My husband and I are way behind on watching The Daily Show on our DVR. We just watched the episode with former Governor McGreevey, and Jon Stewart said something during the interview that really struck a chord with me...
He brought up the idea of a national prom for everyone who comes out in a year, since people who are closeted in their youth lose out on the chance to be awkward teenagers exploring love. We know that all too well in our household, because we watched a dear friend go through the very thing Stewart mentioned when he came out three years ago.
We all went to a small, traditional liberal-arts school in Virginia, a place where your whole world is reduced to two or three square miles. Needless to say, the options for people who aren't heterosexual and into the Greek system were a little limited. We'd always kinda suspected our friend was hiding something, but we never knew anything for sure. He spent tons of time with us, but he always had a platonic date for fraternity formals and other occasions.
By the time we graduated and moved to the metro DC area, the freedom offered by a large city with a thriving gay population allowed him to come out to a few people and start to get in touch with who he really was. My husband was the first straight person he told about being gay, and he kept the news secret at first, at our friend's urging. He wanted to make sure he was comfortable in his new life, because the whole process was scary. My husband asked permission to tell me, and when granted, he did. It was no great surprise; on the contrary, it was really nice to hear that our friend could be himself and experience life without hiding everything.
Then something interesting happened. Our friend started hanging out with just me and my husband some nights. He brought over gay-themed movies and shared a book called How I Learned to Snap, which helped me understand what was going on with him a lot better. My husband and I started talking amongst ourselves about our "grown gay son," because it seemed like after he came out, he was tentative and unsure. His biological parents had trouble with accepting him at first (thank God, that's changed dramatically with time!), so I guess he saw us as a comforting presence as he learned his way around his new reality.
As he grew more confident, though, he immersed himself in the flashy party life of the city. We didn't see as much of him anymore, until one night around 3:00 AM my phone rang. He was downstairs at our apartment building, all upset over some kind of drama with some boy. We brought him up, gave him a snack and some coffee, and calmed him down enough to get home. It was very similar to the teenage drama my sister-in-law was going through in high school at the same time.
Going through that experience with my friend was an eye-opener. It's truly a rebirth when someone comes out, and the re-learning process of how to interact with your reality can be scary and intimidating. It's like your life begins all over again. I was honored to help my friend through that time in his life. It was really special to be a part of something that important.
On National Coming Out Day, I hope all of the straight folks out there are as supportive and encouraging as possible. It's not all going to make sense, but most things my friends do when it comes to dating don't make a lot of sense anyway. Be there for your "newborn" gay friends and family. It's a tough world out there.