People Pleaser

William Beddick

I had wrestled with the thought for weeks and I kept losing. 

It was a constant battle of who I was pretending to be versus how I felt on the inside. Nightly, I was living through a bad dream—and that bad dream was liking guys. In social situations, I would only turn on the part of me that liked girls, and even if I rarely talked about liking anybody, at least I was being perceived as straight. 

A part of me thought that I would single-handedly blow up the Earth and, more importantly, blow up my family’s life if I told anyone. I was raised in the most suburban, middle-class, churchgoing, family-portrait-on-the-wall household and I was scared. I was worried that coming out to my mother and father meant that they wouldn’t accept me, or worse, disown me. A cousin of mine had come out when I was a child and it was something my family did not take well. I watched family members who always said they would love us no matter what morphe into judging strangers consumed by their own ignorance. I was only a child watching this situation play out, but I knew deep down I’d never have the guts to come out to them. This fear placed an imprint on my sexuality as something I needed to hide from everyone, because if my parents wouldn’t accept me, who would? The idea of coming out to my friends felt even worse; my friends have no obligation to accept me as there is no blood between us. What would my friends do when I told them? How would they react? Would they reject me too? I had come to the conclusion myself that I was already not going to be accepted by anyone and that kept me up at night. With constant anxiety and self-sabotage, I resorted to grinding my teeth together and biting my nails until there was nothing left to bite. 

In grade school, I felt like I was always trying to prove myself to guys, and always trying to hide my sexuality. However, it somehow worked its way into the conversation anyway. Whether it be the simple question, “Are you gay?” or the whispers of slurs thrown around the hallways, it followed me around like my shadow. He was constantly taunting me, pushing me deeper and deeper into the closet and I was powerless to stop it. Before then, I hadn’t actually thought about my attraction towards men. I wanted to keep that part of me as separate as possible. I couldn’t even admit it to myself. 

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine whose brother had come out as gay. I was curious, “How hard was it for him to come out?” Silently I hoped the answer was so impossibly hard that it was not worth going through the trouble and I could just hide my sexuality from everyone, including myself. However, she told me it didn’t matter if I came out to my friends or my parents because I didn’t owe anyone anything. I was shocked. My biggest hurdle wasn’t going to be coming out to my friends or family, but to myself. 

Before I went to bed, I put my phone down, stared at the ceiling, and just lay with my thoughts, which were mostly consumed with spiraling anxieties surrounding my sexuality. However, a new thought seemed to occupy my mind. I kept thinking about what my friend told me, about not owing anyone anything. I kept tossing and turning over the thought of not placing what people might think about me on how to live my life. I thought, I want to please everyone and I want everyone to be happy. Subconsciously I asked myself, what was in it for me? What was I gaining by letting anyone have that internal control over me? For the first time, I was not ashamed of my sexuality. Rather, I was happy and comically giddy about the idea of liking a guy. I felt like a middle schooler infatuated with their first crush. I rolled over to the other side of my mattress and realized I had won. I wasn’t fighting with my shadow anymore—I finally pinned him down to the mat and walked out of the closet. Most importantly, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared of what anyone would think or what anyone would feel, because it was never about them. It was always about me.

Edited by Sophia Chen & Kate Castello