This weekend I received an e-mail from an aunt I hardly talk to. It read something like this:
"I know we hardly talk, but I have been following you on facebook. Are you dating the girl on your profile pic? I am sorry if this question offends you, and you do not have to answer. It's just that someone told me you were, and I preferred to ask you. I do not care about your sexual orientation, as I admire you for the person you are. Hope all is well, kiss, your aunt."
I still don't know what to make of it. I probably won't respond, and that in itself is probably an answer....I know that my family on my Dad's side has been gossiping about my sexuality for a couple of months now....all because of facebook. At some point, my girlfriend and I decided to not care about how obvious our facebook profiles were. When we first started dating, instead of posting "I love you" we would write %*!@#$%^&%!!! to express our frustration. And suddenly that stopped mattering. The immediate consequences were liberating. But it also meant that I was, in a sense, "outing" myself: my teacher from high school e-mailed me, another aunt e-mailed me, and it just kind of became known back home.
I'm fine with certain people back home knowing (friends, classmates, certain teachers), I still don't know how I feel about my teachers from elementary school, for instance, knowing. And it still makes me uncomfortable that my family gossips/knows.
Perhaps it's silly that I give it so much importance. Here I feel so protected, but back home, with certain family members, or with certain people, I still feel very much exposed...
"I know we hardly talk, but I have been following you on facebook. Are you dating the girl on your profile pic? I am sorry if this question offends you, and you do not have to answer. It's just that someone told me you were, and I preferred to ask you. I do not care about your sexual orientation, as I admire you for the person you are. Hope all is well, kiss, your aunt."
I still don't know what to make of it. I probably won't respond, and that in itself is probably an answer....I know that my family on my Dad's side has been gossiping about my sexuality for a couple of months now....all because of facebook. At some point, my girlfriend and I decided to not care about how obvious our facebook profiles were. When we first started dating, instead of posting "I love you" we would write %*!@#$%^&%!!! to express our frustration. And suddenly that stopped mattering. The immediate consequences were liberating. But it also meant that I was, in a sense, "outing" myself: my teacher from high school e-mailed me, another aunt e-mailed me, and it just kind of became known back home.
I'm fine with certain people back home knowing (friends, classmates, certain teachers), I still don't know how I feel about my teachers from elementary school, for instance, knowing. And it still makes me uncomfortable that my family gossips/knows.
Perhaps it's silly that I give it so much importance. Here I feel so protected, but back home, with certain family members, or with certain people, I still feel very much exposed...
1 comment:
I know how you feel. It's for this reason that I'm only facebook friends with one family member--my step-brother--and I have him on limited profile. Of my family members, only my mom and my favorite uncle (who's gay) know. I also put a lot of my old high school acquaintances on limited profile; I don't care if my good friends know, but it just isn't the business of the rest of them. It's a weird feeling because I'm not ashamed of my sexuality, and I don't keep it a secret at Yale. I just don't want people who don't know me well to talk about it, and I don't want my family members thinking about my sexuality until it were to actually become relevant, like if I had a girlfriend.
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