How and when did you come out to yourself?

When I was 13 and I just thought stop pretending to like guys, you don't.

 

I came out to myself almost a year ago when I got more interested in lgbt things and realized that I'm bisexual

 

about a year ago when one of my friends confronted me and asked if I was straight (i denied it to him). Have told my parents, my sister, and a friend since then

 

It was honestly something I struggled with between about 12-22. Several times between those years I seriously asked myself and outright denied it and repressed my actual attractions because I was afraid of the implications of answering truthfully.

About 5 years ago things weren't going well with my last girlfriend and I felt like I was being strung along in the relationship, not really into it or her. Mostly I just felt I was saving face. We went to the beach and there were a lot of good looking guys there. I remember trying to sneak glances at them and finally noticed I hadn't looked at a girl there the entire time. That night I tried to watch porn and found myself only looking at the guys. I had done this for years but the reality really set in that night. The thought, "oh god, I really am gay," finally crossed my mind. It took me another 6 months before we broke up and another 6-12 months after sinking into a depression before I finally reached out to a gay friend and told him I was gay and that I couldn't deal with it.

 

It was like a forth of the way through this year of High School, I asked my Pansexual friend about if I'm pansexual or not, cuz I started thinking about it, and then I realized I was

 

I guess it was gradual but came out as anger, "I'm going to be alone forever" "my parents will hate me" and etc.

 

After struggling to accept myself, I finally decided that I needed to accept myself in order to eventually become truly happy with my life.

 

I remember being in my mid-twenties and thinking, you know what? I'm bisexual. I happened to be driving with my husband at the time and the words came out of my mouth at that time. Of course, his reaction was - yeah, I've known that since we were in high school. Really, though, because I didn't have context for bisexuality until then, my attraction to girls/women was just an interesting footnote.

 

My parents told me when I was twelve or thirteen that LGBTQ+ people existed. For some reason, I didn't connect that with my own life, at least not consciously. I remember thinking to myself "well, at least people who are bi have the option of just ending up with someone of the opposite gender and skipping all the hatred/homophobia," and now I'm wondering if that was some sort of decision I didn't realize I was making.

Several years later that I was thinking about a girl I knew and thought "If I felt this way towards a guy, I'd classify it as a crush.

Oh, wait, maybe it is actually a crush.

...

Yeah, ok."

 

For many years, I just assumed I was straight. I know that sounds strange, but the gargoyle has never been very visually attuned. I found it strange, and eventually a bit frustrating, that I wasn't panting after women - ANY women - the way my male friends were.

So, one day while at college, I gave it some thought. Well, maybe I was gay. The idea seemed ridiculous. I mean, wouldn't I KNOW if I were gay? But I decided there was no harm in testing out that theory. I went outside, sat down on a bench in front of my dorm, and decided I was going to ogle guys. I actually had to make the conscious decision to do that.

Soon, a guy jogged by. He was wearing socks, shoes, short black jogging shorts...and nothing else. (It was California, early 90s. Shut up.) I kind of surreptitiously checked him out as he jogged towards me, and more blatantly ogled him once he passed me.

...and I got so hard, so fast, that I thought my jeans were going to split open. I didn't actually say "Holy shit, I'm gay" but I might as well have. I went back inside to my room, and did what most sexual male teenagers would do in this situation. Then I gave it some thought. Was I gay? Well, maybe. Why not try it out? Assume I'm gay for the time being. Think about guys, fantasize about guys, see what happens.

What happened was a huge spike in my sex drive, and pretty much everything seeming to make far more "sense". After about five or six months of "trying it out", I decided this was clearly more than a phase, and started making moves towards telling others.

Lex

 

I was in my early teens and found myself getting crushes on guys. Didn't know what it was, just wasn't sure. Just hid it because I knew it felt "wrong". Then one day a friend made a comment about my crush saying "what? are you in love with him?"
and a light when off in my head that yeah, I was and yeah, I liked guys.

 

After failing at conversion therapy after two rounds and finally accepting that I will never be heterosexual.

 

When?

22 February 2014.

Am I the only person here who remembers the exact date I came out to myself? I wish I could remember the time, too. I know it was some time in the afternoon. I want to say it was between 5:00 and 6:00. I'm fairly sure I was on the computer.

How?

In one way, you could say I was in denial from the moment I knew what being gay meant and did not choose to identify myself as such. But I think my denial years ran from December 2011 to February 2014. The worst was 2013 and early 2014. I spent so much time trying to convince myself that I was straight. From June 2013 to February 2014, I tried masturbating to women. I succeeded... in a way.
I've heard that if you're seriously questioning your sexuality, you probably are not straight. I agreed, and still agree. So I even more hated the fact that I was even going through this. I finally gave up on trying to convince myself that I was straight on 22 February 2014. I remember the first time thinking "okay, I'm gay. I'm gay. I am gay" when I was on the computer, and instantly researched LGBT topics I was too scared to do before.
It's like I knew that the sky was blue, but I kept telling myself it's red. And one day on the computer, out of the blue, I just called quits and accepted being gay.
I wish I didn't spend over two years in denial, but I'm thankful it wasn't much longer yet. I feel sorry for people (including stories I see here, such as guitar's on post 5) who spent 5+ years in denial.

 

I remember the day I officially came out to everyone, the day I came out to my parents, and the first time I ever said I was gay out loud to a friend. But I don't remember that day I finally realized I was gay because it was such a long series of events.

 

Riding home after the second time hooking up with the second guy I ever hooked up with. The first guy I ever hooked up with had come on to me and always did the 2-3 times we hooked up. But with the second guy I actively chose to call the number I had gotten off a bathroom wall (for a good time call...) and to arrange to meet him for the hookup. And then I did it again a few weeks later.

