Gav, whom I don’t have the pleasure to know wrote his coming out of the closet! And I’m not gonna be any less! :P Lets put ourselves in situation... Naples, Italy spring 2006. I’ll never forget that moment! Italy is known for being an openly homophobic country, it isnt the ideal place for a 14 year-old boy to get out of the closet, but I attended the International School of Naples, a converging point of cultures and different personalities, frequented by people from all around the world, representing more than 20 nationalities! It was all american-based. Because of my father being a diplomat he had to do with the NATO base in Naples, where the school was. I grew up in a SUPERprotective enviroment, in a military base surrounded by the children of the military people where we had almost absolute freedom (inside the base) because it was a safe enviroment separated from the atmosphere of delinquency that could be felt outside the 1meter-wide wall that separated us from the city. Well... that separated THEM, I didn’t live inside the NATO base. I lived in a villa in Pozzuoli, a town practically part of Naples in a luxury neighborhood.
In Naples (that toghether with the rest of southern Italy is a completely different thing compared to the north! It has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it!) things work in a different way. The people are HYPERnice all of them SUPERadorable, from the beggining you love them, even if sometimes they kinda invade your privacy! They go to your house without calling or sI’mply they do stuff to which I wasnt used to in Madrid... The funny thing is they expect yoy to treat them exactly the same way! You can practically spend your life in their house that they wont care! They share ABSOLUTELY everything and once they consider you their friend you sre their friend FOREVER. I didn’t enjoy the city as much as I could have... I lived in the town I mentioned before, in a very rural enviroment, in a neighborhood in the country side. Its not than Naples has an absolute lack of public transport, its that there is so little of it, so we had to go everywhere by car! I think my mom felt a little like a chauffeur! xD
Living in Naples made me have a funny dependence-freedom feeling! I could go out in the neighborhood with my friends until any time I wanted... it was all fenced but if I wanted to go out I was always depending on my mom or dad to take me with the car!
My way through the International School of Naples (ISN) really made a difference in me. I arrived from Madrid with ZERO confidence in myself and with a really low moral... I didn’t have many friends and was some kind of bookworm... In Naples I saw that everyone was somehow new (the military stayed in Naples 2-3 years tops so every year many new kids came and the old ones went away) so groups weren’t formed and we were all friends. I only realised going away that because I was one of the people that stayed longer I had a special influence on the school hierarchy. Because of the presence of americans things worked just like in movies! The groups weren’t as well-defined as in Mean Girls xD but thete was a clear distinction between the populars and the freaks.
On my first year (6th grade) I started changing, from being a SUPERintrovet person to gaining a lot more confidence un myself. On that same year I had a big problem, the adversion that the spanish people felt towards me! From the first year until the end of the second! I never truly knew why! Actually... it didn’t affect me much. I focused on making friends from all around the World and I think thats exactly why my english is so perfect xDD I only spoke to everyone in english for 4 years... try it and you’ll see the results!
On my second year I started understanding how things worked out and decided that NO ONE EVER AGAIN was gonna step on me or make me feel I was any less! I worked on my social anxiety and got over it. Before you is the standing result of that transformation, only that at that tI’me I was WAY bitchier and WAY meaner xD At the beggining of the school year a portuguese girl called Inês came to school. She wasnt very pretty and had no personality at all, we bonded and with my personality I led her, I transformed her, you could say some tI’mes I even treated her pretty bad! We became the couple everybody hated but for some strange reason they wanted to be around us... what todas we call being really COOL! xD We focused our efforts on making a couple of peoples lifes miserable on that year and the following. :P
Inês’ change happened so fast, all of the sudden when the year ended I found myself with a fashionable girl with lots of personality and my exact same taste xD I had created a mini-me! Now when we talk about it we crack our asses! xD (this summer I’m going to her house in lisboon! :D:D) I hadn’t treated her really good... When we got mad I used to put people against her just to make her come to me and say sorry (no matter who was right) At the beggining of my third year I was on vacations in Africa so I arrived 10 days late to school and Inês took advantage of that and made friends with 2 new girls Anna and Bianca. To take revenge she excluded me from the group!
I desperately wanted Inês to be my friend again… that year my EGO cooled off and I stopped thinking of myself as the best… I started getting to know other people and had friends practically all over the school… what a difference! That year and in a successful attempt to hurt Inês who was supposedly still my BFF I told Bianca I was gay... The reaction couldnt had been better! She started saying that it was every girls dream to have a gay friend and so on... (I’ve been told that so many times! They also say ‘gay... what a waste of man!’ a lot xD) and that was my first coming out! Slowly I started telling more and more people... not long after everybody knew! EVEN TEACHERS! xD Only in very specific occasions have I had a problem with being gay... 3 of 4 of the times happened in Spain! xDD We think we’re relly liberal but....
-----------------------------------------------------------
Gav, quien no tengo el placer de conocer, escribio su salida del armario! Y aqui Jimbito no iba a ser menos! :P Situemonos, Napoles, Italia, en primavera del 2006. Jamas se me olvidara ese momento! Italia se conoce por ser un pais abiertamente homofobo, no es el sitio ideal para un chico de 14 años donde salir del armario pero yo iba al International School of Naples, un punto de encuentro de culturas y personalidades diferentes, frecuantado por gente de mas de 20 nacionalidades diferentes y con un sistema educativo 100% americano. Mi padre al ser diplomatico, trataba directamente con la base de la NATO (OTAN) donde estaba situado el colegio. Creci en un entorno hiperprotegido, en una base militar rodeado de hijos de militares donde teniamos una libertad casi absoluta (dentro del recinto de la base) por que era un ambiente seguro apartado de la atmosfera de delincuencia que se respiraba al metro de muro de contencion que era lo que nos separaba de la cuidad. Bueno mas bien... les separaba, yo no vivia en la base OTAN. Yo vivia en una finca en Pozzuoli, un pueblo practicamente pegado a napoles en una urbanizacion de lujo.
