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I still felt icky using the word gay about myself (“I’m … not straight” is what I said). The game also gave us something to focus on, so we wouldn’t have to look each other in the eye. The normalcy of that ritual was comforting to me.
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Video games were something we always did together-half an hour or so every weeknight. We were playing Spider-Man 3, and somehow, that made it easier. At the very least, that vision would have to be radically reconfigured once I told him I’d only ever had romantic feelings for other boys. He teaches and shows, you watch and learn, and a vision of your future life emerges, a picture of successful manhood that is in some ways the most cherished thing you and your dad share. Marrying a nice girl and getting her good and pregnant is part of that, just like playing catch in the backyard is. Sons want to be like their fathers-they just do-and fathers want to see their sons become men. I was pretty sure he’d react all right.īut it was still hard, because coming out to your dad is hard. On social issues, he takes a laissez-faire stance: Live and let live, just don’t hurt anyone. My father is an artist from a family of New York intellectuals. People ask me if it was hard-he’s a political conservative and a Christian, and they wonder if I was afraid he would condemn me. I came out to my dad while we were playing Spider-Man 3 on PlayStation 2.
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