How can I tell my new college roommate I'm gay?
If you're gay, lesbian or bisexual and this is something you want to share, you really have to gauge how comfortable you think your roommate is with this, because there are a lot of different kinds of roommates. There are some roommates who're really open to people who are different than who they are, and then you have some who are totally shocked with this college experience. These people are just so afraid what everybody thinks, and they're just so uncomfortable that they don't have their space and those are people who you might need to wait a little bit of time to share this information with, because they need your reaction when someone makes us uncomfortable. This happens not only in college, but in our entire life, both personally and professionally. We tend to retreat or we tend to attack when something makes us uncomfortable, and in that situation somebody might attack or they might hide. So I say you have to gauge how comfortable that person is. The other thing you need to do is surround yourself with people who understand what you're going through. There are gay, lesbian and bisexual support groups on virtually every college campus. If your campus doesn't have one, then there's always going to be one on the neighboring campus. There are also amazing websites, outproud.org is one that I know which is a great resource but there are many more out there. So surround yourself with people that are similar and then figure out the best way to approach the situation so that if you end up in an uncomfortable place with your roommate, you then have this great team--this great support system around you to help you deal with what can be an uncomfortable situation.
