who we are. We only need permission from one person: ourselves.
Maybe Catie didn’t, or couldn’t, allow that permission within herself. Maybe because of her family or society as a whole, or maybe just because she wasn’t ready yet. But what happened with her didn’t hold me back from giving myself the permission and acceptance to be who I am. Here I am today, gay and completely in love with my girlfriend of almost two years, and I’m happy. Really happy.
