scared to death over nothing

[Orev-Zev]

5 years ago, i remember being so scared to death what my father would think about my coming out, but all he said was 'ok, make sure you bring the car home before midnight, and dont leave any jimmy hats on the table.'

 

[Imported Memory]

It took me a little bit to gather what a "jimmy hat" was...   

[Im1ru1]

Zev,
I had a similar aversion to telling my father about myself.  I had told my mother about 2 years prior to telling my father, primarily because as my father's "only son", I was expected to carry on the "family name", so I was under enormous pressure, real or just percieved.  When I finally got the nerve up to tell dad, I was completely shocked by his reply...he told me that he'd lived his life, and had made his decisions, and that regardless of the decisions I made in my life, I'd always be his son, and regardless of whether he agreed with those decisions, NOTHING would ever make him love me less.  Sadly, I lost my father 6 months later, he died of a massive Heart Attack.  Having seen parents go 180 degrees in the other direction, I KNOW how lucky I am that my dad was "cool" with it, and I'm glad I finally grabbed ahold of some balls and told him while I still had the chance to.

[Cairus]

I was never in the closet with regards to sexual orientation, so coming out of it never really even occurred to me growing up- I just thought of myself as 'normal' and thought it was odd that other people weren't!.

As a child(4-8yrs of age)I furiously made out with boys and girls for fun, and I figured when someone didn't want to it was just because they DIDN'T WANT TO, or were feeling fussy or tired, not because they were gay or straight. And I liked 'gay things' growing up, so when I turned 11 years old, I was talking about some local gay politics, and my father said:

'You seem to talk about gay things a lot, I mean you seem a little preoccupied with gay stuff. Are you, um, gay, or something?'

'Wait, you weren't SURE?'

'Well, you never actually told me.'

I slapped my forehead. 'Yes, daddy. I'm bi.'

'Gosh, I feel so stupid for NOT knowing!'

-What I find humorous about this is the role reversal. Instead of me coming out to him, he's coming out to me about not knowing and being all nervous about offending me. About a year later he had forgotten he'd even asked me and had to ask again. When I reminded him of the previous talk we'd had(the one quoted above) he apologized for forgetting about it, lol!