So today I was struggling with my schoolwork a bit and my dad was helping me with it. He says, “you got feedback from your HE teacher on your food waste assignment,” so he opens up Microsoft Teams on his phone to find the assignment page to show me my grade.
*info for those who do not use Microsoft Teams: there is a section where you put a mini-bio on your account if you swipe sideways. Only the top couple of lines are visible unless you tap on it.*
He says, “oh yeah I meant to ask you about this...” and swipes sideways to the description and tapped on it.
*info about what my bio says: I put some stuff about my school friends and my favourite TV show to fill the first couple of lines so if my dad accidentally swiped and found the bio he wouldn’t see what I wrote next. What I wrote next was “Oh yeah, I’m LGBT+ (rainbow flag emoji) so if you’re homophobic please go away.”*
So my dad taps on my bio and shows that part to me. Then he just said, “what’s going on?” (I was sweating and shaking so hard at this point) and I said, “I’m bisexual.” (I nearly died of anxiety and terror).
My dad says, “Huh. Just so you know, that’s fine, I don’t mind if you’re gay or straight or whatever,” (I continue sweating and shaking because I know what he’s going to say next...) “but I don’t think you should be sharing that with your classmates and teachers. You’re a bit young to be thinking about all this, you’ve just got your period a few months ago and your hormones are going nuts so just give yourself time to figure everything out.” (Yup, knew he would say that.) Then he says, “I have no problem with it, but you’re only eleven. You might push your friends away a bit if you tell them all about your sexuality now, you’ve not known them for that long, only since September.” (Still shaking and sweating.)
Then he asks, “how do you know?” (The one question I cannot answer well in my trembling sweaty state). I say, “I just like them.” And my dad says, “As friends? Because you know that means for s*x right?” Of course I know this, but I don’t want to seem weird so I say, “I never really thought about that. I just like them.” My dad says, “who’s ‘them’? What does ‘like’ mean?” (I’m dying inside).
Then we had a long, awkward conversation about ‘liking’. (I just wanted to scream “I’m BI! What do you think it means?! Girls are pretty too! You should know, you’re a straight man! GRRR!”).
After the whole thing was over I was covered in cold, sticky sweat and still visibly shaking. I had to sit through another 45 minutes or so of my dad awkwardly watching me work. Now that I think about it, he probably knew and was waiting for me to confirm his suspicions. He probably told my mum as well. Oh flarf...
Well to sum it up: my dad outed me, he’s fine with it but thinks I’m too young, my mum probably knows too and I nearly died of dehydration from all the sweating and trembling. Sorry it was so long, I just had to get it out of my system and tell some people.
What should I do? Can you help please?! (before 9am GMT on 13th May, if possible?) Thanks for being so supportive :)
