Genetics

A few posts back, I wrote about my cousin and my suspicion of him being gay. When I first tried to talk to him–and I did it under guise (opening the conversation with his moodiness and his lack of respect for an older brother and older sister), he resisted. I got the feeling that he knew the direction the conversation was going to take. Afterwards, he avoided any personal conversation with me until a few hours before his departure.

When his siblings decided to go out and shop, he voluntarily said “I’m going to take John out for brunch”. His siblings had offered to come to brunch before their shopping trip and he came up with some excuse so that we could have lunch alone.

When we were seated and had ordered our food, he told me that he knew I suspected he was gay. Ironically he said to me that “rest assured” he wasn’t going to act on it. He said that he didn’t want to live “that lifestyle”. He also said that he didn’t like being gay, that he couldn’t handle it.  

I told him that I was also gay. I said that I was finally coming (very slowly) to terms with it. I said I believed that being gay is genetic, that it was part of us as much as heterosexuality was for the heteros, that it was like being born with brown eyes instead of blue, black hair instead of blonde.

I don’t think he heard any of my reassurance. He kept going on and on about how he didn’t want to deal with it. I asked him if he had any gay friends…suprisingly he did. However, he said they didn’t know he was gay (although I suspect if my rusty gaydar had bleeped in his presence, these guys definitely knew and were waiting for an opportunity to let him talk about it).

Before he boarded his plane, I told him that I was here to talk to him whenever he needed to talk. He smiled and gave me a hug.  Since he has left, he has called me twice just to ask how I was doing. I’ll wait for him to open up again.