Family Issues (Acceptance)

Ambivelence. Everyone seems to think you are gay but never addresses it. When you reach a certain age and they have not seen you settle down or have a girlfriend, people assume that you are homosexual. In my case, you know they are thinking it because of a careless word thrown into conversation but no one sits you down and asks. That's my family.

On the other hand, fellow gays seem to relish the idea of outing others. Is it necessary? One doesn't have to be out to be gay. Once you are out, then what? Does it uplift one's life or the people who knows? Would outing Piolo improve how he acts or sings? Would knowing whether he is gay or not make an impact on your life?

I guess my family feels it is a phase and I will get over it. I had a partner for some years and my mother, who had come from abroad was going to be staying with me for an extended period of time. She finally met my partner and she was quite civil at the start. After a few days, she confronted him and afterwards, me. She told him to break up with me, telling him that it will give me the opportunity to fix my life. When it was my turn, she asked me if I could live without him. For me, of course my answer would be yes. I can live without him. And that was it. Did she ask me if I loved him? Did she ask if he loved me?

With that confrontation out of the way, I allowed her to have some semlance of control of my life being that she was living with me temporarily and that obviously she had an issue with me being with him. How would you have reacted if you were faced with the same situation?

Finding acceptance in society is a struggle by itself but finding acceptance in one's family is harder. How I envy those who are out and out gay and yet their family loves them just the same way. I am repressed though I have accepted myself but deep down, I am yearning to feel that regardless of my life choices my family is there supporting me.

To those who clamor for people to out themselves, what does it gain me to go in public declare to everyone that I am gay? Others say it frees you; that it relieves you of baggages. I say it does free you to a point but not totally. I say we all have baggages, and problems are a fact of life. The day we stop having problems is the day we die.

Being gay, for me, is a choice. I don't believe we are born into it. It is a personal choice. It is a choice that we make for ourselves. Not our family. Not the people around us. Not society itself. And yes, it is a need for us to be accepted. That's a fact. But the most important person who needs to accept you're gay is yourself. All else is secondary, if not tertiary.

I know my mother would most likely remain adamant with not accepting the life I choose to live. She has been disappointed and would remain disappointed with me having relationships with other men. I apologize for that. I have hurt her and have not met her expectations. I have not fulfilled her dream for me to have a wife and have a family of my own. It is her dream, her hopes that were crushed. Is it up to me to fulfill her dreams? Is it up to me to live a life she believes I should live?

Why do gays congregate? We long for people who understand the way we feel, who are undergoing similar struggles, who we can be as ourselves. We long for people who accept us as we are.

At the end of the day, we live with our decisions. Regardless if you have parents who accept you, or if people demand you to out yourself, or if you have friends you don't think will understand, the most important thing is you accept yourself. Love yourself and live with your decision.