Thinking about it, I put together my actively and consciously taking action to arrange sex with another guy with my utter and complete lack of interest in women for my entire life and concluded I could either accept I was gay or continue playing mind games with myself. And I'm not a fan of mind games. So I accepted I was gay. Took less than 30 min and I immediately came out to the guy I'd hooked up with since he was driving me home. He wasn't surprised, obviously

Todd

 

I probably accepted it to myself when I was around 15 or 16, but there was a lot of self-reflection after.

Alright, you want stories, so...

I remember when I was around 12 or so, I used to be horribly afraid of looking at women's bodies. At that time, I was scared people would think I was gay, though when I read more feminist articles, I began to justify it to myself as not wanting to objectify women. Apparently there was a girl in my class when I was 13 who thought I was a lesbian (though I didn't find out she thought that for a couple years later). She was also a close friend of mine for many years in public school. I really don't know what made her think that, unless it was just her idea of a really mean thing to say, or she was projecting. I had a crush on a guy in our class that year as well. It was somewhat forced from my mom constantly asking me if I liked any of the guys in my class, I suspect.

Also when I was 12 or 13, I remember going to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and I noticed things about the character played by Cate Blanchett (like the curve of her hips in some scenes, and her accent). I think I had a bit of a crush on her too, but I didn't realize it at the time. It was only somewhat recently that I remembered that (back when people were saying Blanchett was bisexual).

Then in high school, I tried having a boyfriend, but I didn't really get any thrill out of kissing him. I mostly just enjoyed telling him my dirty thoughts. I decided after that that I wasn't really interested in relationships, so the next year of high school, I got into a "friends with benefits" relationship with some guy I guess I kind of had a crush on (my crushes on guys are always strange). We only ever ended up making out, which still wasn't thrilling, but then he grabbed my butt, and I felt some arousal (though I had no interest in sleeping with him). We never ended up making out again, though he wanted to. I remember when he ended up disliking each other, I had made some comment about being grossed out by images of male genitals, and he told me I was a lesbian. At the time, I thought the idea was absurd, and I told him I found female genitals gross, too.

Since the idea of being in a relationship with any of the guys at school (or any guy) seemed boring to me, I assumed I was just less romantic or emotional than everyone else. But then I noticed these feelings I had to a girl friend of mine when I was 15. I remember thinking, "Well, that was weird." It was something crush-like. I think I tried to ignore it, but then I started to let my guard down for my "don't look at women's bodies!" mindset. Then I started having these daydreams about kissing her, being romantic with her, getting her off. Finally, the though of kissing someone seemed thrilling! Then I decided to look at the /s/ section on 4chan (because I'd somehow heard of that from somewhere), and realized I was very attracted to the women, but it took many years to overcome how much of a creep I felt like for it.

For a lot of the rest of high school, I was gradually accepting my lesbian side, and wondered how I could've suppressed these emotions for so long. I suppose a lot of it was believing that I was too feminine to be a lesbian (though I didn't think of myself as that feminine, even though I had long hair and wore makeup). I also believed most women who were into women were unattractive, so there was no point in acting on it. I remember being at a friend's house in grade 12, and we were going to get changed to go in the hot tub, and I asked if I could change in another room. Perhaps my friends believed I was insecure. In actuality, I was somewhat attracted to one of my friends there, and I was afraid of staring or being turned on. Fortunately, I had a very attractive male teacher that year, so I could make comments about him to my friends, and not worry about outing myself.

When I got to university, I actually came out to people. I had never done that before, so it took a lot of getting used to. People's reactions were usually so positive. It was a lot better than it would've been had I come out at my high school, which had no gay-straight alliance. The summer in first year, I got Tlnder (since a high school friend told me to), and was very focused on gaining sexual experience with guys. But then it occurred to me that I could make that app show me women, too. I realized guys were much easier to find, and ended up finding a guy I was interested in. After I slept with him, I completely lost interest, and started to get a crush on this woman I talked to every once in a while on the way to work. I just figured, once again, relationships weren't for me, and told the guy I couldn't be in one. He took it fine. After this, every time I've tried being with a guy, I lose interest, and then end up feeling super intensely attracted to women afterwards. And that was how I realized I must be homoromantic. When I ended up dating women, I never had that problem.

I like talking about these things, since I don't frequently get a chance to do so.

 

I was 19 when I finally accepted being gay. It took me until 17 to finally accept the fact I was "at least" bisexual. I accepted I was bisexual when I had a really big crush on a guy. The crush lasted for a year and 9 months before I finally told him my feelings. He told me he was straight and I struggled with the rejection. After getting rejected in June 2014, I slowly started realizing I never had feelings for girls in my life. It was a gradual process, but it probably took me until about June 2015 to accept the fact that I was gay.

I came out to my parents a little less than 3 weeks ago. I came out to my first friend in November 2015. Once I finally accepted being gay, I realized I didn't want to hide it from people I love for too long. The biggest thing for me was accepting myself and I've finally reached that point after denying my feelings for men for most of my teenage years.

 

I don't really think there is a certain time or date of when it happened. It was kind of a gradual thing. First anger and slowly, VERY slowly I accepted the fact that I was gay. I like being gay, but I still have my moments.

Well said!

 

I finally said the words out loud and admitted to myself 'I am gay' early in the morning on my 28th birthday. I lay in bed and cried for hours just thinking about how, now I had admitted it, I would eventually tell my friends and family and I imagined over and over in my head scenarios about them leaving me. That was 7 months ago and I have gotten to the point now where I want to tell them. I am tired of deflecting questions about why I don't have a girlfriend and why I'm not interested in relationships. I want to start meeting guys and enjoy my life. I am still very worried about how everyone is going to react but within the next few months they will know...