So, when do I get to just be gay, and not have to be a role model for understanding anymore?
I have a dilemma. Not surprisingly, it is related to Facebook.
I received two friend requests last night; one from my uncle David, and one from his daughter Elisa. When I was growing up Elisa and I were exceedingly close, nearly siblings and best friends in so many ways (being only a year apart in age). Many of my fondest memories of childhood are set at our grandmother's house in West Haven on a hot summer day, with Elisa and I playing in the back garden as Gram cooked in the house. We stayed close all the way through college, but then a process of estrangement began. My life moved in a very different direction as I embraced being gay and shed the conservative Italian mindset that side of the family is still immured with.
She married a great guy, who everyone (besides me) thinks the world of. By all accounts it is a perfect match. I have not shared this with anyone in the family, but I don't think well of him at all. Many years ago we held a celebration for my mother's 70th birthday, and the whole extended family was there. My ex was there, of course, as he was fully integrated into the immediate family, and it would have been odd for him not to be there. Elisa's husband and her brother (an ex-Marine macho idiot who I never got along with throughout our lives) spent the entire party glaring at my ex and I, doing their best to be intimidating and frankly vaguely threatening. They were clearly disgusted by us, and were doing what they could get away with to make us feel unwelcome at my own mother's party.
I have never forgotten or forgiven this.
The last time I saw Elisa was at her mother's funeral about ten years ago. Her husband still treated me like a leper, but I swallowed it because it was indeed her mother's funeral and who was I to make an issue of things? I've seen her father, my uncle, many times since then. He is at least diplomatic about things even if he does disapprove. At my parents' recent 60th wedding anniversary party he made a point of making sure that the hubby was in all the pictures and of talking to the hubby and just made an effort in general to be good with it all. I appreciated that.
So, back to the dilemma. I find it odd that my 76 year old uncle wants to friend me on Facebook, but I am more comfortable friending him than I am his 43 year old daughter. I looked at her profile and she is still Republican and Catholic and so forth. I expect that from him at his age, but find it harder to take from her at hers. And there, of course, was the picture of her husband in her profile as well. It turned my stomach, thinking about it.
Nevertheless, there are a few pressures for me to accept her friend request. First there is our past history together, though we have been estranged for twenty years. Secondly there is the family connection, which even now I find hard to ignore. Our extended family on the Italian side was always something we took seriously, and that is ingrained in my mental programming and hard to overcome. Lastly, there is the educational/propaganda side of things. How much exposure does she really have to gay people and gay issues? Part of me feels obligated to friend her so that she can no longer ignore the reality that she has actual gay people in her own family that are hurt by her blind obedience to the Republican upbringing she received. Do I have an obligation to try and educate her? Part of me feels that I do. The coming out process never really ends.
So, I wrestle with this today. I don't honestly feel like I have any choice but to accept, but this does not make it any easier. In truth the only reason I don't want to is that after past events I despise her husband until he proves me wrong, and because he is married to her I can't help but wonder how much she shares his beliefs.
Sometimes life is indeed confusing.
I received two friend requests last night; one from my uncle David, and one from his daughter Elisa. When I was growing up Elisa and I were exceedingly close, nearly siblings and best friends in so many ways (being only a year apart in age). Many of my fondest memories of childhood are set at our grandmother's house in West Haven on a hot summer day, with Elisa and I playing in the back garden as Gram cooked in the house. We stayed close all the way through college, but then a process of estrangement began. My life moved in a very different direction as I embraced being gay and shed the conservative Italian mindset that side of the family is still immured with.
She married a great guy, who everyone (besides me) thinks the world of. By all accounts it is a perfect match. I have not shared this with anyone in the family, but I don't think well of him at all. Many years ago we held a celebration for my mother's 70th birthday, and the whole extended family was there. My ex was there, of course, as he was fully integrated into the immediate family, and it would have been odd for him not to be there. Elisa's husband and her brother (an ex-Marine macho idiot who I never got along with throughout our lives) spent the entire party glaring at my ex and I, doing their best to be intimidating and frankly vaguely threatening. They were clearly disgusted by us, and were doing what they could get away with to make us feel unwelcome at my own mother's party.
I have never forgotten or forgiven this.
The last time I saw Elisa was at her mother's funeral about ten years ago. Her husband still treated me like a leper, but I swallowed it because it was indeed her mother's funeral and who was I to make an issue of things? I've seen her father, my uncle, many times since then. He is at least diplomatic about things even if he does disapprove. At my parents' recent 60th wedding anniversary party he made a point of making sure that the hubby was in all the pictures and of talking to the hubby and just made an effort in general to be good with it all. I appreciated that.
So, back to the dilemma. I find it odd that my 76 year old uncle wants to friend me on Facebook, but I am more comfortable friending him than I am his 43 year old daughter. I looked at her profile and she is still Republican and Catholic and so forth. I expect that from him at his age, but find it harder to take from her at hers. And there, of course, was the picture of her husband in her profile as well. It turned my stomach, thinking about it.
Nevertheless, there are a few pressures for me to accept her friend request. First there is our past history together, though we have been estranged for twenty years. Secondly there is the family connection, which even now I find hard to ignore. Our extended family on the Italian side was always something we took seriously, and that is ingrained in my mental programming and hard to overcome. Lastly, there is the educational/propaganda side of things. How much exposure does she really have to gay people and gay issues? Part of me feels obligated to friend her so that she can no longer ignore the reality that she has actual gay people in her own family that are hurt by her blind obedience to the Republican upbringing she received. Do I have an obligation to try and educate her? Part of me feels that I do. The coming out process never really ends.
So, I wrestle with this today. I don't honestly feel like I have any choice but to accept, but this does not make it any easier. In truth the only reason I don't want to is that after past events I despise her husband until he proves me wrong, and because he is married to her I can't help but wonder how much she shares his beliefs.
Sometimes life is indeed confusing.