Coming Out (Mapei - Don't Wait)

Mapei - Don't Wait

In 2013, I decided to leave my wonderful home of Harrisburg and try my hand at living in Baltimore (there will be more about that in future posts). Within days of moving, it became clear to me that I had no real social network in Maryland, at least certainly not anything that resembled what I had in Pennsylvania. It quickly became clear to me that if I wanted to make good and authentic friends again, I needed to answer some questions about myself that I had been avoiding for a very long time. 

Not since the very beginning of college had I needed to introduce myself to people so often, and all of a sudden, I found myself in a position with enough distance from my Christian college, and from my Harrisburg network, to have the freedom to redefine who I was. I told a close gay friend in 2008 that I was bisexual, but in my temporary apartment in Silver Spring, I started the process of Coming Out to my friends. If you've never come out of the closet, it is very exhausting and weird because it's usually not the current topic of conversation, especially not among straight folks, and you have to (sometimes forcibly) turn the spotlight onto yourself and it's all just very weird. "Hey guys, I know we are talking about that strange thing that happened to you at work, but can we shift the focus to me now so that I can tell you that I like boys?" As far as the whole gay thing goes, this is the most unnatural part, really.

Because I am a nervous nelly, I initially came out to my friends by sending them an email. I wanted to give people the space and time to process, even though they were either well aware or completely unsurprised by the news information. After a few days of having these deeply meaningful conversations with my friends, Pitchfork posted a song by Mapei, an artist I hadn't heard before. The song talks about friendship and connection in a way that is as refreshing as it is sweet, and it will always remind me of the incredible (mostly straight) friends I have in Harrisburg who love me and have effortlessly found a way to celebrate me without tokenizing me. You guys made a happy guy even happier, and I'm the luckiest guy on earth because of it. Check out the song by clicking the video below.