En Napoles (que junto a el resto del sur de Italia es un mundo 100% diferente al norte! NADA que ver!) las cosas funcionan otra manera. La gente es HYPERbondadosa, son todos SUPERadorables, desde el primer momento les cojes cariño, aunque a veces pecan de exceso de confianza, te los puedes encontrar entrando en tu casa sin llamar ni nada o haciendo cosas que yo, en Madrid no estaba acostumbrado! Pero ellos se esperan el mismo trato por su parte! Te puedes pasar la vida en sus casas que ellos estan encantados! Lo comparten ABSOLUTAMENTE TODO y una vez os volveis amigos... amigos para SIEMPRE. Yo no vivi la ciudad napolitana tanto como hubiera podido, vivia en el pueblo que he nombrado antes, en un entorno bastante rural, en una urbanizacion en medio del campo. Napoles no es que carezca de transporte publico, simplemente es bastante precario asi que a TODAS partes habia que ir en coche! Yo creo que a mi madre le entro complejo de chofer xD
Entre que te dejaban salir por la urbanizacion hasta la hora que quisieras por que era muy segura y estaba vallada y entre que para ir a cualquier parte tenias que depender de alguien que te llevara en coche tenias un sentimiento de libertad y dependencia bastante curioso.
Mi paso por el International School of Naples (ISN) me marco para siempre. Llegue de madrid con confianza CERO y con la moral por los suelos... no tenia muchos amigos y era asi como empollon... y en Napoles me vi con que como el cole era pequeñito y quien mas quien menos todos eramos nuevos (los militares se quedan en sus destinos no mas de 2-3 años entonces cada año se iban muchisimos niños y llegaban otros tantos) asi que no habia grupos formados y todos eramos amigos de todos. Hasta el momento que me fui no me di cuenta de que al ser una de las personas que mas tiempo se quedaron (4años) tenia un control especial sobre la jerarquia escolar. Debido a la gran presencia de americanos en el colegio las cosas funcionaban como en las pelis! No habia grupos tan marcados como en 'Mean Girls' xD pero si que habia una clara distincion entre los mas populares y los mas marginados.
El primer año (6º de primaria) empece a cambiar, de ser un chico SUPERintrovertido a ganar mucha mas confianza en mi mismo, solo que tuve un gran problema, el rechazo de los españoles! Desde el primer año hasta el fin del 2º! Nunca supe por que! Aunque no me afectaba mucho... me concentre en hacer amigos de todas partes, y creo que es justo por eso por lo que mi ingles es tan perfecto xDD Solo hablaba en ingles con todo el mundo durante 4 años... inetntadlo y vereis! xD
El segundo año empece a entender como iban las cosas y decidi que nadie NUNCA JAMAS me iba a pisar! Me puse las pilas y supere mis miedos sociales. Me converti mas o menos en lo que vosotros conoceis ahora solo que mucho mas BITCHY y mucho mas MEAN! A principio de curso llego una portuguesa no muy guapa y con poca personalidad, nos hicimos intimos y con mi personalidad, la dirigia, la transformaba, casi podiamos decir que la maltrataba un poco! Nos convertimos en las tipicas personas que a todo el mundo le caen mal pero por alguna razon desconocida todo el mundo quiere llevarse con ellos... lo que hoy en dia llamamos MUY COOL! xD Enfocamos todos nuestros esfuerzos en hacerle la vida imposible a un par de personas ese curso y el siguiente.
El cambio de Inês fue apabullante, derrepente a finales de año me encontre con una chica que vestia MUY bien, con muchisima personalidad y con mis mismos y exactos gustos xD Habia 'creado' a una mini yo! Hoy en dia nos reimos de ello! (este verano me voy a su casa en lisboaa :D:D) No la habia tratado especialmente bien... Cuando nos enfadabamos ponia a la gente en su contra para que viniera a pedirme perdon (tuviera o no tuviera la razon) Y el 3º año... yo estaba de vacaciones en Africa... llegue 10 dias tarde al colegio e Inês habia aprovechado para hacerse amiguisima de 2 chicas nuevas Anna y Bianca, y como no! Aprovecho para borrarme del mapa!
Yo queria desesperadamente que Inês volviera a ser mi amiga... ese año se me bajaron los humos y deje de creerme el amo del mundo... empece a conocer a mas gente y tenia amigos practicamente en todo el colegio... que diferencia! Ese año en un intento por hacerle daño a Inês con quien se suponia que seguiamos siendo BFFS! Le conte a Bianca antes que a ella que yo era gay... La reaccion no pudo ser mejor! Me empezo a decir que era el sueño de toda chica tener un amigo gay y tal y cual... xD (esto me lo han repetido muchomucho! tambien me dicen eso de... pues que desperdicio! xDD) y esa fue mi slaida de armario! Poco a poco se lo fui contando a cada vez mas gente hasta que por inercia se fue extendiendo el rumor... y antes del verano ya lo sabian hasta los profes xDD Solo en muy contadas ocasiones he tenido problemas con lo de ser gay... y 3/4 veces fue en España! xDD Es que vamos de muy liberales pero luegoooo...
Jimbito
¡YA SABÉIS ALGO MAS DE MI!
STAY TUNED
LOL
XOXO
