Background: an early-twenty-something cousin of mine came out to me over a meal a few months ago. The discomfort around the uncharted territory of coming out was apparent in both our behaviours. I think his exact words were, “Oh, so… I’m very gay.” It was all sort of nonchalant and in the same tone as, “Oh, so… I’m switching majors.” He gave me no time to sense what he might be about to share with me, Dan, so it completely blindsided me. So the first thing I said was, “I know!”, which was stupid! (But I also did know, and had suspected for many years.) I went on to express what I hope was genuine happiness to hear the news. I think I did all the right things through the rest of our meal including listening a lot.

Thinking back on the moment over the last few months though, I felt strongly that I’d said the wrong thing at first and wished that it had turned out better. He was away all summer on vacation, and we just got together the other night. He told me that he felt I’d said the wrong thing, too. I apologised and said that it was great news and I was happy he told me. But I was definitely sad that he felt I’d said the wrong thing, because it’s an incredibly vulnerable moment and you should be able to expect graceful support from your family.

I’m wondering what your take on it is. If you could come out all over again, what would you want to hear from the people you came out to?

Worried Over Rong Said Thing

Here's how the convo went when I came out to my mom:

Me (after standing outside her bedroom door for an hour working up the courage): "Mom, I'm... gay."

Mom (after a short, excruciating pause): "Did you hear the one about the two gay guys who attacked a woman in Lincoln Park? One held her down while the other did her hair."

And here's how the convo went when I came out to my biggest big brother:

Me (after hemming and hawing for at least a half an hour): "Billy, I'm... gay."

Brother: "Are you sure?"

Not exactly portraits of "graceful support," huh?

One could argue that my mother and brother each said the wrong thing then I came out to them—although people can and do say far worse things when their children and siblings come out to them—but both my late mother and beery brother have been incredibly supportive. I honestly don't think I would've survived as an out gay teenager in Chicago in 19Fucking82 without their love and support. And it would've been incredibly churlish of me, to say nothing of colossally self-defeating, to have held against them the very first things that fell out of their mouths when I came out. (Hell, my mom's first, panicked reaction—telling her teenage son a mildly homophobic joke immediately after he came out to her—became a story we shared over and over and laughed about together for years. Fuck, we were laughing about it together later that same week.)

Here's something I want you to relay to your early-twenty-something cousin from me: If you're sulking about what your cousin said, stop. ("I know!" is a really common reaction and, again, there are far worse reactions.) And it has been my experience over the last few decades of being out that not everyone who says the right thing at first turns out to be the most loving and supportive person in the long run and vice-versa. You will find that some of the people who say all the right things wind doing all the wrong things and some of the people say all the wrong things wind up doing (and eventually saying) all the right things. There's no way of predicting who will do right by you until some time has passed.

Back to you, WORST: If your cousin is actually holding your initial reaction against you—if you're stressing about this non-issue because he's actually giving you grief about it—then your cousin may be one of those new-model queers who would rather have a boo-boo than an ally. And that's his problem, WORST, not yours. But if your cousin isn't stressing about this, if he laughed or shrugged it off and you're the one who's fixated on IKnowGate for some reason, stop.

And now, because it seems relevant and because I love this video...

That has to be the funniest "I know!" on the Internet.