Or anyone else, I guess…
Okay, so “Mike” and I became freinds when we were 18, were roommates for awhile and were both active in the same semi-fundamentalist church group. We were never best pals or very close, but we were freinds for several years and hung out together, etc.
I eventually went off to college, then spent three years overseas, and Mike was sort of a once-a-year-and-occasional-email freind. During that time, for a variety of reasons I lost most of my fundamentalism, but not my faith in general. From what I gathered, Mike was doing much of the same, though we never really discussed it.
When I came back to the US in 2000, I chose to live where I do now because I wanted to live somewhere new, and Mike was one of three people in this area, and I was looking forward to renewing the freindship. But after a pretty short while, I started to feel like I was being tolerated; he’d rarely call me, and only return half of my calls to him. I was disappointed, but hey, people drift apart.
So in the next two years I think I saw him once. Then a few months ago, I heard from mutual freind that Mike had come out of the closet or was in the process of coming out. I felt like that explained why he maybe hadn’t felt comfortable around me for awhile … he was coming to terms with his sexuality, and here I’m a holdover from his fundamentalist days, etc. I’m sure that back when we were 19 and 20 I made any number of idiotic anti-gay jokes (nothing unusual; just the standard stupid things straight guys say at that age), and I wonder now if they were hurting him at the time, or if they hurt him now, and I truly feel like a complete shit.
But also felt like it would be wrong if I called up, acting on what I heard from a third party (and he probably knew that I had heard), and either apologized profusely or else said “Oh, that’s why you were avoiding me! You’re gay now! aHahaha! We can still be buds, you wacky homosexual fellow, you!” So I didn’t do anything.
Then maybe four weeks ago, I get an email sent to a whole list of people, sort of updating us on all these other changes in his life (new job, new house), but not saying anything else. I emailed back saying essentially “good to hear from you, let’s do lunch.” No answer, until today, when I get a forwarded “humor” email mocking Pat Robertson and fundamentalists for excessive literalism and written by a gay man. It’s condescending, kind of stupid and demonstrates little understanding of the way Christians (fundie and otherwise) use and interpret the Bible … but its pretty obviously being sent to me as a “test the waters, see if furt laughs at this” sort of thing.
I’m going to respond for that reason … but I’m struggling to find the right note, both in my initial response and in what I hope will be some face-to-face meetings in the near future. I agree that Pat Robertson is a loathsome toad, OTOH I am still an orthodox Christian myself. I want to be seen as a trustworthy and accepting freind, but OTOH I don’t want to push him to talk about it if he’s not ready. I want to say “sorry” if I’ve hurt him, but OTOH maybe it seems a little phony to beg forgiveness for ignorant things I said 13 years ago.
I guess what I’m looking for is guidance from those who have been through similar situations. I’d especially like input from gay dopers on what it’s like from the other side … If/when you were in his situation, what would/did you want? Apologies? Earnest pledges of renewed freindship? A patient ear to bare your troubles to? A shrug and “It’s no big deal”?