Reddit user HeMeYou was left âoverwhelmedâ by advice from online strangers after accidentally discovering his son might be gay.
The 38-year-old father posed the question to Reddit after finding Google searches on his sonâs iPad suggesting he wanted to come out.
He said: âI found out my 13 y/o son is gay⌠He hasnât told me, but I want to support him. What can I do?â
Iâm 38, and a single dad to my 13 year old son, 14 in four months. The other day I asked my son if I could borrow his iPad and he gave it to me.
After my first attempt at Google searching something I noticed that he forgot to delete his history as a lot of the search terms were along the lines of âIâm gay what now?â etcâŚ
I love him regardless of which gender he loves, in fact when I was slightly older than him I had a few flings with guys, which he doesnât know about, so I am 100% supportive.
He has seemed slightly down recently, as in, he isnât as cheerful as he once was, and I desperately want to tell him that I love him regardless of which sexuality he is.
What are my options? Should I wait for him to tell me? Or should I make a few hints at it?
Iâm worried that if I donât hint at it, that he will be worried about something that he really doesnât have to be worried about⌠if that makes sense.
Thanks.
Shortly after, he received a flood of supportive messages, with many users offering advice based on their own experiences.
One user posted: âGoogle âhow to tell my son I will love and support him no matter whatâ and leave it in his search history.â
Another said: âLet him come out on his own terms, just make sure he knows that youâll support him and you donât have a problem with it.â
The father, who wished to remain anonymous, told Buzzfeed the response to his post was âoverwhelmingly helpful and kind.â
A few days later, HeMeYou posted an update on what he ended up doing:
I started off with talking about general media with him, for instance I mentioned how awesome it was that Tim Cook (CEO of Apple) came out as being gay and I asked him what he thought about it and I was completely expecting him to give a typical teenager response like âyeah.. its goodâ or something like that but he actually gave me a detailed response which I absolutely loved because for the first time in a good while Iâve actually held a conversation with my son that felt really⌠rewarding.
I also wanted to talk to him about how Iâve noticed that heâs not been acting as cheerful as he usually has and I sort of gave the cliche spiel of âI love you no matter what and I just want to see you be happyâ but I didnât get much of a response that time apart from âyeah I know..â
The next day as I picked him up from school I thought Iâd ask him about any crushes he has, and I wanted to make sure I didnât say a gender when I asked him, so instead of âheâ or âsheâ I used âtheyâ etc.. Here is that conversation as I remember itâŚ
Me: So, do you have a crush on anyone?
Son: Uhm⌠no..m..maybe..
Me: Ohhh so who is the lucky person?
At this point he sort of looked at me slightly confused, Iâm not 100% sure why, but Iâm assuming it is because I said âlucky personâ rather than âlucky girlâ.
Son: Just someone from my french classâŚ
Me: Oh yeah⌠so what do you like about them?
Son: Just.. stuff..
Me: Okay.. but.. like what?
Son: I donno theyâre just kinda funny I guessâŚ
At this point I dropped the conversation but just before I did I told him âWell, whoever it is, they should be so lucky to have you as a boyfriend..â and while I didnât see it, I certainly felt as though he was rolling his eyes at my cheesy comments.
At the dinner table the same day, while we were eating we had a couple minutes of silence, not much was heard apart from the cutlery and my son finally said âI actually wanted to tell you something in the car, but I was afraid youâd get in an accident..â
I looked up from my plate and looked at him straight in the eyes⌠I could see he was thinking about something and all I could think of was âOMG this is itâŚâ
He said âDad..â with a couple seconds of silence â..Iâm gayâ.
I looked at him and couldnât help myself from smiling, and I told him â____, you know I love you so much⌠right?â and I got up and gave him a huge hug.
He even started to cry on my shoulder and because of that I couldnât help myself but shed a couple tears.
Concluding his post, he said: âAfter dinner and after he finished his homework we both lay in our pyjamas on the sofa, while I was watching the Cooking Channel and he was playing on his iPad.
âI had my arm around him and he was leaning his head on my chest, and all I could think of was that Iâm the happiest father on earth right now.â
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