Out Again

Admissions Coworker decided that the best way for me to come out to my friends in Seattle was to have a coming out party. So I gave her the email addresses of my library coworkers (not everyone who works in the library, just the seven other student reference specialists) and she sent them and the three other graduate student readers at admissions an Evite with the following message:

Dear Friends of Ben,

He's Here, He's Queer - Get Used to It!
Or...join us in drinking to it!

The Grad Readers Club requests the honor of your presence at Ben's official nobody-in-Seattle-knows-I'm-gay coming out party. Come prepared to drink plenty of beer (or a Shirley Temple for the recovering addicts, ex-BYU students, and those with a bun in the oven) and make witty comments. Extra points for those of you who come bearing gifts AND witticisms.

And thus I was outed to all my coworkers. I worried the message was a little more... confrontational? than I would have worded it, but no one seemed bothered by it and the important thing is that I didn't have to do it myself.

Last night we all got together at Dad Watson's and had a great time. Plenty of beer was drunk and many witty comments were made. One of my library coworkers brought a gift--three glow-in-the-dark rubber duckies with devil horns (she promised there was no message implied here) that I was happy to bring home and share with S-Boogie and Little Dude. My gayness was mentioned a couple times during the night (mostly when people joked that they weren't sure what the appropriate thing to say was: Congratulations? Happy Birthday?) but it was hardly the focus of the party, which is just how I'd like things to be. I was very happy to feel that my friends know I'm gay and it really means nothing to them--they care only that I find happiness, whatever that means for me. I was certainly not surprised to get this reaction from my friends, particularly here in Seattle, nor does it differ all that much from the reaction I've gotten from friends and family in Utah and Hawaii over the past ten years, but it's still nice. And nice is good.