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From: gerber@mit-athena.ARPA (Andrew S Gerber)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Flaunting it vs. Hiding it
Message-ID: <227@mit-athena.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 3-Aug-84 23:48:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-athena.227
Posted: Fri Aug  3 23:48:11 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 19:22:37 EDT
Organization: MIT, Project Athena, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 41

Subject: Flaunting it vs. hiding it
Newsgroups: motss

Hi.  This is my first posting ever, but it's late and I feel like
flaming.......

   I have been thinking a lot lately about my openness about being gay.
I came out about 9 months ago, although `coming out' for me was much
more of a personal thing than something I immediatly shared with all my
friends. I have come out to many of my friends, but I am not the kind of
person who makes it apparent to all his sexual preference, 'cause I use
the excuse "Well, straight people don't make it apparent all the time,
why should I?"  I make friends on a purely social level, and depending
on how I meet them (gay contacts vs. straight contacts), they presume
either gay or straight.  After I become friends with someone very well,
then I might, (and I say might, I have some very old friends that I have
still not come out to), come out to them.

   Why do I do this?  I feel that someone should know me FIRST as
"Andrew S. Gerber", and then find out that I'm gay.  If I am introduced
as "Andy, and he's gay", many people will not think of me as Andy, but
only think of me as "that gay down the hall."  Other friends have told
me I should tell people right off that I am gay, 'cause that way I avoid
investing time in a friendship that might later end because of my sexual
preference.  I've found that anyone who I feel is my friend will not
later drop me because I'm gay, so I leave that till later.  Much later.
In fact, sometimes they only find out through someone else.  And I don't
particularly like that.

   This fall in my new dorm room I'm going to put up a calander that a
friend gave me (USC MEN), and a large poster of Tom Cruise (Risky
Business, All the Right Moves).  Perhaps that will help me come out to
people faster and easier.  Until then, I guess I'll still stay moderatly
quiet.

                             Andrew S. Gerber
                             gerber@mit-charon
                             {gerber%mit-charon%mit-athena@MIT-MC.ARPA}

PS: Reading this over, I'm not sure what kind of response I expect..but
I do hope to get some..