Seeing someone...

Well, I told her.

Thursday afternoon, while we were driving to the grocery store. She seemed to be in a good mood, chatty, so I cut through the fear that was clenching my throat and told her I had, "Exciting news."

"Oh, that's good! We always need good news."

There has been some confusion: I am indeed out to my mother. For those stories, see: Telling Her Pt. 1, Telling Her Pt. 2, She Deals With It, I Cry, We Fight About It.

I sucked in air, and proceeded. "I'm seeing someone. His name is Danny."

"Oh..." she said, and the pressure of the air surrounding us increased. "So...it's a guy?"

"Uh, yeah."

I proceeded to tell her about him, where he studies, works, what he does in his spare time, all the while trying to keep it as 'normal' as possible. All the things she would want to know if this was a 'girlfriend'.

Silence filled the car. "Well, where did you meet him?"

"Online," I said, completely and finally.

"Oh, well, everyone I talk to says people you meet online are creeps, and it's always a disaster..."

"Sorry, but I really don't think that's the case," I said, defensively.

More silence. "So tell me about him..." she managed. I retold what I had said, adding that he was very sweet and good natured.

"What does 'seeing someone' mean," she then asked, suspiciously. I shook my head in disbelief.

"Well, we've spent some time together, we've gone out on dates...I guess you could say it's the early part of a relationship, if things continue the way they have," I attempted to explain. She paused again, and I knew she wanted to ask the sex question. But to my great surprise, she didn't.

That was pretty much the conversation.

I was pretty upset at first about how much of a shock it seemed to be, and how unenthusiastic she was. The biggest thing that bothers me is, if this were a girl, she would be happy beyond words for me to have found someone. But she could barely ask what he was like, and all she wanted to know was about this notorious 'seeing someone' label.

It hurts. After all these months of her knowing, and me thinking she would have grown to accept things a little more by now, she showed little improvement.

Now I'm scared about how to proceed. I've been told to bring him up in normal conversation, when I'm asked what's new or what I've been doing. Keep up the mentioning, and it'll become just another normal part of life.

What scares me is what I discovered last night, while driving a friend home after a mini-reunion. I don't want to lead two lives. I don't want to have my life in Toronto, with boys and my friends and school, then a separate life at home where it's something that we just don't discuss. It frightens me to think after I come out to my Dad that we just won't talk about it; like some proper British household we'll just sweep it under the carpet and pretend nothing has happened. The whole point of coming out is so I don't have to hide myself from my parents, not to lead two separate lives.

So now what do I do? Since I never really had girlfriends before, I don't know what constitutes 'normal' amounts of conversation about your relationship. It's not like I brought a lot of girls around home, or was always receiving calls from people. And obviously that's not happening right now. But still, how do I proceed?

The other thing that shocked me was her complete lack of dating knowledge. I mean, did she marry my father before they went on their first date? I thought the progression was always the same, no matter what decade: Meet, first date, second date, on and on until either turning into a relationship or simply ending because of lost interest.

Obviously there's many more stops in that road...and many detours. But I wasn't going to say, "Oh, this could just be a physical thing..." or she would have needed to go to the hospital.

And this wall all a conversation with my mother. God knows how it's going to go when I come out to Dad (though it won't be this weekend!).