When do I come out to my roommate?

Q:  I'm about to start my freshman year in college and I'm trying to decide if I want to tell my roommate I'm gay before I go.  I'm only recently out to a few people around home and that was weird and awkward.  Based on our texts he seems like a pretty chill person and I think he will be fine with it but I'm afraid that if I tell him this one aspect of my personality will end up defining how everyone thinks of me.  I will be his "gay roommate" instead of just his roommate who likes dubstep or who hates birds.  I'm still kind of figuring out who I am and I don't want to be pushed to just go be friends with the queer kids because I happen to be attracted to guys.  I have always, ironically, been kind of sketched out by the openly gay kids I have met and I just don't want him to think that is who I am before he can get to know me for me.  On the other hand if I don't tell him now, when...?  

A:  Do it now.  Coming out is an extremely daunting prospect at any time.  Leaving home for college and creating a new identity is, while in a very different way, also overwhelming.  I wish I could advise you to take your time and do things at your own pace.  In many ways who you are attracted to is no one's business but yours so why should getting a new roommate put a time table on disclosure?  Unfortunately our society is very hetero-sexist.  Even non-prejudiced people, including many queer people like yourself, approach the world as if everyone they meet is straight, that is just their default setting.

If you do not tell your roommate that you are not straight he is going to assume that you are.  Very quickly this is going to put you in a position where you have to come out,  lie to him, or be the most vague person he has ever encountered and he will either think you are hiding something (which you will be) or that you have been kicked in the head by a horse.

Since young men tend to bond over talking about girls and the sex acts they would like to engage in with them, and since terms of affection among men tend to be slurs for homosexuals I would wager a year's salary that you would not go 24 hours without having to react to one of these two situations.

So lets say you pretend to be straight, you have a great deal of experience with that.  People will get to know you as the dubstep loving, bird hating wonderful guy that you are.  But a huge part of you will remain hidden from view.  Even if by Halloween you are ready to come out and even if your roommate is the most understanding and logical guy in the world, he will still feel like you were lying to him.

We also have to recognize that he might not be the most understanding guy in the world.  Many young heterosexual men have a paranoia about gay men, that they are just waiting for them to unzip at a urinal before they can strike and sink their gay fangs into them or some other horrible thing that while they cannot quite visualize they sense it is terrifying.  Very often that fear can lead to violence.  Or even if it is just ostracizing or a change in the relationship from warm to cool, that can be an experience that is toxic to you every day.

I remember talking with a gay man who stayed in the closet all through college.  He talked about the anger of one of his friends when he finally came out.  His friend said that it felt like he had just taken a mask off and said he was an alien.  The two had often gone out to clubs chasing girls together and many of their shared experiences involved double dates.  The friend did not care that he was gay, he cared that he had been lied to for years and now he realized he really didn't know who one of his best friends was.  

By telling your roommate now if he really is uncomfortable with it he has time to find a new roommate.  If he is mildly uncomfortable with it at least he knows what he is getting in to and you will not have to hide who you are.  It is ok to tell him that you are figuring out who you are and you do not want it to be a big deal but you also don't want him to be shocked later.  You can use humor to defuse any potential tension and help him to realize that just like not every girl is his type there is a pretty good chance that even if he were gay (and lets not be so heterosexist to totally assume that he isn't) it doesn't mean you would be interested.

You are right, this is only one aspect of who you are, but your feelings about music, pizza, the state of the middle east, and the people you are attracted to are not things you should have to hide.  They are nothing to be ashamed of.  If you don't treat your sexual orientation that way then he probably won't either and the friends you make at school are going to get more time to know the real you.