I start this thread having listened to this where the 81 year old Randi comes out.
I should be clear - when I say uncle in this thread, I do not talk about someone literally the sibling of my mother or father. In my family uncle is used rather loosely, and while this man will always be “Uncle X” to me, he is more of a great uncle.
Nevertheless the words have meaning. I don’t know about how close a normal doper family is but this man and I are very close indeed. He can be regarded as basically a grandfather in terms of a “normal” family when it comes to closeness.
Anyway, he’s obviously gay. And both me and him absolutely have a bond of confidentiality which, strange as it sounds, is probably the strongest one either of us has ever had (and it has in no way whatsoever been violated for this thread, not even technically - had he said anything remotely relevant I could never have considered starting this)
Do you think I should bring this up with someone over eighty who was brought to despise what he is?
Bear in mind he is coming down with a degenerative disease at present, so I don’t have forever. But it’s quite a slow acting one.
I’ve wondered something similar, myself. I have an aunt who’s about 60 or so, who has lived with a woman for the last 35(?) years. Her “roommate” was married and had two kids, but got divorced and started living with my aunt. They do everything together, and I assume that they are a couple, but the “l” word has never been mentioned. I feel like telling her, “You know, if you and Betty are a couple, we really don’t care. You can be honest with us,” but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s her business, and she’ll say what she feels comfortable saying.
I’m not that close with my aunt, though - I only see her a couple of times a year, if that. In your situation, maybe you could broach the subject by mentioning how supportive you are of gay people or something. What you have to gain by the knowledge is a good question, though. Would anything change if I found out that my aunt definitely has been in a lesbian relationship for the last 35 years? Nope.
Yeah I agree with bringing up a friend who just came out as gay to you or something, or possibly a news article about gay rights or something, see what he has to say and how he reacts.
That’s a brilliant idea actually, my only objection is that it will sound very implausible if I am suddenly nonplussed by a gay friend. You got any other embellishements I can ad to it and I will try it tomorrow.
Or maybe it wouldn’t be implausible, I don’t raelly know how poeple that age REALLY think…
Of course he’ll see through it. But there is the politeness factor of plausible deniability—if you talk about a neutral, even fictional, third party, he can bring the conversation to a close or sidestep the issue without revealing anything he doesn’t want to reveal.
Can you talk about the sad story of a co-worker? His Uncle Fictional just died, and it turned out he had been hiding a gay relationship all those years. How sad for Nephew Fictional that he never got to know his uncle-in-law!
I’m chiming in to the “who cares?” chorus. What benefit will there be to bringing this up. If he felt a need to talk with someone, I’m confident that he would choose you because you already have a trusting relationship.
No matter what his reasons, they are his reasons for not discussing this (if there is a “this”) with you so just let it go.
I have a friend who was pissed her boss/friend didn’t tell her she was gay. I said, “why would she?” and my friend thought that just because they were friends she was somehow entitled to know who her boss/friend chose to have sex with. I totally don’t get it.
No, it’s none of your business. If he felt comfortable telling anyone, he would have done so by now, and he probably wouldn’t appreciate a nosy nephew poking around in his private life.
Considering the era he grew up in, maybe he just doesn’t feel comfortable coming out. Leave it up to him.
I’ve dealt with a similar situation, except with someone more closely related. The differences are that it’s a younger person/generation than your uncle, and there are really no outward signs, but I know it for a 99.9+% fact by way of happenstance, and have known for years now.
I struggled with it for a while, wondering if/how I should bring it up, or if I should discuss what I know with someone else similarly close to this person, to see if it’s something everybody knows and doesn’t discuss. But after considerable intermittent contemplation, I’ve pretty much settled on MYOB and that there’s no pressing need to initiate that discussion at all. It would have no impact on me or our relationship, so WTF do I care if they don’t discuss that aspect of their life with me? I don’t discuss every single aspect of my life with them, either.
It’s gotten to the point now where I don’t even think about it. So, yeah, in your case, I’d vote MYOB, particularly because his age makes it matter even less, and might mean he’s more sensitive about it.
PS: When I found out, I immediately recalled a recent conversation we had where, if they were going to bring it up on their own, that would have been a good time. But, nope. So, I also had the benefit of knowing that an indirect approach probably wouldn’t work.
I think the only thing you can do is let it be known to your uncle how supportive you are (I assume!) of gay rights. It doesn’t have to be in any achingly obvious way - just very naturalistically fit it into a conversation. “Hey, did you hear that Ricky Martin came out? Good for him. Can you pass the sports page? So what else is new?”
