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The Hook Up: Small town homophobia and hopelessness

I’m about to start my third year of university, and this summer I came back to my hometown to work. I’m out to everyone in my new city, and to my brother and parents at home. The plan is to come out to the rest of my extended family right before I go back to school in the fall. My parents really aren’t dealing well-my dad hasn’t talked about it since I came out to them seven months ago, and my mom practically cries whenever she talks to me for any length of time-and I come from a very small, at times homophobic, community. The problem is, I have a job here that I like a lot, and my boss (who knows that I’m gay and is totally cool with it) offered me a raise and whatever schedule I want if I were to come home and work for him again next summer.

Being more or less back in the closet for the summer has really taken its toll on me, and I don’t expect being out in my community will be any more fun, but this job is a really great opportunity and I couldn’t ask for a better boss or working environment. I know this might seem like an easy choice, but I know how hard it is to get a job that you actually like doing, let alone a great boss and reasonable hours. So, do I come “home” one last time, or try to start fresh in my new (LGBT-friendly) city?

Anna says: If you like your job, which you seem to a great deal, I don’t see why it’s not worth sticking out for a few months before heading back to your other life in your other city, where I presume people aren’t bursting into tears at the mere suggestion of your gayness. So yes, earn some money with your flexible schedule and awesome-sounding boss- hopefully it’s a full-time position-and if it turns out your small town is really truly awful and unbearable and soul-destroying, then console yourself with the thought that summer is only a few months long and pretty soon you’ll be back in more gay-friendly climes (and with hella scrilla lining the pockets of your lesbian-approved indigenous pantsuit).

Plenty of people throw themselves into their work in order to avoid unpleasant home lives. You can do it too, sugar shoes! Just don’t make it a lifelong habit, please.

If you feel like taking another swing at talking with your mom and dad, I’d do so. Silence and near-crying make for uncomfortable living situations, and, I mean, maybe you can help them along with some solid lesbian processing. You don’t need to be like, “Mom, Dad, I’m going to be munching a lot of rug in the coming years and I need you to support that,” but you do need to be honest with them about how being semi-closeted is making you unhappy, and also to maybe remind your mom there are far more tragic things in the world to shed tears over than your interest in girls (like the royal baby being born a boy, for instance. All those cute princess dress fantasies, GONE).

It’s possible your fam is simply still going through the initial freak-out period that most everyone goes through. They might need more time to deal, and there’s not much you can do about that besides being true to yourself and your happiness.

After I answered last week’s question about the questioner’s mom having a hard time accepting her queerness, I remembered a talk I had with my own mom a decade ago. She told me that she didn’t have a problem with me being gay, but that she did worry it would make my life harder, and she feared that I would be more vulnerable to hate, intolerance, and discrimination. I’d never thought of it that way, that her fears might have little to do with accepting my sexuality and far more to do with shielding me from the ugliness of the world. It’s something I’ve come to think of as a distinctly mom-like concern, though it could apply to anyone you feel protective of. And, of course, ugliness is everywhere. We can’t escape it, not even the straightest, richest, whitest dude in the world can. Besides, the worse ugliness for me would come from living a lie, from denying the part of myself that felt most true.

Having that talk with my mom gave me some much-needed perspective, and also forced me to cut her some slack when she didn’t immediately embrace the latest queer theory revelation I was having every other day as a newly out 20-year-old. And it made me realize that we’re all struggling to feel right in the world, even though we might express it in ways not easily understood. Good luck.

I’m openly lesbian. I’ve been out for about four years now, and so far, so good. My problem is that I don’t have the confidence to approach women in person, and I can only talk confidently to girls online. I’ve been bullied a lot previously, and have psychological issues due to that, so I’m always terrified to talk to a girl, in case she rejects me cruelly. I don’t like clubbing, at all, so going to gay clubs is out, and I’ve never been in a real relationship. There’s not much in the city I live in, and while I am moving soon, I still have this crippling fear. Any tips? Or am I just a completely hopeless case?

Anna says: When I was seven, I developed a huge crush on this hot eight-year-old brunette. We both went to summer camp at the YMCA. At the time I was so tomboyish that I didn’t wear girls’ swimsuits and instead wore baggy shorts and a towel over my head every time I had to go into a gendered bathroom. I was so tomboyish that my crush thought I was a boy, which I was secretly elated by-until she caught me going into the girls’ bathroom and proceeded to make fun of me in front of everyone for using the “wrong bathroom.” It’s been over 20 years and yet I can still recall the particular devastation that welled up in me at that moment, from being humiliated by someone I liked. When you wrote about being “rejected cruelly,” that was my first thought. I offer it not as a comparison to bullying or trauma, just to point out that some misfortunes stay with us, but they don’t have to dictate our lives.

You are not hopeless. Please write this down with a large Sharpie: I am not hopeless. I am absolutely capable and worthy of love. Fear is an a$$hole and I refuse to listen to it. I’m awesome. I have a shiny soul and great abs (or equivalent).

I’m struck by the amount of people who write to me and apologize for everything-for having a problem, even! Granted, The Hook Up is an advice column, so no one’s writing in with how wonderful and fulfilling their relationships are, but still. Ladies, you do not have to apologize for your existence! You have a shiny soul and great abs (or equivalent)!

I’m sorry you have been bullied and rejected. That’s awful and it’s okay to feel repercussions from such mistreatments. If it’s something that you feel is paralyzing you, I urge you to seek counseling. It’s hard to go through that shit alone; sometimes asking for help is really the best alternative.

I moved on from such incidences of rejection (and trust me, there were many, many more in the coming years), and so can you, honey muff. You’ve got a great big gorgeous life ahead of you. Your past isn’t keeping you from that, but your ideas about yourself are. So that’s what we need to work on.

If you can talk to a girl confidently online, you can do so in real life too. You might be more nervous, but you are every bit as capable of carrying on a conversation with a cute girl face to face. If it helps you to start the conversation online, then go for it, but don’t let fear keep your desires limited to tiny, pixelated boxes. Start slowly. Talk to a cute girl every chance you get. It doesn’t have to be sexual. Ask her for the time or where a girl can get a decent frappucino. The point is to get you comfortable talking so that you’ll realize talking is not a big deal. And rejection isn’t either. It really, really isn’t. As I’ve said before, being rejected doesn’t mean you are any less desirable or smart or funny or kind. It simply means that one person wasn’t right for you at one particular time.

I find it much easier to introduce myself to people online, so I empathize with you there. The trick is not to let the safety and control we feel when sitting behind these glowy screens stop you from living your life. Or from finding out where a girl can get a decent frappuccino around here.

Your life is calling, my friend. Will you pick up?

Hailing from the rough-and-tumble deserts of southern Arizona, where one doesn’t have to bother with such trivialities as “coats” or “daylight savings time,” Anna Pulley is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. Find her at annapulley.com and on Twitter @annapulley. Send her your The Hook Up questions at [email protected].

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