Stands for "coming-of-age letdown", and refers to the "deflated" feeling you get (similar to one's disappointment if Santa Claus's leaves lumps of da hard sooty black stuff in his stocking) when --- after having waited many years for your parents or other grownups to tell you things that you'd been super-curious about during your younger days --- you eventually learn that said greatly-desired information-nuggets were really nothing special or "momentous" after all; you realize right away that your having known that info "'way back when" would in fact **not** have troubled your "young mind" much if any (and certainly MUCH less than the agonies you'd suffered all those years while frettingly having to wait for your overly-protective seniors to finally "open up"! ), and so these matters could indeed have "safely" been discussed with you at the age you'd originally asked about them, or at least much sooner that whenever your tight-lipped elders chose to divulge said information to you.
An excellent example of a "C.O.A.L." moment would be learning that a "homosexual" is simply someone who prefers the same gender more than the opposite gender --- having been told that during your middle-school years would definitely not have troubled you to any significant degree, nor would you have thought/behaved/acted any differently during those "naive years" as a result of your having possessed that knowledge. And if anything, it might have even HELPED you to feel less confused and better understand a few fellow-pre-teens and adults who seemed "different", and whom you now realize were probably just gay, and so they simply didn't think or feel the same way about you as a "straight" person would have.
by QuacksO February 16, 2019