Coming out: a confession

New Year's Day is as good a time as any, I suppose, to come clean with something like this, even though the repressiveness of contemporary traditions make it a rather daunting prospect. These days one can lose friends over something like this, just as I lost friends by becoming a Catholic some twenty years ago. I have to apologize in advance to so many of my friends and acquaintances who may have gotten the wrong idea about me. It's pretty easy to disguise one's disposition and intentions when it's necessary to get by and get along. I have always loved Puccini arias, ballroom dancing, and fine cuisine. What can I say? Still, it takes some courage, particularly when you can lose your job over something like this and see your entire career go down the drain in a moment. It's so hard to make people understand. There are such expectations to conform to the prevailing patterns of culture. The social pressures are sometimes overwhelming. So I apologize in advance to anyone who will be taken aback by my announcement today, and any people who may feel that they have been deceived and that I have been living a lie. It's important to me to come clean and come out. So let me be perfectly clear about my embrace of that love that "dare not speak its name." Yes, forgive me, but it's a fact. I freely confess it: I am not "gay"! I am a metro-hetero-sexual-papist male! Here I stand. I can do no other. I know I will inevitably face being persecuted and ostracized by making this announcement, but I am prepared to face the consequences of my confession. But I can no longer harbour this deep secret and live a lie just to be accepted by my society. I've got to be honest with myself, come out of the closet, and just be who I am ... and let the pieces fall where they will.