The day of coming out

I came out to my childhood good friend, Paul, back in May 2007. In his usual style, he blogged about it in an amusing way. I enjoyed reading it very much and laughed at it.

Of all my good friends back when I was studying in Melaka, I've only kept in touch with Paul. In fact, I regularly visit him and his family every CNY, so much so that my sister commented that as though he was my boyfriend (the irony lol). Our parents are friendly to each other. However, inevitably, over the years, since I left Malaysia when I was 16 years old, we both have less and less in common. I don't know the people he hangs out with and vice versa and lately I've been left alone chatting with his dad while he does some mysterious stuff on his laptop (probably blogging or reading blogs). Nevertheless, most importantly, I know that he is one of very few friends I definitely can count on if I'm in trouble (Paul, you're sweating now? ;-))

Anyway, not surprisingly, I've always encouraged him to come down to Singapore and visit me, which he does once a few years. What made the difference in May 07 is that in his e-mail telling me about his impending visit, he told me he found someone. Well, that was huge news! I wanted to know more but he said he would tell me when we meet in Singapore.

That night, he was nearly an hour late. I was already feeling a bit hungry. When he arrived, he wanted to browse HMV first. Omg. Couldn't we have dinner first? But I didn't say anything because I thought it wouldn't take too long.

We then had dinner at NYDC at Wheelock's Place. Bear in mind that the tables were very close to each other. You could hear clearly conversations from adjacent tables.

Years ago, in an e-mail exchange, I had suspicion that Paul was gay but in that exchange, he sort of denied it (long story). So this time, for some odd reasons, I decided to test him. Throughout the Q&A session, I did not use gender-specific words e.g. "How you two met?", "Oh work in what industry?", "How old?" But he didn't take the bait and answered using gender-neutral words. Hence I decided to use the word "she" and he just answered the question. So that was that...or so I thought.

After dinner, we browsed The CD Shop nearby and while doing that, be broke the news that the person he was seeing was a "he". I was stumped a few seconds as I've already concluded otherwise during dinner. I've pointed out the e-mail exchange incident years ago and he explained where the confusion arose i.e. he was talking about someone else whereas I was thinking it was him coming out, which he wasn't. I wish he did though. Oh well.

So as I was sitting in the MRT train, on my way home, I was staring at my handphone. For more than a decade, I've been wondering about myself and it was confirmed during my university days but due to a host of reasons, I decided to close the door on it and decided to live alone (hmmm nothing changed since I'm still "alone" hehe). But here, it was an opportunity to tell someone. A whole new world. Possibility for happiness, rather than mere contentment. Took me a few minutes to decide before I sent the sms saying, "I think I am one too".

If you read Paul's version, it humourously alludes to homosexuality being infectious. Ironically, a long-time friend came out to me immediately after I came out to him. Infectious? Perhaps :-)