found site, need to vent

Ok. comming out to yourself is the hardest. Even harder that comming out to your parents even...

So, you took the greatest step: the first. And it seems you just want to move forward, which is a good thing, but as you said that you wanted to separate what was act from what is real, you shouldn't overcompensate by acting extremely effeminate or perhaps going out and fucking 6 different guys in the same night. You need to stay true to yourself.

I don't know if this helps...

Anyways, one important thing is to build your selfesteem, you are not less than everyone else just because you are gay... in fact it could make you even better than them, having endured the fact that you were different, and being able to keep a secret for that long.

 

Hey Nick... welcome!

I had to laugh at your frustration with using the Internet to meet guys, because to some people "just looking for friends" combined with "newbie/coming out" are kinda like code for "I want to get some but I don't actually wanna admit that." As in, it's not surprising that some people assumed your intentions were different given that a) some people are just, well, really singularly focused and b) there's this common fascination among gay people with those who are newly out. It's somewhat like a "oooh... virgin" effect, though not always in as creepy a way as that may sound.

Suffice to say that meeting people via the Internet can be fraught with pitfalls (which can also be said of meeting people in real life) and you just have to acknowledge that and get used to a certain amount of eye-rolling that you might need to do. Not everyone on the Internet is focused on getting laid, although I think if you're using a personals site you will find that most people are--or rather, the bulk of people there will be interested in some kind of relationship that involves intimacy (some will be looking for a long-term boyfriend, some will be looking for casual hook-ups, some will be looking for flings, etc.)

I went to an all-boys school too, and I was totally in denial about my sexuality while I was there to the point that it resulted in very weird mental aerobics where my fantasy material was generally my classmates but oh no, I was straight. Really! Treely-ruly!

Yeah... right.

But anyway, I guess I stand as evidence that you can completely recover from that whole repression thing and the all-boys school experience. Of course, at my school gay people were pretty much never mentioned and being gay wasn't a bad thing--it was an impossible thing, as in no one at my school was gay. No one even seriously talked about anyone being gay (that I ever heard, anyway)... and this was a school where at least a quarter of the guys were boarders (as in, boarding school, not snowboarding *grin*). As it stands, I still only know of one other guy in my grade who is "that way" or "like me." And we had a smallish graduating class but I suspect it's way more than just who I've since encountered.

It might be easier to think of yourself as 16 and not 26. Well, not totally because it's not like you skipped the last ten years of your life and it's not a good idea to just toss those ten years out the window but probably in a lot of ways (socially, relationship-ly, etc.) you're likely closer to a 16-year-old than a 26-year-old. It's pseudo-official, even: we call it "delayed adolescence." Basically the theory, which I've personally found relatively accurate, is that gay people who come out post-adolescence go through this period of adjustment where they do a lot of the growth/change that straight people generally do in their teen years. So while your straight schoolmates were figuring out relationships and how to relate to the objects of their affection socially, you were in denial so you didn't really get much experience on how to be around guys, much less how to be in relationships with them.

That happened to me, in that I went through that "crazy" period that people generally associate with teenagers in college when I turned 20. And really, since I'm not really that "crazy" a person, it wasn't psychotic or anything--it was just that my life exceeded a lot more of my own expectations than I had suspected possible. For some people it happens in their 30s or 40s, which I think is more awkward because people really don't expect people in their 30s and 40s to be teenage-like. Still, it happens when it happens and the best thing to do is to enjoy it even if you find yourself a little bit freaked out by it (because you now have the ability to analyse it in a way you probably didn't when you were a teenager).

At least, that's what happened to me: all these unexpected things started happening that I associated with being a teenager (dating, partying, parental conflict, skipping school... relatively basic things, really) when I was halfway through my university degree and so it didn't really all line up for me in my head. But I wouldn't have traded it for the world because frankly I had always felt like I squandered my adolescence somehow (didn't really know why at the time) and this was like my second chance, so I milked it for all it was worth.

