4 ms·

Do you go back to your home town and, if so, what reaction do you get from smart kids that decided to stay?

• jurassic 13y ago
  I do go back to see my family and one teacher who had a big impact on me, but I'm not really good friends with anyone who stayed anymore. I came out to one of my oldest friends at Christmas, and they told me if I didn't leave my partner of 4 years and give up the gay lifestyle that I would burn in hell for eternity. This lecture was delivered in a crowded restaurant, with about a dozen people looking on. At one point in college I wrote an editorial for my hometown paper and the minibio was something along the lines of "ABC High School Valedictorian, Class of 200X, and current MIT student"; as a result the comments were all incredibly nasty and irrelevant to the content of the article, along the lines of "Who does this liberal/atheist bitch think she is?" The only positive comments were from old people saying "Wow, I've never seen anybody under 30 submit a piece to the paper." Truthfully, in person people are usually a lot more gentle (southern hospitality and all), but there's definitely an undercurrent of resentment after initial pleasantries. Sometimes it can be really awkward when I reciprocate their "It's so good to see you, and how are you doing?" and get a really depressing story back. (Got knocked up, laid off, foreclosed, etc.) Even people in my own family can be hostile. It feels like I can never give anybody any advice, ever, because "they can't all live perfect lives" like me. It sucks.