A mistake?

Yesterday, when I was on duty at the ER, the weirdest thing happened. I came out to one of the residents in my hospital. The circumstances were forcing enough, in my opinion at least, to do such a thing which might taint my image in the hospital.

In the last three weeks, there have been a lot of conversations between residents and Medical Officers in my hospital about how bad my residency could be at the metropolitan city which starts next year. It seems that, apart from break-back work, a junior resident was subjected to physical trauma (beating up, punching) and sodomy. The last bit doesn't really sound that frightening to me. In fact, I am sort of looking forward to it. At least, from a person who is gentle and affectionate. Because of this, I made myself appear to not be disturbed at the prospects of such 'ragging' system.

Besides, I had overheard one of the residents (Res. R), who by the way is very charming, entertaining and educated, talk to his gay friend over the phone. I could easily make out that he was sort of open about homosexuality.

Coming back to yesterday; there was this conversation about ‘falling in love’ and living together before marrying. One of the residents expressed his views in which he objected the idea of falling in love and living together. Res. R, who is very forward in his thoughts, said that he believed in falling in love, living and sleeping with your lover, not marrying and maybe even adopting a child.

Since, I agreed to almost all of this, I said I also thought like him. Obviously, I was very happy to hear such views and I made it visible in my face. Picking my emotions up, Res. R directly suggested that finally he found a guy who he could live with andhave sex. Again, I said I had no objections.

A medical officer and another couple of residents were listening to this. Then, Res. R said that he knew a member of a gay organization based in my city and said he would get me in touch with him. He asked me if I was interested. I was perplexed. I couldn’t just say yes and commit to everyone that I was gay. I tried to ignore this question, but Res. R kept on repeating.

Thankfully, another patient came to the ER at that point, and I scurried off to examine this patient. I knew that at the next possible opportunity, Res. R would be back with the same suggestion. So I decided to privately come out to him on the next opportunity when we had a little privacy. I thought that was the best option. For one thing, it wouldn’t be very ‘public’ because I thought Res. R was sort of cultured enough not to spread the news around. Secondly, I thought that he was one person in my hospital who deserved to know that I’m gay. Don’t judge my judgement here. I was sort of helpless.

The opportunity came very quickly. I just went near him and said that I’m gay. I asked him to not tell this to anyone because I thought that would create problems in the hospital. He said okay. He also said that he would get me the number of his gay friend.

Then I asked him if he was gay. He said no. I asked him if he was bi. He said ‘Maybe.’

I was relieved and happy initially. It was my first professional coming out experience. I thought I did it well

Ray was surprised and glad that I came out without problems. But Chuck thinks that I shouldn’t have admitted this fact.

Now I’m in a dilema. Did I overdo it? Should I have just kept quiet?