Is my dad gay?
Growing up my dad had an older male friend. They worked together and would often hang out on weekends. To give some context into the time period, this all took place in the early 90s, and my dad at the time was in his 30s, while the older male friend was in his 60s. As a kid I didn’t really understand how strange it was, but my dad’s friend we called “uncle Jim” would often buy my father expensive gifts. I am talking high-fi stereos, camcorders, art, expensive firearms, concert and NFL tickets, all sorts of things. Many of these items were worth thousands of dollars in the early 90s, so today adjusted for inflation, some of them are kind of absurd. I can be fairly generous, but as a millennial I cannot imagine giving a friend a gift worth $5,000, let alone a dozen of them, all over a period of just a few years. He did not have the type of job that would make him extremely wealthy either. Uncle Jim made good money for the time, but was probably earning somewhere in the $70-100k range. He was not married but apparently had an adult son he was estranged from, but no family he regularly was in touch with. Then at some point in the mid 90s, uncle Jim and my father had a very abrupt falling out and we never saw him again. In the past we’ve joked with my dad about it and he’s just laughed it off without explaining what happened or why uncle Jim bought him so many expensive gifts. You may be wondering why my dad wouldn’t be more open about it, but he is married, from a small conservative community, and has grown more conservative over the years.