I reblogged a lot of stuff about the coming-out scene but I think I do actually want to talk about why it resonated with me a lot. It's far from perfect, but some of the writing choices did hit home for me, so I figured I'd talk about them to bring some positivity in this conversation (and to get the thoughts out of my head).
Note: coming out is a deeply personal topic, and everyone is entitled to their feelings on this scene. There's a reason scenes like these are usually controversial, so don't take this as a "this is how you should feel" thinkpiece, it's simply my opinion on it.
For some context, I'm a twenty something woman who likes women and doesn't like men, without having always clicked with the term "lesbian". It fits for sure, and I do use it sometimes. But it's never my particular go-to when I speak about my sexuality if I'm being honest. I think that's why I wasn't too bothered by Will not using the exact label of being gay, it's not something I do either. My main criticism of that choice is that it's another sign of the writers being somewhat cowardly with the topics they discuss on the show, but I wouldn't say it was worse than when they did it with Robin, or worse than any of their other stunts of refusing to use definite words when it comes to speaking of marginalisation (see: racism or classism existing as background details, but rarely if ever being discussed textually). I think "I like boys" should have present though, that's one criticism I do very much have of the scene considering their choice to bring back "I don't like girls".
That aside, I really, really liked that what Will feared wasn't a simple "everyone will hate him for being gay". It wouldn't necessarily have been unwarranted for him, considering the context he lives in, but I love what it says about his dynamic with the people he loves. Will has had to deal with hateful behaviour before (his father, his bullies etc.), so it wouldn't be out of place. But there's something almost... sweet about it not being his primary concern. Will trusts the people he loves and he knows them enough to realise that this kind of outwardly hateful behaviour would be out of character for them. After all, they've protected him and stood by his side for years against people who were hateful, why would they suddenly act the same way those people did?
Instead, Will is afraid of the distance that could be created if he told them the truth. The slow creeping kind of distance caused by lacking understanding and by overwhelming worry, not a "bandaid being ripped off" kind of distance the way hatred for his identity would cause. The kind of fear that is talked about a lot less, but that feels more relatable to me personally. Obviously, I'm informed by my own experiences, where I didn't grow up in a hateful environement when it came to queerness. The most I saw as a child was discomfort, so that was what I was scared of when I fully realised what was so different about me. People would feel uncomfortable with who I was, thus creating distance between them and me, maybe even enough distance that I would lose them altogether. That's the feeling Will's coming out brought back for me.
Will is scared that they (the frame chosen seems to imply Joyce especially) would worry so much that he would feel like he has to distance himself from them. It's deeply in character for both sides and that's exactly what hits for me. In the context of the 80s (AIDS epidemic, homophobia), how could Joyce not worry, how could she not believe that his life will be too hard if he fully embraces his sexuality? And how could Will not bristle against it, when that's been established to be an issue in their dynamic since S2? It feels real despite that feeling not being talked about as often in media. Having people who worry about you is not a bad thing, but sometimes it feels stifling, like they think you can't handle anything at all, which doesn't feel good. So you stop talking to them about the thing that makes them worry, but then how can you never mention your sexuality without needing to distance yourself, without needing to avoid and brush off conversations that would veer too close to it, to the point where you have little left to talk about? To the point where you feel like you can never tell them anything without them worrying? So you push them away, and little by little they drift away until you completely lose them. It's a devastatingly realistic slippery slope.
It reminded me of this experience I had as a teen, where I first mentioned relatively off-handedly to my mom that I didn't think I would ever have children and that I wasn't sure I would ever be in a relationship (without her knowing that it was because I just couldn't imagine myself with a boy). She was almost sad at the idea and started asking if it was because of something she did when I was young, if it was because of her relationship with my dad, worrying that I would end up sad if I were to be alone forever; that reaction stuck with me for a long time, and I even now kind of avoid breaching the romance topic with her because of it. I could vividly imagine that same type of reaction from Joyce, that worry about how hard it would be for Will to be gay and out, where she means well but her worry simply makes Will too uncomfortable to talk to her about it much afterwards. It gutted me to imagine because of how close it hit to home.
The other idea he mentions, that of your loved ones slowly but surely pulling away because you can no longer relate to each other is also one I've personally been scared of before, especially when it comes to friendships. That's actually a massively important part of why I clicked with Will so much, especially in season 3.
There's something insidious about how slowly you can begin to feel isolated when you start growing up and love and sexuality become an important topic even in friendships. Suddenly, the fact that you don't have the crushes your friends have always had feels realer, more important. It feels isolating, because they'll start talking about who's dating who, who they want to date, worse they'll start dating people too! So you're left on the sidelines wondering why that didn't happen to you, why the people that you used to share everything with feel like they're not like you anymore. They'll start talking about their celebrity crushes, but you won't be able to relate because guys are meant to like Phoebe Cates and girls should like Ralph Macchio (celebrity crushes are a detail present in the background that I really like about season 3 because it was a very isolating experience as a child when my friends would ask me which actors I liked and I couldn't answer). You want to go back to when friendships were about the things you had in common, but now that you've grown up, there's this huge topic where you can't help but feel how different you are whenever it comes up.
That was a big part of why I truly felt for Will in S3, that feeling that everyone is slipping away from you because they start moving towards things you'll never understand the way they do, things you may even think you'll never get to enjoy at all (see: "I'm not gonna fall in love"). That's why I did actually like that Will starts by reminding himself and his friends of everything they do share, everything he cherishes about his friends, everything he doesn't want to lose. Because that's ultimately what Will is scared of: losing his friends because of this one topic where he knows he can't relate to them. This idea that "not liking girls" could be enough that everything else you do like and have in common isn't enough for them to stay is what Will is so terrified of, and that's a feeling I can relate to deeply.
After all, once your friends start figuring out you're not interested in the "dating" topic the way they are, they might start to exclude you from those conversations, not even in an intentionally mean way, but because they know you can't relate and they don't want to make you uncomfortable. But the "safe" vs "not safe" conversations to have with you are not always easy to determine, so they may just talk to you less and less in general, until they pulled away so much you may as well have lost them altogether. That's the feeling Will's coming out brought back for me and it was very cathartic to see it adressed, at least for me. Being hated isn't the only reason someone may pull away from you, even if media doesn't always talk about it. Sometimes, that isolation can come from a good place, and perhaps that's what makes it even more frightening to me and why seeing people assure Will that they won't let it happen was heartwarming.
So yeah, I did really like his coming out scene, at least on his side of it. I do think the reactions are lackluster, which is not helped by the size of the group, but I can't exactly say I hated or even disliked the scene in itself when most of it did hit for me. I do think not actually showing the visions was a big mistake on the writers' part, because I can remember that it took me until the second half of the scene to really get into the scene the first time I watched it, since it's a bit hard to get into his headspace without that context. The first half did work much better for me the second time around, so I think the scene would have worked a lot better if the viewer had been clued in on Will's fears earlier on.
This is a bit of a word vomit, but in case anyone made it this far, I hope this gave you some perspective on this scene! I can totally get why it might not have worked for other people, but I felt it was worth putting thoughts on paper, even if just to get it out of my head.
