Homophobic (???) April fools prank gone wrong - am I overreacting
Im a college senior two of my close friends pulled an April Fools prank on me with the help of a club we’re all in (which I’m president of).
For some background information, I’m pretty out at my college and I do act pretty feminine and 98% of people assume I’m gay when they first meet me. However, my parents are very religious and outwardly homophobic. So at college there’s some people who know my family and shouldn’t know I’m gay.
I also have had horrible luck with guys. I haven’t been fully out since college but I’ve been rejected a bunch and just haven’t had any success (like I’ve only kissed one guy my whole life). Something I’m pretty insecure about.
My two friends are both very much aware of this.
In my clubs organization slack, there was private channel where all of this was getting planned for 3 days. So the prank involved my friends tabling (tabling is having a tabled set-up with promotional materials to advertise a club, cause, etc) with people from my club (from 10 AM - 4 PM) at our busiest part of campus for the “[my initials] philanthropy organization” and in hopes to find me a bf. They hand painted a banner with a rainbow flag, painted my face and put the the name of the “philanthropy organization”. They printer over 350 flyers titled “Me (or a friend) wnats Julian” with a QR code for a survey where they can put an Instagram handle and phone number. People who were tabling were instructed by my close friend to say things like
- excuse me, are you attracted to men? ,
-have you heard of the [my initials] philanthropy organization?
• hi! do you find this man attractive?
• hi! are you gay by any chance?
At the end of the day my friend planned to use the information and make a gc with me plus all the guys interested in me.
I didn’t catch wind of what was happening til a friend of a friend texted me an hour into the prank and was like did you know this was happening. I called my close friend who was leading this to take it down cuz there’s some people who go here who can’t know I’m gay. He immediately stopped it and apologized over the phone. On the phone after he apologized, he ended it with “do you want the numbers of the guys who were interested in you?” And that made me livid because how tone deaf it was. When I initially found out, I didn’t know who was involved or wha they were exactly doing at tabling. All I knew was that the were tabling me to find a bf.
On Friday, that’s where I learned more details (like how far out it was planned, what the banner looked like, there was a sign up sheet for people to table). And the worst of it all was some of my close friends who know my religious trauma and history with guys who were celebrating and many others being sad when they had to stop the prank saying things like “NOO WE WERE SO CLSOE”. And this just pissed me off because the prank on top of the potential outing it felt so humiliating.
So in our slack channel I sent the following message
“Hey all I just wanted to address what was happening in here.
First off this was potentially life altering for me. My parents don’t know I’m gay and are outwardly homophobic. I’ve had to deny my sexuality to them multiple times. There are some people who go here who know my family and don’t know I’m gay. This prank put me at risk. I’m very disappointed because some people here know my story. Even if you didn’t, it’s never your right to assume if a queer persons is fully out. And queer people don’t owe sharing their trauma to anyone.
Second of all this prank was straight up embarrassing, humiliating, and demeaning. No matter what your intentions were, this felt like you guys were first making fun and targeting me for my sexuality (just ask yourself if you would do this for straight person) and making fun of the fact my history with guys (or lack thereof). And some people here are aware of the latter. This is genuinely some prank that straight guys would do in high school to make fun of that one gay kid in their class.
I was and still am genuinely hurt by this prank because I’ve been so vulnerable with some of you and have told people here how much I’ve struggled with my sexuality.
I feel like there’s genuinely no excuse for this. It seems like this has been something very planned and thought about and not once anyone thought there was something wrong with this. I would appreciate if we never talk about this again and please don’t message me with an apology; I just need some time and space to still process everything.”
So sorry for the long post. In the moment ,i was proud of myself for standing up for myself and letting people know what they did was wrong. But i have a tendency to over think things and I’m not sure if I overreacted or if it wasn’t that deep. Thank you in advanced for any advice.