The good news is that it is relatively easy, I think, to figure out what is you and what isn't you. Once you have come clean with yourself, I think it's pretty easy to figure out what's an act if you listen to your feelings and just interrogate yourself a bit. A lot of people when they're first coming out get VERY flamboyant/"gay" but then kinda balance out down the road... it's an adjustment period, for sure, but everyone ends up at different destinations and the stops along the way do not determine your personality forevermore. Consider it this way: if someone was to dress up in drag for one night, does that make them a drag queen for life? You can apply that kind of analysis to a lot of things, like another one that comes up in the gay community a lot: if I do drugs once, does that make me a druggie? Or, if a gay guy sleeps with a woman, does that make him straight? (And to be fair, although I'm reluctant to give this one up, if a straight guy does it with another guy, does that make him gay? *grin*)

What happened to me in my personal experience is that I kept encountering a lot of situations where I was like, "I can't believe this is happening to me!" or "This isn't something I do." How I processed those feelings is by asking "Why can't <blank> happen to me?" and "Why ISN'T this something I do?" That is, don't just blindly do something because it seems like a thing you would never do but definitely interrogate yourself about why it is you think that whatever's going on isn't your thing. Be willing to push your boundaries. Sometimes it's even fun to dive into the deep end of the pool--just make sure you have some basic swimming skills first.

I think a lot of people, gay or straight or inbetween, neglect to ask themselves two questions: 1) what am I feeling? and 2) why am I feeling it? I think it'll be worth asking yourself those questions a lot in the coming weeks and months. I'm not saying you'll find any answers but asking the questions is just as important, maybe more.

Speaking specifically, I would tell your ex-colleague you're gay and see if anything comes from that--you have a lot better bet, in my opinion, of meeting cool people through people you know or environments you frequent than blindly over the Internet.

And in addition to trying to not be super-judgmental about yourself and whatever you get up to in the future, try to keep a reign on those negative feelings about being gay as applied to others: some people are comfortable being really femmy, some people are comfortable being really butch, some people have sex with lots of different people, some people mate for life... check to see if their behaviour directly and personally impacts you before you start objecting to it because believe me, you'll want that benefit of the doubt yourself--now especially but probably throughout your life. And as sure of our judgments as we may often be (and I say this as someone who thinks of themselves as pretty perceptive and prone to making accurate judgments), the world is a pretty barren place if you don't make room for the possibility of being surprised by people every now and then. :eusa_danc

Coming out can be a really scary-seeming point in your life but the flipside of that is it can be a very fun, liberating, adventurous time of your life. So makke sure you recognise, honour, and enjoy the good parts even as you struggle with the hard parts.

Let us know how it goes!

 

I want to start by saying that this thread resonates with my own life a lot. I'm also 26 and only started coming out to other people in August (coming out really is an ongoing process, not a one time event). For me, I can't pinpoint the moment where I decided I was gay. It was more like a gradual build-up which at times moved quickly and at other times more slowly. Although I really started to consider myself gay and started telling other people I was at 25, probably around age 22 or 23, I had accepted that I was definitely not straight.

I definitely have similar feelings of wasting my youth since I wasn't dating, hooking up or anything like during my high school or college years. I did date a girl for like 3 months when I was 22, but it didn't work out and the relationship never got very physical at all (some kissing, but that's it). And there was this other girl who tried to sleep with me when I was 21. I had to emphatically refuse her advances, which should have been a red flag to myself about my own sexuality. She actually asked me point blank once afterwards if I was gay. I guess she figured me out before I did.

In the end though, I ignored dealing with my sexuality by throwing myself into school and work. If I had a dollar for every time I used the old "I'm too busy with school to date girls line", I'd have a substantially lessened student loan burden. Looking back, a lot of things I did and felt back then are very clear. The best example being a roommate/friend I had my sophmore and junior years in college. I was totally in love with him. I distinctly remember first meeting him right before my 19th birthday and getting that overwhelming fuzzy feeling which I like to call "lust at first sight". A year later, we actually became roommates (we even shared a room with bunkbeds since it was so expensive to live in that area) in an apartment. Unfortunately, he was straight and is probably married to the girl he started dating back then (who by the way he met at a party I had to drag him to!). Best closeted line I ever said to him: "John, it's not that I want to sleep with you, I just want to be friends with you". I don't know what the heck I was thinking at the time to not recognize that I was gay!

The most important things to remember about all of this though are 1) you can't change the past so live for the present and future and 2) better late than never.

