The older you get the more you will realize that your friends are people who have made mistakes and bad decisions and even just fucked up and hurt people.
And obviously your boundaries with your friends are completely up to you but you do need to recognize that if you cut off everyone who has done something wrong, you’re going to end up with no friends (and you yourself will have also fucked up in your life, and not lived up to those impossible standards either).
I’ve found it’s much more constructive to learn how to say “hey dude, that was massively fucked up of you,” because most people are really willing to say “yeah, it was, I need to work on it/not do it again/apologize and make things right” ESPECIALLY if they are hearing it from you as their friend.
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for another person is to tell them that they’ve done something wrong, help them fix it, and stay their friend because it’s what we would want from them if we did something wrong.
sometimes I wonder how we all survive and then I look at my best friends and I go “oh, I survive because I don’t want to leave you yet” and it makes sense. life is so hard a lot of the time, but I want one more bowl of pasta with you.
okay but like. This exact concept is what finally got me to be open about being queer in my day to day.
I was at work. I can’t go into detail about the situation, but someone was outed without their consent. And nobody was saying anything, and it was quiet, so I outed myself, too. So at least neither of us would be alone.
I was worried about the consequences. I’d never considered my identity a secret, but I wasn’t open about it, either. It felt like it wasn’t relevant to my job. If someone asked, I’d tell them, but otherwise, what did it matter?
After the incident, I met privately with a higher up. Told them what had happened and why it wasn’t good, and made some suggestions on what to do in the future to keep everyone safe to be in the closet or out of it on their own terms.
To my absolute amazement, they told me that others had come forwards anonymously to say the same things. Then word spread. Meetings were had. Policy and procedures were put in place. A training course on gender and sexuality was implemented for the very first time.
And of course there were protests- people who dug in their heels and kicked up a fuss and didn’t want to learn about “all that bullshit”, and when those people showed their colors, their superiors realized that they weren’t actually good representatives of the sort of environment they wanted to provide our clients, and a small number were actually let go.
I went to a meeting again the other week. And do you know what happened?
The meeting lead introduced themselves by name and pronouns, and asked everyone to please state their name, and, if they wished, theirs as well.
I was near the front. I introduced myself with He/Him. I thought I’d stand out like a sore thumb and feel like an idiot for hoping for better.
Two people down, someone introduced themselves as They/Them. Someone I’d never spoken much to before.
Then, She/they. At least two “anything fine"s. A he/her.
It was incredible. And it wasn’t even a whole year ago.
There are so many of us, now. Even more, as we teach and learn about ourselves, and it’s not so scary because there are others like us.
I’m not as loud and proud as I hope to be some day, because I’m still scared, a little, but I am here.
And I’ve learned that being openly queer isn’t about just expressing myself for the sake of it, bringing personal details into places it doesn’t matter-
-it’s about telling someone, it’s not just you. I’m in your corner. There are more of us than they think. There is power in numbers, and you are not alone.
