Towards the end of high school, I started to develop interest in guys. I was in denial for a while, but by now I have become completely aware of and okay with the fact that I'm bi. Now about my parents. They're both Christian and very conservative, and I'm quite sure that they both think homosexuality is wrong, however, I'm very close with them and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't disown me or anything. Here's why I feel bad about wanting to come out to them though: I'm not gay, I'm bi. Hear me out. Imagine I came out to them as 100% gay. I feel like that would be much more understandable because if I tried to live a normal straight life like they would want me to, I'd be miserable. It would leave very little room for bargaining, in a sense. However, coming out as bi would make it so much easier for them to label my interest in men as perversion, and I'm afraid they would try to convince me that "Satan was leading me astray." The reason the idea of doing this makes me feel bad is that possibly all it would accomplish is making my parents think I was going to hell, and I don't want to put them through that. And yet for some reason I want to tell them. I don't really know what I'm asking, other than what do you you think of all this? Thanks
Hey Matt -- That sounds really tough. I want to say tell them, even if it'll distress them, because (I assume) they'd rather be distressed than be cut off from their son. But on the one hand, I can't judge my assumption there. And on the other, I guess it sometimes is legitimate to privilege your own value-set (your parents' happiness) over those of the people you're deciding for (maybe, your parents' genuine connection with you.) But I can't imagine it'd be easy to keep it from them in the long term, if you're close, unless you choose to live as straight, which sounds like a pretty high price to pay. ---------- Post added 25th Jan 2017 at 04:48 PM ---------- Maybe you could tell them you're gay, and come out as bi later? I don't know, that might be uncomfortable in the meantime. Plus perhaps unnecessarily deceptive. I don't know! But good luck. I hope this goes well for all of you.
You don't have to "fake" being gay if you are bi. You could start by just coming out as liking [or wanting to date] men and then later talking about women.
Thanks for your replies. I'm thinking at this point that I may try to warm them up to the idea kind of by dressing/grooming a bit more feminine (which I've been meaning to do anyway), and eventually just getting a boyfriend, which would go around the whole gay/bi technicality, or would at least show that I cared about that part of myself. Another thing I may do leading up to this is provide low-key counter arguments to their point of view when/if the subject happens to come up.
If your parents are high maintenance don't do it (Note: this is just my opinion because all my non-straight friends who also happend to be religious got the shorter end of the stick when coming out).
Hey Matt the Cat, it is entirely up to you how you decide to tell your parents if you wish too, my advice is that you get a sense of how they feel towards bisexuality, like maybe trying to casually point out famous celebrities who are bi and seeing how they react. I've been trying this with my parents, and at least for me it has been pretty weird experiment, because my parents are really laid back so I just get a "oh, ok." kind of response.
