"The Unvarnished Truth..."

From the television series "The DL Chronicles"
 

Gee Sessions Smalls (on the right below) shares his thoughts on the importance of being out and open... From the blog written by Gee and his husband Juan 

The Way Gee Sees It...

I know I will get a lot of heat for my opinion on this matter but I truly believe that you cannot be in a healthy, functional & loving relationship when one or both partners are not openly gay.  This may sound a bit harsh to some, but after being in a relationship with a man while in the closet, I can honestly say that this is MY truth.  How can you expect to love another person properly when you don’t even love yourself?  Don’t say that you do when you cannot even be completely who you are around the people you love.  If you loved yourself, their judgment would not break you.  It will not matter so much that you would change who you are when you are around them, just to spare their feelings, all the while neglecting your very own.

My first boyfriend was on the “D.L.” and so was I after coming right out of a marriage to my son’s mother.  We both still dated women while seeing each other.  Although neither one of us really had very much sex with these women, we still dated and kissed them. LOL.  He still had hopes of getting married and having kids, but at that point in my life I had decided that I had my first and last child and was never going to marry again (although my reference was to a female).  We were so on the D.L. that we couldn’t even acknowledge that we were “boyfriends”.  I’m not sure what we called ourselves but we were “best friends” to everyone else.  We spent just about every day and every night together for two years.  We would break up just about every two weeks or so and get back together the day after.  There were so many reasons why we broke up, but underlying all of those reasons was the simple fact that we were not secure with who we were as individuals.   Of course we did not realize it at the time due to all the distractions our tumultuous relationship provided us, but after it all was said and done, we just simply could not love one another because we could not love ourselves.

We were about a year and a half into the relationship when I came to this realization.  As I was inching and inching towards exiting the closet, he was taking leaps further inside.  I was tired of living a lie.  I was tired of keeping someone who I claim to love a secret from everyone who claimed to love me.  More importantly, I was tired of having to keep percentages of myself locked away when they come around.  I am a whole person and should be whole 100% of the time.   I held on for another year before I decided that it was time for me to be free.  Free from the relationship and free from being held captive by other people’s thoughts.  I broke up with him and came out of the closet all within in 2 weeks.  It was the most freeing experience of my life to date.  I did not realize how unhappy I was until I found out what happiness really felt like; what happiness really meant.

I know this is just MY experience, which is all I can use to make up my own opinion, but the fact of the matter is if you have to hide who you are from anyone, you are not truly in love with yourself.  And if you think you are, you have not really experienced self-love.  Love of self comes well before love for another person.  If you are ashamed (let’s just call it what it is) of being a gay man, how can you not be ashamed of your partner and your relationship?  Acting like he is your roommate, when you know damn well only one bed in your house is slept in (until they come to visit).  Have you ever been in a situation where you hoped your man didn’t do anything too ‘gay’ around you that would make someone think that you were gay too?  Do you only date men that are ‘unclockable’?  I believe most men are so hell bent on “No Fems” because they are ashamed of who they are.  You can be masculine and still have love, appreciation and respect for a feminine gay man.  Beg to differ?  Then you probably are not secure with being a gay man yourself.

Many men that are in the closet will argue that it does not affect their relationship.  They will also argue that they do love themselves and are very secure with who they are.  Let me tell you this:  the simple fact that you are a closeted gay man may not show up as THE problem in your relationships but it is the root.  It more often than not manifests itself as resentment, jealousy, paranoia, lack of support, impatience, control issues and many other issues that are born out of fear.  Every day hidden behind the closet door is another day your true being suffers.  Your true self cannot survive being inauthentic.  GOD did not make a mistake, so trust that and to hell what others will think.  And stop using being a ‘private’ person as an excuse!  You can be OUT and still keep your private life.  My Dad was very private, but everyone knew he was married to my Mother.  Now I am not saying that if you are in the closet that it’s impossible to love another man.  You damn well can.  But are you able to love him completely?  Love cannot exist around Fear.  It’s impossible.  So let’s just be real with yourself.  That’s the first step to loving who you really are and completely loving another person.

I know many of you will not like me for this post but it’s just the way I see it!

*****

Gee is exactly right in this...

You can't be happy if you're not free.

You can't be free if you're not out.

"Fear Eats the Soul"