Did you ever have an imaginary girlfriend when you were closeted?

In college I would tell my parents over the phone that I was dating a girl. I think I called her "Jennifer" or something. Every time they would ask to meet her I would say she was busy. I just got sick of my family bugging me about dating girls. Living a lie is exhausting. (I should have just said her name was Lennay and that she was in a coma and could never meet them!)

• A boyfriend named Philip Glass.

  Jan Brady

• I know a 40-something year old guy I used to work with who had an imaginary WIFE. From the first day I started, I could tell he was gay and didn't believe he had a wife. He had a picture of his "wife" at his desk, who looked like a model and who you know never would've got with this guy in real life (and he wasn't rich either, so it's not like she would've been with him for that). He was always very vague when talking about his "wife" and something about the whole thing just didn't add up. Sure enough, a few years later I found out from multiple people that he was indeed gay and that the "wife" was a cover. Sad he waited so long to come out.

• I had a couple of real girl friends who were, in effect, imaginary.

• I knew a dark Hispanic guy who told everyone his blond Polish-American boyfriend was his "half" brother. Sort of imaginary girlfriend in reverse.

• i had an imaginary bfried; rather, i changed the gender of my gfriend to a he when talking about her....

• I found out that my mom invented one so she could complain about her to my aunt.

• R4 Speaking of that, I forgot another one - at the same place I worked where the guy had an imaginary wife, there was a closeted lesbian who said insisted that her girlfriend was her "roommate". Mind you, this woman was in her late 40's and lived in a 5 bedroom house that she bragged about being paid off in full. So why the need for a "roommate"?

  R2

• GEORGE Glass, R1. Philip Glass is a composer.

  Marcia%20Brady

• No imaginary anyone here, but I did tell my parents that I was too busy to date. I used that excuse through grad school, and then when I started my first college teaching job. I finally came out to them in the late 1980s when I was 28 and about to move in with my first BF. I will admit that I wish it was acceptable to be a gay teen in the 1970s; I would have come out in HS if I felt I could. Needless to say, I now financially support the Gay-Straight Alliance at my old HS.

• R1 ,are you really David Bowie or Brian Eno?

  Anonymous

• When I was in high school and experiencing emotional angst with the male classmate I was secretly hooking up with, I felt the need to unburden myself about the angst but didn't feel that I could reveal my gayness. So I told a couple of female friends about it but changed the pronoun and pretended it was happening with a girl from another school.

• I had an imaginary boyfriend named Terence when I was in high school. No idea why I picked that name. It makes me laugh out loud when I think back on it. I thought I was fooling everyone, though I was pretty butch: short hair, softball, no dresses or make-up EVER, etc.

  lesbian

• Her name was Alberta; she lived in Vancouver.

• Who would ever do such a silly thing? Honestly.

  Jeremy%20Renner

• [quote]I know a 40-something year old guy I used to work with who had an imaginary WIFE. From the first day I started, I could tell he was gay and didn't believe he had a wife. He had a picture of his "wife" at his desk ... I'll bet it was the picture that came with the frame. Did he ever pretend to talk to her on the phone?

• No. I had a real one.

• R15 Nope, never. Which made it even more obvious. His desk was right behind mine and I never heard him call his "wife" or her call him, yet everyone else there who was married spoke to their spouse on the phone at least once in awhile. I guess I should give him credit for not having stooped as low as to have fake conversations. That really would have been sad. Oh, and this guy used to blast rave/dance music from his MP3 player all the time...yeah, he was really fooling everyone.

  R2

• No, but I had quite a few imaginary boyfriends.

  Gay%20male

• Never. If people asked if I had a girlfriend I would just say no. They usually dropped the subject.

• Wasn't it quite common for some of the gays to wear wedding rings in order to avoid the awkwardness of unwanted advances from the opposite sex?