Right when I came out, I started seriously using some online dating sites. However, over time I've decided I don't think it's really the right medium for me. A lot of what I find attractive in somebody is the way he talks, carries himself and his general air, which you can't capture on a website or IM convo. In fact, I think those qualities are most important to me than sheer physical appearance, which is what immediately becomes the important thing on any sort of dating site. Also, nobody on those sites ever expressed interest, which I admit probably biased me against them too. That said, it's hard to meet people I get along with in real life too. I try to keep myself open to various kinds of people I might not normally be interested in. Even if a friendship or relationship with them doesn't work out, well maybe they know somebody who I'll meet someday who's compatable. Unfortunately, I haven't had the same experience with being the fresh meat gay virgin joeyconnick mentions in the real or virtual world. Then again, when I meet somebody for the first time, I think they assume I must have been out for a long time because of my age.

Delayed adolesence is real, but I still don't think it's as severe as a lot of people like to make it out to be. Maturity is so multifaceted. In certain ways I do feel like I'm immature. For example, I've been effectively dating (although I don't think the word 'date' has been uttered) this guy a couple times. He's fairly closeted in that the only person who's not at my university (he goes to a different neighboring university) that he's out to is his mom. It all feels very middle school at times (does he like me? do I really like him? is he just awkward or not interested in something more than friendship?). We're fairly different people, but I do enjoy his company and the whole process helps me figure out better what I'm looking for in a guy. In other ways though, I feel mature even for my age. I have a good sense of who I am, am financially independent from my family, am responsible, have a decent amount of education and lived by myself overseas for two years. Those are important fruits of adolescence and growing up too. I certainly did go through phases (especially in college) where I did 'crazy' things like partying, doing drugs and having a mohawk haircut. So while I do feel immature in certain ways, I do feel that the other mature aspects do enable me to deal with the immaturities a bit better than somebody who is entirely immature.

I also agree strongly with the points joeyconnick makes about analyzing your feelings and catching yourself thinking "but I don't do [fill in the blank]!". Don't be afraid to try new things. If it helps, remember everybody gay and straight goes through those same concerns at some point.

 

There's some excellent advise in the last two messages, and I can't add much to that.

Interestingly I came out when I was 27, although I had started making tentative steps when I was 26. In my case it was shortly after I moved out of my parents home and to a different area of the country, but I think it would have happened anyway.

 

It could have been worse! He could have told you to f**k off then added you to his MSN ignore list. He probably just doesn't know what to say, so is playing safe by avoiding the subject. Let us know how it goes after you next meet. If he still seems to be ignoring the subject, it might be worth you raising it again and saying that you understand if he's not sure what to say and won't be offended if he inadvertantly says the wrong thing.

Anyway that's one crossed off the list. Who's next? :icon_razz :icon_wink

 

Well, that is an odd reaction, but like Paul_UK said it could have been worse. Strangely, I think lukewarm reactions from coming out to other gay people is more perplexing and frustrating than such reactions from straight people. When I came out to my gay roommate, I had hoped for a "congratulations, welcome to the club" sort of reaction. Instead, he looked a little surprised and mumbled something about how his admittedly overactive and somewhat inaccurate gaydar had gone off on me when I first came by to look at the apartment.

 

Cool outcome... thanks for keeping us updated--it's always neat to hear how things go for people.

 

Well you're in luck, because responding to you is WAY better than working on my 3 research proposals for school.

I think that kind of comment is a pretty organic way to bring up the fact that you're not into girls. I mean, maybe the best way. She's assuming you are into them and you can correct that assumption by telling her something 100% true. And she brought it up, not you.

That being said, if it comes up again, I would go with something casual like, "Oh... that's sweet of you but I'm not into girls... does she have a brother?" as opposed to starting to sweat and then freaking out on her with, "Oh my god stop trying to fit me into your narrow little heterosexist pigeonhole! You straight people are all the same!"



I'm sure that last part is obvious.

 

First, I don't really see what's wrong with just blurting it out. It's very easy to keep looking for "the right time" and never find it. So what if you blurt out that you're gay? Sure, it might be awkward, but that feeling is going to happen almost regardless of how you say it.

Now that said simply telling somebody the truth when they make a false assumption about your sexuality is usually a great way of revealing your sexuality. It shows that you're not making a big deal out of it. Not that there's anything wrong with making a big deal out of it, but it might be less shocking or confrontational to the person you're telling that way.

IMHO, the important thing is to tell people you're gay. How you do it is important, but not as important as just relaying that information in a clear and respectful manner. Quality friends will understand and accept you if you emotionally blurt it out or if you mention it casually off the cuff.

 

if it were me, i'd just be like, "umm, im not really into that sorta thing." and then go on from there.