Here's to that hope! You know, it's funny. I'm a man in my 60s from the United States, and you're a man in your 20s from Italy, but aside from a few differences in detail, I could have written the same story ... and I actually have written quite similar stories in years past.

Neither of my partners ever celebrated the holidays with my family, nor I with theirs.

We stayed home together, my first (late) partner and I in New York City, my second partner and I in Montreal.

It's not that our respective families would have rejected us. In fact, my first partner's niece sometimes visited us in New York City, and we traveled to Baltimore a few times to stay with her.

But ... the holidays were something else. We didn't feel comfortable. We had our own chosen families to support and celebrate. Most importantly, I I think the main reason we never went home for the holidays is that we didn't want to be spectacles. We didn't want to be spectated.

And that's different than in your case, I'm sure. Things are better now than they used to be.

But I guess we still have a long way to go.