No obvious signs, or so I thought.

Yep....I'm this club as well...so many life events in years gone by that at the time I wouldn't have realised their significance. Now that I've had my epiphany, so to speak, these things pop in to my head from time to time & it's now so obvious what it all meant From the way I've felt about certain male work colleagues over the years, to kissing my male best friend at school many many years ago to being a paid up member of heterosexual dating sites & then completely ignoring them! All these years with my mindset & surroundings not allowing me to acknowledge what is now obvious. Still, it's all about the future & coming to terms with my new found sexuality..

 

I think it is only human to wonder how life would have been different if we had acknowledged our true sexuality much earlier. In my case I don't see the years of heterosexuality as lost years as I grew as person , in my career and had a beautiful daughter. It just took longer for me to catch up with my sexuality. I wouldn't go back now,but since that is not possible I prefer to concentrate on the now. My goal is to enjoy the opportunity I was granted to become the gay man I seem to have hid from all those years.

 

OMG, Moonsparkle, I think we are the same person, it's so funny! The parts I quoted above could have been written by me. The whole thinking I obsessed over girls because I wanted to "be like them" and crushing on female teachers WAY WORSE than on the male ones. And Farrah Fawcett?! OMG. The first season of Charlie's Angels in syndication really did it for me, haha. But, yeah, I was straight... sure.

When I look back, my first true love was the choral director in high school when I was 17. I got involved in the choir in senior year, and right away became absolutely INSEPARABLE from the director. She was 25 and cute cute cute. Never EVER did I think about being gay or wanting her or having a "crush". I just couldn't be apart from her, that was all. I spent every spare moment in the choir room, helped her out in any way possible, including running some rehearsals (since I'm a pianist), and she really liked me too in a kid sister kind of way. She let me use her car to get us lunch and bring it back, etc. Her dad was a preacher, and she started taking me to church on Sundays. I was an atheist, but I went because she wanted me to. Our families were from the same country, and we spoke Spanish to one another. She had a few pet names for me that made me melt. After I graduated high school, I used to go back and visit her all the time. I spent many weekends home from college at her house because I didn't want to go anywhere else! I could have spent those weekends with my older brother or older sister but no way. I was so super attached. And now looking back, I realize that I even had the physical attraction part to her, but I never let myself interpret the things that were happening that way. I just COULD NOT SEE IT even though I was acting in very STRANGE ways. I even convinced myself that I was in love with her brother though that was completely ridiculous. Ha.

 

Rjay for sure we are members of the 'I JUST COULDN'T SEE IT,' club, and GOLD STAR members at that!

It is amazing here how many of us just didn't get what was going on with us when we were younger. If I had never found EC I am sure I just would have assumed that I was the ONLY one in the world who only put this all together in my mid forties. Beyond happy I joined to know that I'm not alone in having this glaring bright late in life lightbulb moment!

The convincing yourself you were in love with the choral directors brother is so funny. But along the music instructors line, my choral and band director in Junior High were lesbians in a relationship with each other, which they were not really out about but was known and crystal clear. It's not so much I was into either one of them, but I was interested and intrigued with their relationship. I watched closely how they interacted with one another with some sort of odd fascination. I would visit them in the choir room during free periods sometimes....

The Charlies Angels fascination...all those beautiful strong women running around catching the bad guy. I bet lots of us at this age found that on our favorite show list! 'Cagney and Lacey' was another one--with the blonde...strong, beautiful, cool- loved her tell-it-like-it-is attitude. Funny too bc its not like I was all into detective shows, but I was sure into those two! And don't even get me started on 'Bionic Woman'--but of course I just wanted to be, 'like these women...' Hahahahahahahahahaha!

 

How true. Exactly how I feel. I feel glad to give expression to my feelings, emotions, all that I could not say earlier and now I am bursting to say out loud on EC.

Big thanks to the EC community.

 

Yes. Christine Cagney and Mary-Bette Lacey. I used to stay up and watch Cagney and Lacey with my Dad. I was so into watching that and he loved the show too. Retrospectively I can see we were both mesmerised by that strong female duo...

Other early signs of not being like the straight girls - liking films with Julia Roberts in - such as Pretty Woman, and loving the album cover of Neneh Cherry's "Raw Like Sushi", as well as the songs on it (so much so that one of my school folders was decorated with a poster of it and I emulated her medallion and dungarees look for a while - despite me being as white as people come). Also, feeling curiously magnetised to look at the poster of the scantily clad in yellow Sinitta that I had torn out of a magazine and given my brother, but thinking I wasn't supposed to look at it too much - but then again I was only admiring her toned brown figure - wasn't I?

 

Speaking of TV shows, I remember being mesmerized as a child by Catwoman (played by Julie Newmar) on the campy "Batman" TV show. I didn't want to sleep with her. (At that age, I didn't want to sleep with anyone.) But I wanted to submit to her. Strong women have always made me melt. Yet I'm attracted to male bodies in a whole 'nother way....