3/9/2011 - the other bumbling ways I've come out. . .

Tonight, I flexed my considerably shaky cooking skills and attempted to make Cuban-style picadillo for dinner.  Turns out that picadillo, or cooking it at least, jogged one very specific kind of memory: the act of coming out.  More specifically, the act of coming out badly.

It all began because picadillo reminded me of Max's Opera Cafe, my first post-college job where I waited tables.  Picadillo was introduced as a special one day and stuck around for a few months out of demand.  It was pretty tasty.  But what I remember most was having it one afternoon after finishing a shift and a fellow server sidled into the booth to strike up a conversation that went something like this:

Marie: Hey Austin! (shit-eating grin)
Me: Hey you.
Marie: How was your shift today?
Me: Oh, pretty slow, but I had some good tables.  How about you?
Marie: Yea, same.  So you are gay. . .

Apparently, my sexuality had been under debate for quite some time between some of the other servers and even one of the managers.  Max's was just that kind of place.  And besides, servers sang showtunes during the dinner shift, so I was probably already questionable, and I don't imagine the debate was all that furious.

Thinking about that conversation always makes me smile, as it did tonight while I sautéed onions and bay leaves.  I then thought of all the other bumbling ways I've come out, how it happened with a girl I met as an afterschool SAT tutor.  I was hired to teach the verbal section to a class of high school students, and Monica was assigned to cover the math portion.  We were around the same age, had similar interests, and quickly became friends.

One night after we finished our classes, she and I sat on a curb by my car in downtown Sacramento and tried to decide what to do with our evening:

Monica: Wanna grab some coffee?
Me: Sure.  There's a dessert place right down the street.
Monica: Or we could go see a movie.
Me: You know I'm gay, right?
Monica: Ummmm, no?
Me: Oh.

And yet both of those scenarios were less awkward than how I was outed to my friend Harrison in my third year of college.  Though I had been officially out for years at that point, I hesitated coming out directly to Harrison because he was a staunch heterosexual in the Air Force Reserves, and I admittedly had a tiny crush on him.  One afternoon, as he and I left an English lecture and was just about to leave the building, my entirely gay friend Sothea came bounding around the corner and proclaimed as only a nelly queen can:

Sothea: Heeey bitch!
Me: Um, hey, Sothea.
Sothea: Ooooohhhh, were you wit' yo' man last night?
Me: Um, no.  So, uh, wh-wh-what's, uh, going on with you?
Sothea: Mmmmmm-hmmmmmm. . . (through pursed lips)

Harrison said that he had never seen me turn so red so fast.

All this to say that I made picadillo tonight, and it was pretty delicious, if I do say so (Sam did too).  And even if we didn't, we would still have to eat it tomorrow since the recipe made enough for six.