Coming out of the closet

I will start by saying what’s not my favorite thing about myself. Most of the time I don’t take rushed actions. I think I am actually a little bit slow for taking decisions. For example, when it’s about relationships, I like to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. When it concerns my plans, I like to give them a lot of consideration. I also think deeply about my future and my well-being. But that inevitably leads to the favorite thing about myself. When I decide something, I am pretty sure about it. That played an important part on how I decided about coming out of the closet.

Growing up in a repressive environment

When you are growing up, you don’t know that you are in a repressive environment. You don’t have the maturity to understand it. I didn’t know it back then, but I see those things more clearly now. I was born in a time where in many places it was still a crime to have homosexual relationships. Additionally, I grew up in a country that was (and still is) pretty much hostile to gay people. In comedy TV shows gay characters were caricatured, shallow, self-absorbed, even mean. Add to that, this was during the time of the military dictatorship. Male dominance was encouraged in boys. Those with feminine mannerisms were mercilessly mocked and bullied in school. Even if you naturally didn’t show them, you didn’t want to be singled out in your group. That’s what I was saying the other day about the tyranny of society.

Coming out of the closet

So, it comes as no surprise that I took a very long time in coming out of the closet. Make no mistake, I always was attracted to guys, but never had even once kissed one until then. After struggling against those desires my whole life, I simply knew it was about time.

24, the right age (for me)

I was 24 years old, and there’s even a joke in Brazil about this. In the popular (and illegal) gambling game known as jogo do bicho, each animal is assigned a number. The number for the deer, or veado in Portuguese, is 24. And viado also happens to be the derogatory slang they call gay people in Brazil. So, they say that this is a “dangerous age”, when guys may decide to become gay, or viado. I know that I have been gay my whole life. However, true to the joke, I confidently embraced my identity only when I was 24 years old.

But you know what? That was the best decision I have taken in my life. It was not easy, coming out to family, friends, at work. Thinking in retrospect, it would had been much worse if I hadn’t done so. It took a long time, but in the end I was pretty sure about doing it. And it proved to be one of my favorite things about myself.