What if I'm straight, and my roommate is gay or lesbian?
Well, the beautiful thing about college life is you end up living with people who you don't always expect to live with. You might be surprised to find out that you're living with a heterosexual roommate. That might be shocking to you, because you might be expecting to live with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual roommate. Or, you might be someone who's heterosexual, and find out you're living with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual roommate. Now, a lot of people react by running, hiding, or attacking. That's what we do when we're uncomfortable. That becomes our knee-jerk reaction; to run and hide, or run and attack. This happens especially with college as so many new things are happening. Sometimes students do that when someone is different than what they're used to. My suggestion is this: if your roommate is comfortable with his or her sexuality, if you know they're gay or lesbian, and it's pretty obvious, then you can actually approach that person, and be like, "Hey, do you mind if I ask you some questions?" I've spoken to diversity groups, and hundreds of orientations, and people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual come up to me and say, "Thank you. We don't mind answering these questions.". Say, "You know, I've never lived with someone who's gay before, and can I ask you a few things?" Say what it is that's on your mind, and try to do it in a gentle way, and you will then have a discussion about these topics. But you need to set that precedent, "If something makes me uncomfortable, I'll hold back and let you know, and you can do the same for me". So then you can have this open dialogue. You might be shocked, you might discover that you learn things about yourself, and learn things about someone else. Chances are, throughout your lifetime, you'll encounter people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual and it's pretty much everywhere, so you might as well learn to get comfortable with it. But if you're someone who reacts like "I just can't deal with that," well, instead of making that person's life hell, for who they are, quietly just move away, and let that person have their space. And the last thing I'll say, if you're someone who wants to get comfortable, there are gay, lesbian, and bisexual resources on virtually every campus. If your campus doesn't have it, there's one on another campus, or online, and ask the questions that you want to ask your roommate first, to get a sense of the best way to approach the situation.
