Coming out online

Coming out online

Q:

 I'm a 21-year-old gay male. My friend "Marcelo" is friends with "Chad." Everyone who meets Chad assumes he's gay. Never had a girlfriend, a dance major, dyes his hair blond/green/purple, got up at 2 a.m. to watch Kate marry William — I could go on. Over four years at college, this situation has gone from funny to sad as we realize he may never come out and could pull a Marcus Bachmann and live a miserable life with a miserable wife. Last night, Marcelo was on Grindr and got a message from a guy who turned out to be Chad! Chad sent a face pic, Marcelo sent a faceless one back, they chatted. It turns out that Chad is experienced enough to know his homosex likes and dislikes and carry on a detailed conversation about them with a guy on Grindr. Should we say something to Chad? Would letting him know he's been outed be the best course of action? Should we have a gayvention? —Closet Case Confusion

A:

 Chad hasn't "been outed," CCC, Chad outed himself.

Before Al Gore invented the Internet and ruined everything for everyone forever, a college-age closet case had to work up the nerve to visit the campus gay bar if he wanted some dick. (Or visit the cruisey bathroom in the undergraduate library, but let's leave that one alone for now.) The closet case knew he was running a risk by showing his face in the campus gay bar — even the gay bar three towns over — but going to the bar was the only way to get some dick. So the pre-Grindr college-age closet case would slip into a gay bar and, after pounding shots in a wildly successful effort to self-medicte against his inhibitions, wind up shirtless on the dance floor making out with some random dude.

There was a code of conduct for friends of closet cases when I was in college — which was, I'm sorry to say, just a couple of years before Grindr came along (cough, cough) — and a section that dealt with dance-floor make-out sessions: If you saw a guy who told you he was straight in class on Friday morning making out with some random dude on the dance floor of the campus gay bar on Friday night (or in the gay bar three towns over), you had a right — no, you had a responsibility — to tap him on the shoulder, smile, and say, "Welcome out, dude."

And if you had engaged in a little subterfuge — if you, say, ducked behind a post when you saw the closet case come in so he wouldn't spot you and flee the gay bar pre-shots and -shirtless-make-out session — that was an understandable impulse and forgivable sin.

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