To the editor:

In celebration of Coming Out Day, I would like to share a couple of stories.

1. As a teenager in the early 1970s, the first time I fell in love, I fell for a woman. My reaction was just that Cupid had misfired. This woman was not interested in a romantic relationship with me, so I was ultimately disappointed, but I did learn what it felt like to be in love and finally understood why there are so many songs and movies about it. People say “I fell in love” because it seems to happen to us. It isn’t usually a conscious choice. We can only choose whether or not to act on the feelings that well up in us.

2. Only once in my life has a straight person made it really easy to come out. Three years ago, after chatting with a new acquaintance about her husband and children, she asked me if I were married. “No,” I said. “Divorced?” she asked. “No,” I replied. Without skipping a beat, she asked, “Got a girlfriend?” “Not at the moment,” I laughed. What a relief it was to share that piece of my identity after she had implied acceptance of that possibility. Like her, please don’t assume that every new acquaintance is straight.

Maggie Childs,

Lawrence