For me the hardest thing about coming out was fear: fear of rejection, fear of non-acceptance, fear that my friends would no longer like me. When you’ve known your friends from the age of 3 the thought of potentially losing them is quite daunting.
So to finally get the courage to say, hey you know what, I like girls, was quite hard for me.
I know this all sounds quite dramatic, believe me they said the same thing when I told them why I was so worried about telling them.
It’s easy to get worked up but the fact is, no matter how well you know someone you can never say for sure how they are going to react, there’s always that small margin of the unknown.
So when I told them and they all said we don’t care who you sleep with, you’re still you, I really didn’t know what I had been worried about (some of them were even more excited than me about the whole thing!)
But it’s true; I’m still me no matter who I sleep with. Being gay is just another part of who I am. An important part, a part that no-one should have to hide.
Honestly, coming out was one of the best things I’ve done. Now I’m free to be the whole me.
University is the perfect place to ‘experiment’ if you think you might be a little less than straight.
You’re meeting new people all the time from lots of different backgrounds with so many different views. It’s a time to open your mind: talk to those people you may have previously steered away from.
I was lucky, I knew a few gay people through work and friends who I felt I could talk to, and that helped me a lot. Don’t underestimate how much telling even one person can make you feel.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any friends you feel you can confide in, the LGBT society is on hand to offer help and support. Pop along to one of the LGBT coffee mornings or nights out, everyone’s welcome whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or even if your just interested
So get over your fear, talk to someone and get ‘out’ there!
I never really came out to my Mum, she put two and two together at the pub one night and asked me in the toilets if that hickie was from Katie. I really couldn’t be bothered to hide myself anymore so I said yes, and admitted that I like women. To which my mum exchanged secrets and told me she was cheating on her boyfriend. What?!
It’s funny, the whole time you work yourself up about telling someone their response is either ‘oooh, that’s nice’, or ‘well we always knew honey’. Then you think ‘what the hell was I so worried about?’
I’m still the same person she raised and watched grow. I didn’t change; I just found my sexual self. They don’t call us “HOMOsapians” for nothing!
University is the time you will really find yourself, and be free about who you see when and where. Yet coming out to my flat mates was harder than coming out to my parents.
I thought, ‘God, what if they don’t like me and are homophobic?’ Every worst possibility was running through my mind.
I was standing outside having a fag when a flat mate came outside and she could see I was a bit distressed. Which I was.
I was on the verge of breaking out of a year relationship. “You alright?” she asked. To which I just blurted out “I’m a lesbian, I’ve just cheated on my girlfriend twice, I’m trying to cover my tracks, I’ve just moved here and I’m about to go to York for the weekend.”...SILENCE.
‘Oh, shit,’ I thought. “Erm.. I hope you don’t have a problem?”...to which she laughed and said “absolutely not, I’m bisexual.”
But even after you’ve jumped the hurdle of telling your flat mates, uni, at first, can be a lonely place for a gay person. You really do feel like the only gay in the village.
I thought ‘Where do I go, I just want to find fellow gays!’ I joined up to the LGBT to socialise and to see what kinda scene the gay folk have. Joining the society was a great help, especially the pub crawls!
Cardiff is thriving with gay pubs, clubs and bars. There are queens, kings, plastics, and other ingenious stereotypes of gays on the scene.
The LGBT opened my eyes to just how many people there were from the same halls as me who were out for the same reason.
I found myself in a group of people going out on Wednesdays, or as my flat mates put it, Gay-Wednesdays. We now hang out together, get drunk, boogie, and keep each other safe when we’re out.
I have even been dating one of them for over a year now, and I’ve never been happier in my new ‘out’ state.
I did use www.gaydargirls.co.uk for a time, which is cool. But it’s true about internet dating: some are out there to find their true love and some to mess you or your head over. It can get a bit creepy at times, especially if you’re just looking for friends.
Most people on gaydar Wales are in Pulse on a Wednesday, Friday or Saturday night so you can meet them in the flesh.
Just a few things to remember as a gay person in Cardiff: the gay scene is like one big family and your face will be remembered so make friends not enemies.
Don’t give up with your sexuality, even if you find there is no one out there or whatever.
Remember you are who you are, don’t try replacing it with something you’re not. I tried that once, managed to pick up a guy in gay bar (its true, they are out there to pick up), something I will always regret.
But the most important thing is to have fun, be safe, and be who you are.
Cardiff University LGBT society:
1. jaen
I’m bisexual. I can’t really say right now whether it was completely ‘worth doing’ to come out. I only come out on a bisexual site http://www.BiRomances.com It’s for bisexual singles and couples only.
There’s people who still don’t know, but I can be glad that my closest mates were there for me, and have accepted me for who I am. I think they think better of me for having the courage to do so, and to be true to myself.