Just the people in my community know about my wolfy self. Then again, belonging to a Pagan community where over half of the people are were's/therians...it makes it pretty easy to be out about everything.

But tell my parents? Er...no. I don't think I will. They know my faith, but they don't know the details of it, nor do they care to. They'd probably just pass it off as a phase and wait for it to pass. Then again, they've been waiting for me to come out of my phase about being bisexual for 5 years now.

I think I might of overdone it with the analogy to the stereotypical 'coming out' idea. Whoops! I can't really find something adequate to have a comparison with when it comes to therianthropy. Using the example of 'coming out' if you are gay/bi/lesbian wasn't really the best idea, as then its comparing therianthropy with sexuality in some ways.

I know that you, WolfVanZandt are known in your area as being a werewolf right? Was there a point before where it wasn't known to others, and if so, how did it become 'common knowledge' to the community in your area? Sorry if I'm throwing a random question at you, I'm just quite interested.

I do have this 'ideal' picture in my head of me being a therian to be common knowledge to others. I think it's probably a lot more realistic than I give it credit for, as I tend to have a more pessimistic view on my area (which I wish I didn't) based on what I've experienced before. People can be insulted, teased and even physically bullied for their own beliefs, thoughts and ideas, just because they don't fit the norm. Therianthropy i quite literally unheard of in my area, so its definately something that doesn't fit the norm. Then again, this was back in high school when I came to pick up this pessimistic view on society. I think people will be more accepting than I give them credit for, I just need to realise it myself.

I don't think being a therian should be anything thats seen as weird though, which was a big fear of mine when I came to the realisation of it. (Yeah, I'm too concerned with what people think of me, I'll admit to that). It's definately not anything to define someone by, theres more to a person that just being a therian. Again with the analogies, but I don't think anyone defines others just by their religion, race, the fact they're a football fan, are obsessed with "insert TV show here", their sexuality, whatever it may be...theres so much more to a person than the label;s we can pin onto them.


I went off on a lot on non sensical tangents there.

I've never gone out of my way to broadcast the fact that I'm a Werewolf. There were several years in Selma that it wasn't common knowledge. By the time it had become common knowledge, I was well established here.

I believe that the most successful strategy for being open about any personal difference is to let people know you as a person first and then to know you as a ______ (fill in the blank). The assumption, of course, is that they first come to value you as a person. A community will value 1) experience and 2) service. If a community understands that you have potential and you're willing to use it for the well being of the community, nothing else seems to matter. The people that constantly complain that people mistreat them, ignore them, and/or just don't like them, in my experience, are people who never make the effort of cultivating their relationships with the people around them.

And I agree with Vindicator. It's important that you develop relationships with others, person-to-person, not Werewolf-to-Mainstreamer. In most instances, the Werewolf part is irrelevant.

The only reason I'm so open is that I can be and I feel that I can benefit the Therian community (and indirectly, others) by it.

Hahaha, I had a similar situation with telling my best friend too White. We're both oretty much joined together as we're that close. I went through a brief period of worrying that if I told her, she might distance herself a bit, as she found it a bit odd, but after telling her it really wasn't the case. And, as you said White, it's allowed me to be more like 'myself' when we do hang out. It's still unusual to think about it, but it is really good I have a friend like her.

I've never thought about telling family much, as my parents would probably assume it's some 'weird phase', my sister would find any possible way to mock me, and the rest of the family would just see me ss odd. I'd be fine with the odd thing now I think about it.

WolfVanZandt wrote:

I believe that the most successful strategy for being open about any personal difference is to let people know you as a person first and then to know you as a ______ (fill in the blank). The assumption, of course, is that they first come to value you as a person. A community will value 1) experience and 2) service. If a community understands that you have potential and you're willing to use it for the well being of the community, nothing else seems to matter. The people that constantly complain that people mistreat them, ignore them, and/or just don't like them, in my experience, are people who never make the effort of cultivating their relationships with the people around them.

And I agree with Vindicator. It's important that you develop relationships with others, person-to-person, not Werewolf-to-Mainstreamer. In most instances, the Werewolf part is irrelevant.

I do agree with this a lot, I think people do value others for being a person first, rather than what categories and labels you can fall under. If you can benefit the community and the community sees this, then why should the fact you're this that or the other, affect it in the slightest.
The sentence starting with "The people that constantly complain" I think struck a note with me; although I'd be reluctant to admit it. I think a lot of the time I am like that. After seeing a good friend of mine have his school life made pretty unenjoyable...just because he was 'different' to most others in a way, and he was more open about it, I think I picked up a bad outlook on people in general. I was pretty ok during school, got on with everyone fine and vice versa, but I still didn't like how people who I saw as friends could change and act so horrible to someone else just because what they believed was different to them.
I think I need to get rid of my high school opinions on people, as people do grow up, and not everyone is like that. It'd also be good if I made an effort to strengthen the relationships with the people in my community, as well as forming new ones. Avoiding people, and not wanting to get 'involved' because of mu bad outlook really doesn't help that. I want to get involved with things, and with people, I think it's just a case of getting my opinion of people to 'grow up' as well.

That was a very big rant about myself, I think it had some relevance, but it got lost somewhere in there!


I do also agree with Vin on the idea of if someone asked you if you were a therian. I wouldn't say no, as that is being dishonest, so I'd say yes. Although, I couldn't imagine a situation where that would actually be asked, so it's a very unlikely scenario to me!