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Admiration for guys = gay or something else?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by mnguy, Mar 31, 2017.

  1. mnguy

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    Recently I started wondering if the admiration for and wanting to be friends with certain guys was just that, needing friends, and what if I confused that with being gay? I thought of this while looking back at my experiences and wondering if people I know may see it that way about me when I come out to them.
    Is there any psychological evidence for that anyone knows of? After concluding I might be gay I looked back at those guys as crushes, proof of being gay, but what if it was actually proof of needing friends, to feel included, and never got at the right developmental time? Perhaps if I had normal social development and bonds with male friends as a kid I wouldn't have idolized certain guys the way I did. I'm pretty sure my eyes and brain knew what I liked before I did and I've always been gay, but I wanted to bounce it off you all.
    I dunno, whatever it was, all I know now is that I can't imagine I'd get the same warm, satisfied feeling cuddling with a woman as I would with a man so I guess that's where I am now. Please share your thoughts and if you've considered this, if you know of a psychological explanation or is this some junk science from one of the anti-gay groups I picked up along the way. Thanks!
     
  2. OnTheHighway

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    Sounds like you still might be bargaining with yourself and may be second guessing your original conclusions from being gay. I can not recall your specific journey, but have you had any sexual or romantic relations with a guy at this point?
     
  3. quebec

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    mnguy....It looks like you have been on EC a lot longer than I have, so I kinda hesitate to be giving "advice" to you. But I did recently go through something similar to what you are taking about, although not really the same. Maybe it will help...
    I began to wonder (just a little) if all this "being gay" was just in my head...HAHA... of course it's "In My Head". Anyway, I started going through every memory I have of anything that even comes close to a sexual experience from my childhood to present. I wanted to see if anything that had happened to me or that I had done might have influenced me..."caused" me to be gay. I spent several days really being thorough with everything I could remember, tearing each occurrence apart and really looking very close. My final conclusion was that nothing that had happen to me could have caused me to be gay, that this is how I always was, even when I hadn't realized it yet. Don't know if that helps, but it seems that it is something like what you are going through....David
     
  4. mnguy

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    I have not, but it sounds great. As I tried to explain, I was wondering if people I know may see it that way about me if I explain that part of my experience and if anyone has heard of a psychological theory along those lines. Maybe I read it somewhere and it popped back into my conscience. I'm gay for whatever reason. Was just trying to have a convo, if anyone had thought such a thing, etc. Another post on here about memories got me thinking about it too. Probably crazy and shouldn't have posted it, oh well.
     
  5. SiennaFire

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    I admired guys in high school who had girlfriends. Now that I'm out, I realized that I really had a crush on the guy and morphed this into admiration through a complicated psychological process driven by internal homophobia and the desire to be "normal".

    People's sexual orientations are determined either at birth or very early in life, so it's unlikely that not bonding in childhood caused you to be gay.

    It sounds like you may have lingering shame and internalized homophobia that's preventing you from moving forward?
     
  6. smurf

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    Not crazy at all. Maybe 30 years ago, there was a lot of bad science when it came to the psychology of sexuality.

    One of the strong theories, thanks to the crap that is Freud, was that an absent father and overbearing mother could make a man gay. Most of Freud theories have been disproved by various psychologists since he started it all.

    The thing is that it just doesn't work this way. Straight guys that are raised by single mothers and have no male friends are still straight. If single mothers and no male friends made people gay, then we would be having WAY more gay people around than we do now.

    Straight guys feel admiration for other guys all the time. Its a feeling that is not easy to confuse with attraction. It sounds like you might be just struggling wit hit all
     
  7. justaguyinsf

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    The struggle to find the right category with which to label yourself ... something I don't understand.
     
  8. quebec

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    Labeling yourself is ok for some...not so much for others....decide for yourself.....David
     
  9. justaguyinsf

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    That's true, but sometimes the search for the right label seems to result in chasing one's own tail.
     
