I am re-opening this thread in lieu of a conversation I had just moments ago with my Indian friend who inspired this thread.
Firstly, I want to thank everyone for their responses to my original post. I read through them all several months ago even though I did not respond. It was interesting to hear the different takes on the scenario, although the general consensus seems to be that it's just a tragic "no win" situation regardless and I can only do so much.
As an update, over the past few months, my friend has been seeing a therapist. This therapist is one who is a believer and member of the ex-gay movement, who believes that one can cure homosexuality. My friend did not believe his homosexuality could be cured, but was simply seeing the doctor to appease his parents. Both he and I had a great deal of skepticism, and while in general I find the ex-gay movement laughable, the fact of the matter is that my friend needed professional help and I wasn't going to damn this man just yet and thought something was better than nothing. Surprisingly, the therapist has done some good just in giving him an outlet outside of me to talk about things, and the therapist has actually made some very interesting points. While he is a believer in the idea of curing homosexuality, he has in the past few months not dwelled on that aspect of the treatment, and the remarks that he has made (i.e. homosexuality is the result of childhood trauma, etc.) have just been brushed off by my friend and he just takes what he wants to take from the sessions. Instead, he has been focusing more on general sexual addiction, which I believe my friend has, and he has been trying to curb him slowly of that. They have just progressed (?) to "elastic therapy" where a rubber band is attached to his wrist and he is to snap it at any erotic thought that comes into his brain. Anyways, basically my friend has been going to this guy once or twice a week for the past three months on his own dime, spending $2,000 thus far out of pocket for these services that he doesn't even believe in just to appease his parents.
His parents over in India have been constantly hounding him about his progress with the therapist, wanting to know if his feelings for men have vanished yet. They say "hurry up, so that you can get married". My friend tells them it is going very slowly. He didn't want to give them any false hope, especially as the therapist really is just a measure to buy some more time. He speaks with his parents three or four times a day, so it really is just a neverending nagging that never ceases.
I had not heard from him in quite awhile. We usually chat 2-3 times a week on Yahoo Messenger for long night convos, but he ha been going to bed earlier and we just didn't seem to be on at the same time, so we had just been trading pleasantries via offline messages for the past month or so, when I randomly caught him online a few days ago. We chatted for around 30 minutes (short for us) and at that point, he told me things were pretty much the same. Flash forward to today. I'm at work and I get a text from him. He never texts me, having only done so maybe twice before in the two years I've known him. In the text, he tells me that he just spoke with his father, and his father told him (over the phone while he was at work!) that he was disowning him. My friend's text then made a vague mention to death, but in an almost joking manner. I don't joke about that stuff. I responded back to make sure he was okay and he told me that he was "surprisingly fine". I told him that I couldn't talk much more at work but that we needed to talk tonight.
I log online tonight and we have a very long conversation that turned progressively more glum. His father had sent him a follow-up email basically re-stating all that he said over the phone, even going so far as to say that the only thing he asks of my friend, is for when he (the father) dies, to make sure his body is donated to a local hospital for medical research. So basically, he was stating that he will never see him again. My friend, whom earlier in the day seemed fine, was so upset and livid. He drafted a long somewhat nasty email to send to his father, basically blaming his absent father for his being gay. He does not believe this to be so (he believes it is genetics) but said these things out of anger only to hurt his father. He had tried to logically explain homosexuality to his parents multiple times, from a genetic and scienitific standpoint, only to be met with "that is the work of devil" and things of the like. So in saying this to his father, my friend was thinking
"if they are not ready to accept the genetic thoery then let them face this theory of an overbearing mother and a distant father" in causing his homosexuality. He was going to send it but then held off. I told him to sleep on it, to not do anything while so angry and emotional. He said he was worried of the reaction of his father, that he may actually kill himself. As such, I told him not to send it. So where it stands now, the father has disowned him. He has yet to hear from his mother regarding the father's decision, but she will likely do so soon enough regardless even though she is much closer with her son than the father was.
My friend started speaking more of suicide. He started asking me questions like "if you kill yourself, does anyone receive your life insurance?" and sent me a wikipedia link to "methods of suicide". Sometimes, he jokes about suicide in a twisted manner and I was quick to tell him tonight that this is not funny and not something you joke about. He responds that he would not do anything "now....not tonight....but I'm just keeping my options open". On the one hand, by the frequency with which he talks of it, it seems almost as if the suicide references are just a cry for attention, but on the other hand, given the despondency over his situation, I really do think the thoughts may be entering his mind. I told him how upset he was making me, and begged for him to call a suicide hotline. He said he never would, because they would call 911, trace his cell and send someone to his place and he wouldn't want to be saved. He then tells me not to worry, that if he would ever "do something", he would text me beforehand to thank me for everything and apologize, and mentioned that he's so glad that I responded earlier today because he doesn't know what he'd do. I of course tried to the best of my non-suicide-prevention-specialist ability to listen and counter his arguments and encourage him, but I'm just......at a loss at this point.
I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm all he has. While in the US, he is in an Indian social bubble of sorts where all of his friends, roommates and the co-workers he socializes with, etc. are Indian, and much like his parents (and no offense to Indians), not very accepting of homosexuality, so he remains closeted. Living in this little bubble has resulted in him being very lonely with seemingly no one but me, who lives five hours away, to confide in. I feel like keeping him sane and alive is resting on my shoulders and I just don't know how to do it. I put him in touch with a support network for South Asian Gays and Lesbians in the DC area but he wouldn't go to their meetings. He won't call suicide hotlines. And he's not outing himself to any more people due to the reaction he got from his parents. Now I'm sitting here paranoid thinking that this man's life could rest on my shoulders, dependent upon my answering a text at that very second AND saying just the right things. I don't always have my phone on., and, well, I have a life too that I have to attend to, with my own stresses and drama as selfish as that sounds What if I miss a text? He recently moved and I don't even know his new address if god forbid something were to happen and I had to call an ambulance to his place.
Basically, I'm just really worried about what to do. I think he'll be fine in the end being disowned by his dad since they were never that close to begin with. It's the mother that I'm really worried about and I fear that will come any day now. I feel like over time, he would learn to get on just fine, but it's just that I don't know if he has the strength to make it over that initial hump and I wish there was more that I could do.
