“The story of my coming out is very strange, but let’s start from the beginning.
When I was a little boy, I thought of being attracted to girls, because this was the only reality I knew and so I started love relationships, but whenever the situations became intimate, I gave up (unfortunately I broke so many hearts). After that, I started to give a look around during the end of my second year at high school and I discovered that there was a hidden world, lived by wonderful, particular but common people, who were scared to show themselves. But I didn’t want to believe it. I said: “No, this is impossible. I can’t be gay, it’s wrong. Maybe I need to find the right girl”. So I tried to force myself not to be gay.
After a while, the desire of having someone by my side, with who share also stupid things, began to be felt. So I thought back to my sexuality. I thought: “It still is impossible that I’m gay, but maybe I’m bisexual. Yes, it has to be this. If I’m gay, how can I explain it to my parents?”. I decided to talk about my sexuality to my best friends (at that time they were 4 girls) and they gave to me their support, they said: “No matter if you like boys or girls, you ‘re special and we will always love you”. They were my strength, they were the reason that I came out to my parents, because I knew that if the situation got bad, I could count on them. Always.
I came out to my parents about 4/5 years ago, when I was 16, but not spontaneously, I had to do. I was so scared, because I knew what my parents thought about gays.
There was a blog about my school (called GossipGirl Frattamaggiore) and one day the anonymous writer wrote about me and what I did at a gay party ( I kissed a boy). My mum have a facebook account and she saw that I post the article on the wall of one of my bestfriends. After reading it, my mum called me in the living room and she said: “There is something you want to tell me?”
“Emh no, why?” But inside I knew she knew.
“I’ve just read an article about you.”
“Really? I don’t know what you are talking about” and my heart started to beat so fast that I thought it would have stopped.
“Ok mum” I said “What you read, it’s true. I’m gay. I know that I’m a disappointment as a son, but what else I can do? That’s what I’m and believe me when I say that it’s difficult for me to admit that”
Unexpectedly my mum told to me: “Bebe, I’m your mother, I’ve always known. I put you into the world, you’re my son and my love for you is unconditionally.”
My life’s begun with my coming out. My mum helped me to told what I am to my father and my brother (they also accepted my situation, with some difficulty of course, they are men, I know that it’s hard for them to understand).
I know that Italy is not ready for us, but the situation’s changing, I can feel that. I changed minds of the guys in my school (now I’ve a lot of straight people that approve my cause). My first relationship ended so badly. After a month, my boyfriend left me, because his parents had known that we were togheter. They didn’t take it well. But now I know that people around me are open-minded, I can see in their eyes (not everyone, the road is still so long).
From my outing (and since my boyfriend left me, breaking my heart) I’ve alway tried to be helpful to other gays in difficulty, giving to them some advices (to show themselves always strong, no matter what, also with their parents they have to have the closed fist), that my house is always open for them, that we need to show to the world, more than ever, that we are not sick, we are not clowns, we want to give love and recieve love cleanly, as everyone in this world.”
photo by Francesco