Polishing Up A Clusterfuck Confession

20260626

Prompt from “pridemonthprompts” 2025 list.

It was twelve minutes and eighteen seconds into Marco’s meandering series of increasingly tortured metaphors when Curt quizzically interjected “Are you saying you’re gay?”
“I’m not hitting on you!” Marco wailed, waving his hands.
“Wow. You don’t need to sound horrified by the idea.”
“No, no, that’s not…!” Marco desperately fumbled for words. “I just don’t want to, to be creepy!”
“Fair enough?” Curt rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you gay, then?”
“…S-sort of?” Marco mumbled, unable to meet his friend’s gaze.
“Er, how does being ‘sort of’ gay work? Like, only gay for certain guys?” Curt rolled his eyes at Marco’s expression. “Oh, for - I’m not saying that to imply you’re hitting on me. Genuinely confused over here.”
“Right, right, sorry, um… I’m actually sort of bi?”
“‘Sort of’?”
“W-well I find ‘pan’ is a better fit for me but most people don’t know the difference so that’s basically bi, right?”
“Oh, ok.” Curt hooked his hands behind his head and fixed Marco with a measuring look. “Am I the first person you’ve told?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank goodness.”
Marco blinked, taken aback.
“Buddy, that was a clusterfuck of a confession.” Curt said kindly. “Like, what the hell. Pretty sure anybody who hasn’t known you their wholes lives would never have put all that together. I spent most of that thinking you were working up to admitting you’d wrecked one of my vinyls or something. We’re gonna need to come up with a script before you go public.”
He leant over and grabbed his tablet. “Ok, let’s start with a basic outline…”
“Seriously??” Marco huffed and rolled his eyes. “You’re writing a literal script?”
“Hey, feel free to riff off it.” Curt didn’t even glance up from his typing. “Just, y’know, circle back to the script if they start looking hella confused, ok?”
“Oh my god you are such a massive dork!”
“Huh.” Curt mused. “I was assuming that’s why you picked me to tell first. Get some help for the rest of the announcements.”
“That… no, I just… I thought you might have already guessed?”
“Nope. Never really thought about it, to be honest.”
“Oh.”
Marco wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But at least his best friend treating him coming out like, like an interview he needed help prepping for, while exasperating, was way better than the nightmare scenarios Marco had been fretting over the past few days.
“Ah, sweet, there’s existing slideshows and everything for explaining being pansexual! Do any of these, like, match your experience?”
“That - are you seriously suggesting I do a literal presentation??”
“No, but you could share the link with people. Like… an info pack. So they can read it in their own time.”
“That…” Marco huffed and reluctantly admitted “is super dorky but not a bad idea.”
“I guess the main question is, do you want to go straight to telling people you’re pansexual, or go with bisexual? If you’re worried people won’t understand.”
“Mmmm I don’t know?”
Curt scratched his chin. “Well, this stuff seems to be saying that pan is, like, a sub-category of bi? So it’s not like you’d be lying. But if we’ve got an info pack I say go straight for pan. Get the explaining over with in one go. Then we just need to put together a summary, something like ‘it’s like being bi but…’ and whatever reason you prefer it as a label. Get that down pat and just add ‘I can recommend some stuff if you’d like to learn more’.”
“Right.”
This was the dorkiest way of coming out ever. But… reciting a few sentences and handing someone a link did sound way easier than trying to drop hints.
“Ok, so,” Curt muttered, in full ‘coursework mode’, “we want minimal file size for easy sharing… I’m thinking copy-paste sections from the main sources, including a link to the full thing of course, then link one of the slideshows, more than that’ll be overwhelming, maybe link to a few summary images too. Oh, and a video, for people who prefer watching to reading. Sound good?”
“Sounds ridiculous! But sure.”
“Then I need you to come read these and tell me which ones to use, because they’re kinda contradicting each other and I don’t fucking know, do I?”
“Right.” Marco shifted over to sit next to his friend. Feeling suddenly awkward.
This was something they’d done a million times, and Curt wasn’t acting any different, so don’t make it weird, just… act natural!
What exactly did that mean, though? He’d never had to think about it until this moment!!
“Ok, so, this wiki page has a bunch of definitions for pan?” Curt pointed. “I was thinking maybe we quote that paragraph and, like, bold or underline the bits which resonate with you?”
“Uhh sure.” Marco bent over the waiting document and tried to focus on the text.
Eesh. This really was like doing coursework together.
He just hoped their ‘presentation’ would be graded effective, and everyone else would take this as well as Curt had… though ideally a bit less constructively!

Prompt was “Am I the first person you’ve told?”