Before we walked around in rainbow proudly. Before creating a beautiful, healthy relationship with each other. Before we learned how to stopped settling for anything less than what we deserved... we were afraid.
We were desperate for love in the wrong places and looked for approval from everyone besides ourselves.
We were terrified of what being out of the closet and finding real love would mean for us.
Neither one of us grew up just embracing who we were. It's been years of the inner battle.
For Dani, she suppressed any hint of being LGBTQ+ for as long as she could remember. She dated people she didn't really like to convince other people and herself that she was straight...."nothing to see there". She grew up without any openly gay role models, all she knew was what was being said in the conservative area she lived in, full of judgement and hate towards LGBTQ+ people.
She always felt like she would be judged for being gay, like she'd always be the outcast and would never find love. She wanted to be like everyone else, to be accepted and loved so she did everything she could to change.
No matter how many years she tried to change who she was, she couldn't run away from it. There came a time when she needed to decide if she'd rather please other people or would rather be happy as herself.
She eventually decided that living as her true self was something beautiful, not to be ashamed of. She worked endlessly towards accepting this part about her, which she now comes to love. She came out publicly at New York Pride, which she says was the best experience of her life. She wore a shirt that said "Proud to be me", posted it on social media, and the rest is history. She felt unstoppable.
She went on to become a professionally trained and experienced life coach to show others how to embrace their LGBTQ+ identity as well. She received her IPEC Life Coaching Certification as well as her Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from High Point University in 2017. Dani is also a 2x published author, who created her own merchandise promoting the same message. But, the journey wasn't over.
In the first few years of being "out", she struggled deeply with creating romantic relationships. She thought as soon as she came out, she'd find the love she'd be waiting for. It was all so new, she didn't know how to navigate dating, what to say, how to act, how to find someone she really connected with.
After years of mistake after mistake, chasing the wrong people and moving way too quickly, she gave up on believing love was out there. She put herself out there for so long, getting her heart broken left and right that she really stopped believing she would ever find someone worth all this pain.
She just wanted to be loved the way she loved others. But, she didn't realize the reason she remained single was because of HER the whole time. She STILL lacked the confidence and self-love to become the best version of herself before loving anyone else. She thought the journey to self-love ended as soon as she came out...she was so wrong.
Once she realized these secrets, her whole dating game changed and she met her girlfriend, Keely.
Keely also struggled for years with her dating. She dated constantly, person after person, searching for something that would make her happy. She too quickly realized it was her all along that led to her lack of success in the dating world.
They went on to create a loving and healthy relationship together, it was like they were just made for each other. Dani finally thought "I waited so long for a girl like her, and I'm so glad I did".
They both learned so much from their failures in relationships that they wanted to show others how to find true love like they did.
They creating the company "Coming Out Happy" to educate LGBTQ+ people how to date better and feel confident in their LGBTQ+ identity just as they have. They can't wait to continue helping people, one person at a time.