I’m Just Sayin’: How Out Can You Really Be With Your Family

My 89-year-old grand father just came up with a brilliant idea – or so he thinks!

Are you ready for this?
Out of nowhere, he suddenly decided to take on the grand – and very much impossible – mission to find me a husband. Phew! And to think I thought I was going to have to audition for a TV spot on the Bachelorette. Thank God grandpa is taking my alarmingly celibate love life into his own hands.

Apparently, being 39 years-old, my time is running out and soon, so will my estrogens too.
Shame on me for thinking that I was a young vibrant woman in the prime of my life!
While I am still debating whether the decision to pick up this new wedding planner hobby of his was out of sheer boredom or sadly out of concerned pity for me, one thing I know for sure is that he is out of his mind! Yet I can’t really blame him because poor thing just never got the “BI-the-way” memo and quite simply doesn’t know.

“I want to see my great-grand kids before I go,” he keeps saying cheerful yet slightly despaired. “I want to see you settle down and have the peace of mind that you have someone who is going to take care of you,” he always argues emotionally.

Awww how sweet? Granted, it’s archaic thinking and very much antiquated but what else can I expect from a fervent observer of the Catholic faith who obviously doesn’t know any better but to kick it old school? Of course the fact that I am his only grand-daughter is not helping my cause because as the only female representative of my MTV generation I get dibs over my 3 brothers and two cousins to be the first grand-child to bless the family with one or more mini versions of MOI.

At least I know his intentions are pure and unquestionably good. I mean the cutie-pie went as far as launching a massive PR campaign on my behalf on a local level within his ecclesiastical parish and on a national one among the entire diocese to find an eligible suitor.
Suffice to say that if everything goes to plan, I should be hearing wedding bells by the end of the year. If not then I’ll probably have my mug-shot printed on milk cartons with the tagline reading: “Missing a husband.”

Admittedly none of this would be happening had I invited grandpa to my outstanding Diana Ross sing-along performance of “I’m Coming Out.”
A few years ago, I took my one-woman show on a world tour and each night publicly performed the song to a sold out crowd largely made up of family members and close friends. While I didn’t so much receive a standing ovation, critics, nevertheless, seemed fairly receptive and didn’t completely trash the show. It’s not that I lacked extravagance, panache or stage confidence, au contraire, I did take “let’s put on a show!” to whole new gay level!
Alright, I’ll cop to it. The only reason why I – seemingly courageously – went all out was because my then girlfriend was quite a showstopper herself and yes became sort of a little trophy I was extremely proud to flaunt in public places. More than anything else, I was secretly competing against my brothers and wanted to show them a la “look what I can do” fashion, the caliber of women I could score in comparison. Evidently, I didn’t know at the time that the then girlfriend was actually the only ONE rare exception of my entire soon to be in danger of extinction dating “the supermodel types” superficial life. In retrospect, of course, she wasn’t all that, but love is definitely blind and reality is obviously a brutal vindictive bitch!

Incidentally, that might have been the problem. The daringly liberal material didn’t seem to fully work for my mostly conservative audience who hailed the live rendition as a wildly outrageous showstopper – as in the show MUST NOT GO ON! Evidently that put an abrupt end to my short-lived “under the rainbow’s spotlight” career as an absolutely fag’bulous rock star. Of course the tour bus covered 99% of my family’s geography but never made it to grandpa’s ears. Strangely, to this day he neither heard of nor witnessed the spectacle, which somehow seems very odd to me considering that I conducted a widely advertised publicity campaign – some even called a PR stunt.

With all of his expert internet knowledge which, mind you, does include Twittering and Facebooking, I am extremely surprised grandpa never thought of simply Googling my name – with a mouse and one click: BAM! I’d be out of the attic! Perhaps grandpa might already know, yet until I know he knows I know, I won’t be telling.

Back to my audience, don’t get me wrong, my relatives didn’t want me to put all my material back in the closet. I think they read this “bi” business thing as “there’s hope she might make it out of the dark side of the force”. But while they were very much accepting of the “I’m coming out, I want the world to know” part of the chorus, it was more the “got to let it show” portion of it that raised eyebrows – which brings me to the piece de resistance: how “out” can you really be with your family?

