When I took my first boyfriend to meet my parents, I introduced him as my best friend. Although I wanted my parents to meet the guy I was in love with, I was far from being ready to come out to them.

A few days later, my mother became suspicious about our relationship and searched our suitcases, where she discovered some intimate photos of us together. After a traumatic fight with my parents that night, I left their house with an empty backpack and bloody scratches on my arms, and I swore that I’d never go back.

For the past two years, I’ve tried to fix my shattered relationship with my parents, who know about my sexuality but still refuse to accept who I am. “You should get married soon,” my mom often says on the phone. “If not, what will people say about us?”

Often, when people ask me about coming out to their parents, I tell them to think twice. In some ways, it’s a heroic act that means no more hiding, pretending or lies. It is a public admission of one’s true self.

However, often coming out also puts our parents in the closet. For months after my “coming out,” my parents lived in the shadows. They had trouble sleeping, they lost weight and they did not dare speak about the matter with anyone.

“You can come out to anyone, but your parents,” says my friend B, who doesn’t plan to come out to his family at all. “As long as you deny it, you won’t hurt them. No matter how tolerant they are and how much they love you, once they hear it from you, that’s going to hurt them.”

The decision is even harder to make in a country where marriage marriage seems to be a rite of passage that everyone is expected to undertake. Those who don’t want to marry a member of the opposite sex therefore have a difficult dilemma: be honest about who they are or meet their parents’ expectations in the name of love.

“I don’t think I’m ready to tell my parents the truth,” says my friend H, who’s 26, “I want to wait till I have a successful career and a great partner. Until then, my parents will always worry about me and coming out wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Although we all wish our parents could support us if we choose to come out, most parents in China choose “face” over the truth. After my forced disclosure to my parents, my mother told me I was selfish. The coming out experience was traumatic because I hurt my parents, but also because when I fell, they weren’t there to catch me. I believe it’s not because they didn’t want to, but rather they were not able to.