“You would be too,” her expression was suddenly solemn, “if you hadn’t outed yourself so spectacularly.” I’d heard that before, and it was probably true.
“Oh that’s nothing,” I didn’t like solemn conversations at parties, and launched into a comic account of my recent romantic travails. That kept us giggling until the party broke up, when I suggested we continue chatting back at my flat.
Like many of my friends I came close to developing a drink problem in my twenties, for my part it was mainly a way of dealing with my ‘secret life’. The urge disappeared when I stepped from the closet, and I seldom drank alcohol other than occasionally at parties. Nevertheless I was able to rustle up a bottle of wine at home, which Susan and I began to demolish. In very short order my life story began to spill into the conversation.