Natalie Weiss

Dating apps are not my favorite.

Theoretically, they should make dating easier. Everyone’s there for relatively the same purpose, right?

Wrong.

Apps are particularly frustrating for the queer community, at least in my experience. There are far too many couples looking for a third or men who chose the wrong gender either accidentally or on purpose.

But being on a dating app is another step in the coming out process. Don’t get me wrong, it is not a requirement. But for me, once I was single and (relatively) out, creating a dating app profile was another way I could identify myself to the world. I had far too high hopes about finding a girlfriend quickly when I started using apps, but at least I was out there.

Coming out is a process. Every day. Always.

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The work girl and I end up dating. She knows I’m not out yet. I know this is potentially a tremendous obstacle in our relationship. Eventually, I am going to have to come out.

But we take things slow and not so slow at the same time. She doesn’t pressure me about anything – the coming out, the physical side of a relationship, the “are we official yet or not” question. She allows me to discover these things at my own pace.

It is strange being with someone who wants to be with me. It is intoxicating and consuming. It is also enlightening. I learn a lot, and quickly, about nearly every aspect of a relationship. I learn a lot about her, and I learn a lot about the intimacy that can occur between two people. I know the connotation of intimacy is primarily sexual, but I don’t really mean it that way. It is intimate to spend a lot of time with someone, one-on-one, no matter what you are doing with that time. It is intimate to talk to each other about your past and your present and your hopes for the future. To talk about things that are real, and happening, and matter deeply to you. It is intimate to see the more private aspects of a person’s life – who they are when they think no one is watching, how they speak when they are in the comfort of their own home, what they talk about when the surface topics run out.

I learn more about relationships and people in general in the first couple of months of being with her than I feel like I had learned in the first 25 years of my life. I feel like I know how to be a better person more now than before I was dating. I feel like I know how to love better now than I did before.

But I am still not out to my family.

And I seek to remedy at least one part of that.

My sister has always been one of my best friends. She started dating a guy just a month or two before I started dating the work girl. It is funny, and frustrating, to hear her talk about this guy, to know we are both going through so many of the same beginning relationship steps at nearly the same time, and to not tell her about the work girl.

We are in her car, driving to her apartment, when I tell her.

I have the same nerves and jitters that I always do whenever I have to say these words and I can’t predict the outcome. I don’t suspect that she will have a negative reaction. But I am not sure just how positive it will be either. She will understand, better than anyone else ever will, just how this news may impact our family.

“So you may have suspected this for a long time,” I say, my voice shaking, “but I’m gay.” I let the words hang in the air for just a moment before continuing. I say something like, “I wanted to tell you, because I am actually dating someone right now. And I started seeing her around the same time you started seeing your guy. So I just think it’s funny, and I, like, wanted you to know that I am in a similar situation with dating as you are right now.”

Her response is measured. She says something like, “Oh really?”

And I say something like, “Yeah.”

She pulls into her apartment complex and parks. We get out of the car and walk to her door. Once inside, we sit at her kitchen table.

“I just want you to know that it’s, like, ok to ask me questions or whatever,” I say. “I obviously had to think a lot about how this impacts my faith and things like that, and I don’t have any problem sharing my journey with that.”

We don’t talk much more about it, but we do what we always do. We talk about running. We talk about Mom and Dad. We talk about random things. Nothing has really changed.

The work girl and I become official in December. Overall, being in a relationship with her is great. I continue to learn about myself. I continue to learn about her. I continue to learn about relationships and compromise and personal failings and forgiveness. And I can tell that I still have a lot to learn, a lot to figure out.

But life outside of my relationship is hard. I am living two lives. There’s the life I live when I am at home with my mom, and I can’t talk about the work girl. My mom knows I am friends with the work girl – that she’s the one I have suddenly been spending so much time with. But I can’t talk about who she actually is – my first date, my first kiss, my first relationship, my first girlfriend. And so at home she is my friend. When I am with her, she is my girlfriend.

I have continued to try to be a good kid. I still live under my parents’ roof. I still try to follow their rules. I don’t want to cause my mom any unnecessary stress. I don’t want to experience unnecessary stress. This is hard. And it is wearing on me. And the stress is coming out in other ways. I snap at my mom more often than I ever have before. I still don’t feel like it’s a lot, but it’s a noticeable difference. I am more standoffish to her as well. I don’t feel like I’ve shared a whole lot of details of life in my twenties with her as it is, but this takes the cake. I can’t share any details. I am stressed at work too, and I find myself going into one of the manager’s offices to have a breakdown every couple of days.

I am being pulled a part, experiencing the highest of highs one moment and the lowest of lows the next. I am going to burst.

This is the state I am in when I come out to my parents. I wish it was different – that I was just that confident and that sure of myself and that in love with my girlfriend. But I am just a broken kid, finally understanding that sooner or later this day has to come.

It is purely coincidence that the work girl and I start officially dating in December. And my dad, who has been living elsewhere for work, comes home for the holidays. And my sister, who hasn’t lived at home in quite some time, is really only able to come over on Christmas Day. I suppose it is not coincidence that the holidays bring up a lot of emotion, and I remember the excitement of my childhood and how that has faded over the years, and I know that this is the first Christmas without my grandma, and all of these things weigh on my mind, and my girlfriend’s family wants me to come over and knows me, and my family doesn’t know my girlfriend. I am jealous. Envious. Sad. Frustrated. Tired.

I am at the end of my rope.

It is Christmas Day. I sit at the kitchen table. My sister is to my left. My dad is across from me. My mom is on my right. We don’t sit in the dining room today. No one else is coming over. It’s just us. The day already feels over.

I don’t want to do it today. But I am so frustrated. And so tired.

I am practically having a panic attack in my seat. I am so zoned out. I am not listening to the choppy conversation happening around me. I keep telling myself, “No. Not now. Not today. You better not do it today.” But I am so frustrated. So tired.

My heart races. I hear my voice, monotone and dry as if someone else speaks the words.

“I have something to tell you guys.”

The table falls silent.

And I do it.