Are we ever more self-centered than when we’re sick? As I made my way through the aisles of CVS last September, clutching two boxes of saltines in one arm and a bottle of ginger ale in the other, the problems of anyone else in the world were the furthest things from my mind. That is, until my phone vibrated with a text from my friend, Nevin.
“I have to tell you something,” he wrote me.
To say Nevin is my friend is an understatement. He’s one of those people that has just always been there. I can’t quite remember when we became friends, but sometime over the course of high school, we wove our way into each other’s lives and have stuck there ever since. He was the first friend I took a big trip with, when we traveled to Washington, D.C. in the summer after our freshman year of college to visit another high school friend. He saw me cranky and exhausted from our early morning flight and completely miserable after being dragged across the city for dinner. He’s seen (and laughed at) me first thing in the morning, with my retainers in, eye blinds still on, and my hair sticking every which way before I’ve tackled it with a straightener. He’s seen me angry and miserable post-break up, angrily Facebook hating on my ex. We’ve slept in the same room, made two road trips to Six Flags, stayed up until two AM watching YouTube videos, and pulled a few pranks together. We’re family.
“Okay, what?” I replied.
“Any idea what I’m going to tell you?” he asked.
“Hopefully the cure for my illness,” I sent back. I suspected he was going to tell me that he’d developed feelings for our friend, Emily. They were so attached that people already thought they were a couple. Immediately, I began running through solutions to the problem he hadn’t yet told me.
“No, a little less self-centered than that.”
“What then?” I was honestly losing patience at this point. I had class coming up, was trying to get in touch with the Center for Health and Wellness, and felt like I had a squirrel clawing from inside my stomach. I had no time for theatrics.
“I’m gay.”
I always knew someday, someone would come out of the closet to me. Call it intuition, or whatever you’d like, I just figured it was inevitable. Like I do with everything, I planned my reaction to a T. In my head, I’d composed a loving speech about how happy I was that they felt comfortable enough to tell me and that no matter what, I’d support them. Of course, when the appropriate moment for this speech arose, I responded eloquently. And by that, I mean, I froze.
“Wait, seriously?”
I realized two very important things that day from that conversation being over text. One: Coming out isn’t about the person being told, but the person coming out. I applaud Nevin for not worrying about anyone else’s reaction and focusing on what he wanted from this experience. Two: The conversation was over text because frankly, it wasn’t an important conversation; not to Nevin and not to me. Sure, the information was important in that he wanted me to know and trusted me enough to tell me. It didn’t change anything though. Nevin is still so utterly Nevin. He still laughs at me when he catches me in a rare ugly moment. He still has the same snarky comebacks to my dramatic declarations. There is so much more to him than who he dates, same as before. I saw that day what I really already knew. Sexuality doesn’t change who you are, it’s just a part of your identity. I can’t understand why people see others differently after they come out, because truly, nothing changes.