  10. quebec

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    That is unfortunately so true. Some people just don't find the need for an "exact" label...they are who they are. My case is different. I hid in the closet for over 55 terrible years. Now that I have finally accepted myself it gives me tremendous satisfaction to have the label "Gay". I will say out loud "I Am Gay" and then a huge smile lights up my face and I feel so good...because I finally feel like I belong...I am not an orphan any more! So for me it is a really important thing but I have friends who not only don't care, they really prefer not to be labeled....To each his own....David
     
  11. OED27x

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    Mnguy, it is absolutely not crazy to post that or to wonder how or why you have feelings for guys. But I do think sometimes we try to rationalize our feelings.
    by the way Mn is a lovely state. Way to cold for my liking but I love how y'all have heat lamps all over and the skywalks. Enjoyed a Twins game there last year.
     
  12. SiennaFire

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    We're confounding two concepts - (1) understanding one's sexuality and (2) labeling it.

    A label is a tool that you can use or not use. One doesn't have to pick a label if one doesn't feel ready to do so. A label is a tool, much like a computer or hammer, that allows one to convey quickly their sexual orientation and guide their behavior as quebec points out.

    Punting on understanding one's sexuality seems like a cop out to me - just a way to kick the can down the road and avoid asking oneself the hard questions required to gain clarity. Reducing confusion about one's sexual orientation increases clarity.

    It seems to me the OP is trying to reduce confusion and increase clarity, which is a good thing in my book. If this helps him feel better about his chosen label, even better.
     
    #12 SiennaFire, Apr 2, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2017
  13. Questionsabound

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    mnguy: I don't think your original question is strange at all. I think about this all the time, but I am also still struggling with figuring out who I am, all while in the context of being married. I didn't have a great relationship with my dad and felt that I missed out on being taught a lot of "guy" things, like sports, etc., which causes me to this day to feel awkward around other men. But I also think there is something biological and that I have had same sex attractions since childhood. At the same time, I don't look at men romantically and have a very difficult time wanting to leave my loving wife because I don't think I will get that type of love with a man. I know I would probably learn to develop this side of me but for right now it's not how I feel.
     
  14. justaguyinsf

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    My opinion of the label "gay" is that it was invented 50 or so years ago primarily for political purposes, and today it carries with it tons of baggage and assumptions about culture, politics, lifestyle, and so forth. It's also inaccurate in promoting the false idea that people are either one thing or another. That's why I prefer the term homosexual over gay ... it to-the-point and clear and doesn't lead to hand-wringing "am I" questions because it doesn't imply all of the other stuff that gay does.
     
  15. mnguy

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    Ok, a little clarification again. I know I'm gay and it's something intrinsic about me as much as being right handed is.

    I'm sorry, I did say "I" in the OP, but it was meant to be in context of other people's view of me and as a hypothetical. I'm misunderstood IRL too so it must be me. The thought was could a socially isolated boy be confused by wanting to be friends with and admiring certain guys and come to the wrong conclusion that he was gay because of that longing for male friends and not yet understanding or having an accurate definition of sexuality?

    Kids sometimes come to odd conclusions based on bits of information here and there, taken out of context, thinking one situation applies to others, but may be totally unrelated. Again, this isn't what I believe about me or about actually being gay. If that happened to a guy I assume he'd realize he was straight when he started getting aroused by women and not by men.

    For me the type of guys that I liked was because I was gay, even though I didn't know that at the time. They were guys I thought were cute, I liked how they dressed, their charisma, talent, humor, kindness, whatever combination it was, I liked them.
     
  16. OnTheHighway

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    Looking back, I can distinctly remember being attracted to certain guys (dreaming about them, fantasizing about them, definitely a romantic attraction), and separately admiring other guys that I looked up to and wanted to be friends with. The ones I sexually or romantically fantasized about reflected my sexuality; the ones that I admired or looked up to had certain personality characteristics that I did not posses but which I longed for.

    For me, I am able to look back now and distinguish between the distinct feelings. Back then, however, my feelings were probably more ambiguous and I am not so sure I understood them.
     
    #16 OnTheHighway, Apr 3, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2017