Reddit Helps Single Dad of Gay Son

tim cook

A single dad, user HeMeYou, took to Reddit last week searching for some advice about his 13 year old gay son.

The man claimed that he had asked to borrow his son’s iPad and, in turn, accidentally stumbled across Google search terms wherein his son attempted to find a way to reveal his sexuality to his father.

HeMeYou left the following message on the popular forum:

I’m 38, and a single dad to my 13 year old son, 14 in four months. The other day I asked my son if I could borrow his iPad and he gave it to me. After my first attempt at Google searching something I noticed that he forgot to delete his history as a lot of the search terms were along the lines of “I’m gay what now?” etc…

I love him regardless of which gender he loves, in fact when I was slightly older than him I had a few flings with guys, which he doesn’t know about, so I am 100% supportive. He has seemed slightly down recently, as in, he isn’t as cheerful as he once was, and I desperately want to tell him that I love him regardless of which sexuality he is.

What are my options? Should I wait for him to tell me? Or should I make a few hints at it?

I’m worried that if I don’t hint at it, that he will be worried about something that he really doesn’t have to be worried about… if that makes sense.

Thanks.

Upon publishing his open letter, the man was flooded with positive responses and advice, lauding him for his open-mindedness and devotion to his gay son. These, he told Buzzfeed, brightened his day.

A few days after the initial post, HeMeYou returned and posted an update to his story. He spoke of how he approached the subject of LGBT celebrities, such as Tim Cook, Apple CEO. He then went on to ask his son about potential crushes and/or love interests, making sure to leave specific gendered pronouns out of his speech. his son was responsive, if shy, before speaking to his father at dinner that evening.

At the dinner table the same day, while we were eating we had a couple minutes of silence, not much was heard apart from the cutlery and my son finally said “I actually wanted to tell you something in the car, but I was afraid you’d get in an accident..” I looked up from my plate and looked at him straight in the eyes… I could see he was thinking about something and all I could think of was “OMG this is it…” he said “Dad..” with a couple seconds of silence “..I’m gay”. I looked at him and couldn’t help myself from smiling, and I told him “____, you know I love you so much… right?” and I got up and gave him a huge hug. He even started to cry on my shoulder and because of that I couldn’t help myself but shed a couple tears. We talked for a bit while finishing our dinner about how I can’t emphasize enough that I love him regardless of which gender he loves etc…

After dinner and after he finished his homework we both lay in our pajamas on the sofa, while I was watching the Cooking Channel and he was playing on his iPad. I had my arm around him and he was leaning his head on my chest, and all I could think of was that I’m the happiest father on earth right now.

The people of Reddit wanted to show their appreciation to the anonymous dad so he asked for them to donate to The Trevor Project, a charity that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention to LGBT teens.

This guy could possibly not be any more awesome, and how you would hope a family member would react to their son’s sexuality.

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