Pride month: On coming out ... and coming out ... and coming out ...

Coming out is hard. So take a lesson from someone who has done it (almost) more times than he can count.

The first time I came out was in my freshman year of high school: Just like most other little gay teens, I was “bisexual” – “experimenting.”

That first confession met with mixed reactions from my fellow students. Some accepted it, others mumbled something about my being too gay to be bisexual. In hindsight, I guess they were right, but some lacked the sense to differentiate between the two and called me the homophobic F-word anyway.

This worked out OK until senior year, when those “experiments” by my fellow students reached fever pitch. I was left in the dust as the only virgin in my friend group – or should I say, the only openly virgin in my friend group? – so I came out again, this time honestly, as gay.

Now I faced a whole new challenge, with other kids asking how I knew I was gay if I was a virgin. But that summer, I came out to them once again with confirmation.

Trial and error

On to the hardest parts. The fourth time I came out was to my mom, who is from a small, conservative town in China. I eased into it by telling her, “Wow, so many kids at my school like boys and girls now,” which I know sounds lame. Her response was middle of the road – a little thrown off but not disgusted. I could tell, though, that the topic shocked her. So I decided once again to come out as bisexual.

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I know, I know, I was taking steps backward, but I had my reasons. To be honest, I still wanted her to pay for school. (Does that mean I’m coming out as selfish?) But I was also only 17. I feared I’d be stuck in my boring hometown while my friends went joyfully off to the next chapter of their lives.

Once I started college, I told myself that this is my chance to completely be myself. I devised a plan to not have to come out at all, at least verbally.

It was foolproof: I would go on Tinder in front of my new friends with my phone on full brightness.

Genius, right? Not really. I heard them talking while I was in the bathroom, debating whether I was gay and whether someone should just go ahead and ask.

So I faced a familiar decision. Do I come out as gay, or play the bisexual card yet again? My heart said, "Be who you are!" My brain said, "What if they don't like who you are?" When I opened the bathroom door, my friends looked at me, surprised.

My heart took over as I said, “Bro, I'm gay.”

It was so easy; wish I’d thought of it sooner.

Except now I was in my junior year and I was still bisexual at home, still scared that Mom would cut off my tuition. While home for that summer I found out she was going around telling everyone I was in love with my best friend, a woman; not only that, but apparently my best friend and I were getting married. I knew I had to do something.

“Mom,” I said, “stop telling people I’m in love with Anne. I will never marry a girl.” It took her a while, but thanks to the intervention of my self-proclaimed liberal stepdad, she came around to the idea of having a gay son. That was the sixth time.

I just had one last person to come out to – and no, it’s not my biological dad. (That’s a story for another day.)

My seventh time coming out was probably the hardest and scariest experience of my life – even more so than coming out to my mom, who I’d figured would have to love me again eventually.

I had to tell the nanny who raised me, who was like a second mom to me. She was also from a very conservative family in Beijing, which isn’t holding pride parades anytime soon. I tried so many times but always chickened out. At one point I even stopped talking to her for three solid months. I just couldn’t go through one more phone conversation about how things were going with my girlfriend.

Eighth time's the charm

The months went on and I pushed it to the back of my mind, until one day my sister saw my phone ringing – and guess who it was. I took a deep breath and texted her a quick paragraph explaining that her baby boy likes boys.

She called me again right away. I ignored it. I was not yet ready to explain more fully.

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Another couple of weeks went by. I continued to ignore her calls. Then one day the guilt became too great and I video-called her. She looked me dead in the eye and asked why I hadn’t been picking up her calls. I made some excuses about school and exams but she wasn’t buying it. I finally blurted out, “I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me anymore." Her eyes opened wide, and she told me what I wanted to hear – that as long as I was happy and doing well in school, nothing else mattered. I could finally breathe. It was over. Everybody knew.

Not quite. My most recent time coming out was a few months ago, when my new co-worker asked me what type of girls I liked. To which I replied, “I like boys.”

At 22 I’ve now come out eight times ... but who's counting?

Louis Z. Anderson is an aspiring writer and an outreach coordinator for the Asian Community Development Council. He is a recent graduate from the University of Las Vegas - Nevada.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pride month: I have had to come out eight times. It gets easier.