Craig Fredrickson, California

I have always been attracted to guys. I grew up in Fresno, California. I never thought of myself as “gay”, not until I moved to Collierville, Tennessee in 1992 when my parents moved there. While attending college at Memphis State I started to realize I was gay, but never really considered coming out at that time since I grew up in the eighties, and it was not something you wanted to be. After college in 1997 I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas – it was my first time being on my own. I decided that I would no longer hide it, but I wasn’t going to shout it out either.

In January of 2001 I moved to Cleveland, Ohio for work. While there I again decided that I wouldn’t hide it, but I also wasn’t going to let it rule my life. I meet a friend from work, and we hung out all the time. I knew he was straight, but always worried what he would think if he found out I was gay, so again I kept it to myself.

I didn’t mention anything to him. We just hung out - went to movies, went to bars with other co-workers. We became good friends in the process. About a year later we took a weekend off to go to his hometown for a friend’s bonfire party and just to get out of town for a little while. The first night we were there we stayed at his dad’s house with his younger brothers. His youngest brother was making comments all night like “that’s so gay,” “Don’t be so queer” and other typical insults. None directed at me, but towards some of his friends.

The next day while we were hanging with a couple of his female friends the subject kind of came up – the discussion of gay things. One of the women asked me if I was gay rather straight forward, and I just said “yes” not even thinking about it. Then my friend got up and went outside. I became worried. I started thinking he was going to hate me, or that he was going to be upset that I hadn’t told him. When I went outside to talk with him I was relieved to see that he was not angry or offended.

“Why didn’t you just say so? I knew the first time that we went out for a drink and you ordered a wine cooler; gay guys don’t drink beer.”

I was shocked by the fact that he had known for over a year and was totally cool with it. I was also surprised to find that he thought that all gay guys dislike drinking beer, but that is neither here nor there. Since then our friendship became stronger and we are still very close, even now that I am now living in Arkansas again and he is still living in Ohio.