He wasn’t a bully, but I knew this dude in 7th grade who was a homophobe and would make snarky remarks about gay people and frequently use the f-slur to describe people/things he didn’t like. Other than that, he was a pretty cool guy, but I wasn’t trying to hate-crimed in my homophobic school, so I definitely wasn’t going to tell him about my sexuality. Me and him were in the gifted program together so we were bound to become friends at least.

A year passes and I’m no longer at that school, and I lose contact with him.

I get into contact with this girl from the gifted program that I was really close with before I had to move schools/states. I DMed her on Instagram and we had a lovely conversation and I brought up the question, “Hey, do you know what happened to the other people in the gifted program/GT?”

She began listing off all the people and how they’re doing since I hadn’t seen them in over a year.

“What about Liam (fake name of the homophobic dude)?”

“Liam? Oh, he has a boyfriend now!”

“HE WHA-”

I couldn’t believe it, this dude who made homophobic jokes about gay people was actually gay? I mean, was anyone really surprised? The outwardly homophobic people have always been a bit sus to me. I mean, why do they care so much about what other guys are doing with each other in their free time? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)