In my personal opinion, it all boils down to how much they need to see which then poses another dilemma namely, how much is too much? Consider this recent incident:
About a week ago I spent some quality time with my auntie in Manhattan Beach hanging out at the beach for a lazy afternoon tanning/swimming/napping/reading session. When we finally wrapped our little tete-a-tete and decided to head back to her house for a traditional tea-time routine caffeine break something quite unexpected occurred … I flagrantly got busted!

As we were walking along the boardwalk heading back to the car, a tall, gorgeous, jaw-dropping brunette with long sultry hair, oozing sex-appeal, suddenly walked right past us.
Needless to say she had me at “tall, gorgeous, jaw-dropping brunette with long sultry hair, oozing sex-appeal,” and more than catching my attention totally caught my eyes. In a none too discreet way, I nearly dislocated my cervical discs, twisting, in the most inhuman fashion, my neck to zoom in on her and get a panoramic shot of her sexy Brazilian-like figures.

In this momentary lapse of reason, I became somewhat oblivious to the spirit of the family, completely forgetting I was in the company of my auntie. But it was too late, the damage was already done – I got caught checking out a female hottie before the very straight eyes of my auntie. Being a good sport and a supporter of my sexual faith, she drifted a smile as if amused, but somehow I could hear that voice deep down inside of her belch out in an SOS “I’m not queer … get me out of here!”

Not only did I get to feel like a stereotypical dirty-minded man meaning a royal pervert but lucky me I also got to feel like a total ass. Of course I had to sink myself further down into the abyss of imbecility and for my comeback line dropped the classic “I’m sorry, but she was hot!” Then, to make matters worse, I stupidly attempted to have her co-sign my choice by asking the major faux-pas question “don’t you think so?” Let’s be real, was I really expecting her to cheer me up and say “Oh my god! Mona, she was fine, go for it”?

Gay or straight, there are certain things you just don’t, privately or publicly, address with or display in front of your parents – and I use the term loosely here to include auntie and grandpa – it’s called the right to privacy. Beyond the gay thing, there’re a lot of details in my life unrelated to my sexual preferences I don’t feel the need to share with anyone.

Regardless of the fact that I have come out in all my bi-sexuality splendor with some and not with others, it’s not about the moral obligation to either check my gayness or my family at the door, but about respect. Would you broadcast your sexual hunting prowess and bedroom extravaganzas with your parents if you were straight?

Case in point: I was recently watching another absolutely-not-brilliant episode of the Real L Word (and please don’t ask why I still tune in!) and was rather enraged to see slimy Stamie bitch – in another one of her spectacularly retarded on the fly rants – about the fact that during her girlfriend Tracy’s 30th birthday party she couldn’t kiss her girl because Tracy’s mom (barely coming to terms with her daughter’s lesbianism) was also in attendance. Seriously? Is she for real? She can’t keep her disgusting hands off her girlfriend for 60 fucking minutes while they all share a meal and a piece of cake. Let’s be honest here, I don’t think mommy-dearest wants to have that visual, and quite frankly neither do we!
Personally, I’m convinced that Tracy’s mom is not so much struggling to accept her daughter’s homosexuality as much as she’s mentally torturing her brain to understand her daughter’s choice of girlfriends. What mother in her right mind wouldn’t have a major issue if one of her kids was dating an energumen like Stamie?

This is the part where I generously offer slimy Stamie some words of advice: that should be the least of your concerns! Why don’t worry about your 3 out of control kids, perhaps start by giving them a freaking proper decent haircut. Oh and if you’re going to continue wearing those unflattering baggy fire engine red Adidas sweat pants why don’t you hit the gym – you know? Use them for what they were meant to be used for!

Clearly, the proper question then is not HOW but WHAT – what are you really out of?
Out of the closet? Well ok fine…and kudos to you! But I believe there’s a very thin line between being out of touch and being out of your mind. When you cross it, you’re not heroically out of the box, you’re just disrespectfully out of line. … I’m just sayin’!