For those of you who know me, you'll know that I've always had a lot of gay friends, both male and female. Throughout my life, I've often had people telling me that I was suppressing my own latent homosexuality (a little concerning when two of them were girlfriends at the time). My response has always been that I don't see sexual orientation as a binary thing (i.e straight or gay) but as a multi-dimensional continuum, with people being at different points at different times of their lives, or under different circumstances.

I do have to say that it has all been a lot easier since someone coined the term metrosexual. Since then, more people seem to accept that for a man who enjoys the occasional manicure or facial is not necessarily familiar with the "the love that dares not speak its name". Not that it has ever really bothered me, as I've always been pretty comfortable with my sexual identity, whether others were or not.

I give this background so that you know a little bit more about me, and to give some context to the following email that I received from my daughter last Wednesday, and how I'm reacting to it.

There's also something else you should probably know. The friend I would be coming out with is also in fact my girlfriend. We have been dating since June of last year, and it is quite serious. We are planning to move in together in London over the summer, and this would be our summer holiday together before starting our new jobs, etc.

Since the Holidays, I'd been playing telephone tag with my daughter (who is in her final year at University)