Do we ever really leave the closet? I think as I sip tea in the house of my Sudanese friend. Years back I used to teach him english, way back when he first arrived in Australia as a refugee. He could barely speak a word of english then and now we can discuss politics, the global credit crisis or why for example I am not married. "It's important to have children, I think you should have at least six children... you need to find a wife" he tells me.

It's moments like these that time stops, butterflies fill my stomach as I experience something you might call the truth or lie reflex. I dodge and evade until I can either disclose my sexuality or ... for instance say "maybe 2009 will be my lucky year" and reinforce his belief that I am just another happy, albeit unlucky, heterosexual.

Why did I say that? I think to myself, whincing a little but with my friend's conservative christian values, I just don't want to have THAT conversation with him right now or perhaps ever. Where does that leave us though? Do I just keep quiet hoping it'll never come up? I am not normally ashamed of who I am but there are times when I just don't want to get into it. I don't want to explain or defend who I am. I just want to be one of the boys ... but then one of the boys generally means being heterosexual.

I was at a new years party, sipping a vodka mixer. I was engaged in a lively discussion about South America with me the centre of attention. I was standing about outside on the balcony having a cigarette with a couple I had just met. They'd wanted to know why I'd been drawn back to Chile so soon after my first adventure eight months earlier. You meet someone? The guy joked. I hesitated. "Yeah I met a... guy."
"Oh.... that's wonderful," the girl said with a little shock but recovering it well. "So what's his name? Where did you meet him?" I answered her questions gingerly but soon relaxed. We talked about our various opinions of men, past relationships (mainly mine) until the guy bored, up and left the conversation.... and then she sprung it on me as if she had been waiting for her moment, "so when did you come out, when did you tell your parents?"

I had to answer those same questions twice more that evening/morning until I felt like I was just going through the motions. Surely this conversation is as tired for you all as it is for me? Obviously not.

concluding comments:
I do wonder whether you can ever really leave the closet. We all have that moment in our gay lives that we can point to and say "that's when I came out," but we rarely say "that's where I briefly stepped back in," or "oh, when did I come out? Just now actually to you... and before that to that woman over there who kept touching my arm and asking me to dance."