Here's a tough one....
I spent 35 years of my working life hiding my orientation as well as the fact that I've been in a 46-year relationship. Still am and as in love as the day I met him.
In those 35 years, I remained with the same company selling medical equipment while becoming quite successful.
After retirement, I decided to let my veil down, and to my shock and surprise, all my friends and acquaintances from the corporate world turned their backs on me. All of them.
Had I been honest about who I am, I would not have been hired and allowed to do what I did for a living. Not a chance.
I not only miss the camaraderie with fellow employees, but also the sincere friendships I had with them. Should I just move on in life and forget about them?
Signed: Confused in Ft. Lauderdale
My friend, you are very brave. It's hardest to come out to our friends, and rejection from them hurts the most.
You spent 35 years in a job that would’ve ripped away your livelihood if your bosses and coworkers had really known you, and once you were free of it, you chose to live authentically. That’s a triumph. It's sad that those people can't see and cheer for your great bravery.
I'm making an educated guess as to your age here: Many men your age never dare to do what you did. It cost you a lot, as coming out often does, but it was the right thing. It’s difficult not to teeter into worn-through aphorisms here, and this is perhaps the right time for one: Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
It’s a tragedy that your longtime friends and coworkers have proved themselves not to be good friends, but they have. They may have been real, sincere friendships, people you valued and who valued you. But they were not good friends.
How to define a good friend? I'd say the definition is not far from the definition of a good person: They accept and love those who are different from them, and when confronted with that difference, they respond with curiosity and kindness, and a degree of humility, rather than silence, coldness, and judgment.
That is the bare minimum of goodness we should expect from all people, and if I'm honest, we should expect a bit more than that from our friends, especially ones we’ve had for decades.
From friends, we should expect, when we come out, something like, "I'm sorry you didn't feel safe coming out sooner," or, "I hope I didn't say anything to make you feel you had to keep your true self a secret," or even just, "Cool, are you dating anyone, and when do I get to meet them?" Even a shrug, a "whatever," is better than silence and rejection.
Silence and rejection are not signs of bad friends; they are signs of bad people. Sure, someone can be warm, funny, generous, and decent in every way and still fail at accepting others. But accepting others is such a “big one,” such a necessary good, such a key virtue, that failing it says something about them, about their values, about the kind of person they are.
That might seem unfair, and I understand that generational and cultural differences breed certain attitudes. But come on. It's 2026. If someone can't love a gay person, that's bad. That’s a moral failing. That's their wrong, not yours.
I understand this may sound harsh when applied to people you've loved and built bonds with over decades, people you miss, but these kinds of shocks are what make coming out so useful and necessary in our lives. Coming out almost always includes losses like this. We lose people we thought were friends, and for many (maybe even most) of us, we lose family members and connections we've had since childhood.
My love, that's normal. Indeed, that's expected. Parental rejection is such a standard part of the coming-out process that it's woven into nearly every gay novel and film. Maybe you didn’t have to worry about parents, but you're facing the adult equivalent: friend and colleague rejection. It's just as common, and just as painful.
Here's what you might not see now: In time, this painful process paves the way for the right connections, for the people you truly need in your life now. You were expending energy on those who don't want to be friends with you as you are, and now you can spend it on those who do. It's the first, very hard lesson of being out, and it comes with a new baseline for everyone you let into your life from this point onward: They have to love and welcome you as a gay man.
No middle ground. It’s an all-or-nothing test, pass or fail. The ones who are iffy, uncomfortable, or on the fence, fail. They just aren't candidates for friendship.
What to do now? My impulse is to tell you to go play. Go to gay bars, go to Pride, go to pool parties and gay bookshops and cruising zones, whatever, and really talk to people. Get numbers. Go to gay group dinners and see movies with other gay men your age, other long-term gay couples. Get lovers that turn into friends and friends that turn into lovers. That’s the version of gay community I love, the version that saved me, but I acknowledge it may not be what you want. You've been partnered for 46 years and spent a career being private, so you may not be looking to be quite so open and loud and playful as all that.
But if I were sitting with you, I'd gently push my version, at least a bit. If gay bars aren't for you, there are gentler ways into our world. There are gay book clubs, volunteer centers, LGBTQ nonprofits, and near-endless ways to get involved and support others. Find one. SAGE is an organization in Fort Lauderdale (and across the U.S.) with care management and a visiting program that supports LGBTQ elders who are alone at home. Maybe someone there is desperate for a friend like you.
There are men your age all over Fort Lauderdale who also came out late and worked full careers in the closet, who'd understand your story without you needing to explain. Seek them. And no, you don't have to build a friend circle of only gay people, just good people.
But give your fellow gay men a shot. The warm, playful, bantering camaraderie between a group of gay men is one of the most perfect experiences we get to have in life, if we're lucky. That's camaraderie. That's home. That's love. It’s hard to find and irreplaceable on this earth once you’ve found it.
Mourning is okay. Think about your colleagues a bit more; mourn their loss, mourn their immense moral failings and how poorly they performed as friends when it mattered, and then, on the inside, in your feelings, let them go. Step forward into the light of a chintzy disco ball and Donna Summer. Welcome to gay land.
Hey there! I’m Alexander Cheves. I’m a sex writer and former sex worker—I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.”
Here, I’m offering sex and relationship advice to Out’s readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com
