I'm in a really interesting situation, because I know for sure that I'm gay, but not a single person knows. Being in an urban area (but still in the deep south), my school has a good amount of gay people, but most of them (from my experience) are very weird and not people I would hang out with. As for my friends and everyone else, they like to make fun of LGBT people and call people gay for something that literally has nothing to do with sexual orientation. I watch it happen, though I never join in. Because if I do, guess what they call me. I know the easy answer: stand up for them, shame the people making fun of them. It's not that simple. I don't know how to do that without coming across as being gay. I'm not at all saying it's bad to be gay. But I'm not ready and I don't know if that's the right course for me at this moment. I also feel a lot of pressure to date girls from my friends and other people. I have never dated to this point, and I'm going into sophomore year. It's not that I'm extremely socially awkward, I have plenty of friends, but I know that deep down I have no desire to date a girl, but I'm not even close to being ready to come out. So here I am in this awkward situation where I feel the need to date a girl just so I don't miss out on the whole experience of dating in High School. I'm sick of seeing my friends dating people and feeling like the third wheel everywhere I go.
Generalizing, between male friends, they like to call each other names, insult each other in a playful way, and even call gay themselves. I have male friends that are like this, and even I sometimes I like to insult them in a playful way, because they are always teasing me. But this happens because we are close enough to do that, and we know are boundaries when doing these kind of social interactions. I don't know if this is the case of your situation. But I think your doing ok by avoiding joining in those situations if you feel uncomfortable. Now the main topic comes in. I think that you have to deal with it in some way. In my case, when I feel that kind of pressure, I simply avoid following that conversation, change topics, ignore it or respond to them, like "I will get a girlfriend when I want to (which will never happen for obvious reasons xD)". In my opinion, you shouldn't do what you don't want to do because of these social pressures. Just continue being yourself and do the things that you want to do, and that's it. It's your life. Cheers
For the teasing and name calling, just know that they don't mean any real harm. I would assume that they're somewhat uncomfortable with homosexuality deep down and it just surfaces through ignorant comments. I can actually relate to your situation on a personal level because several or my friends were exactly like yours. For the sake of belonging to the liberal upper class they'd support things like gay marriage but still say stuff like "the gays can do whatever they want as long as they don't come near me". I also felt the urge to call them out for their latent homophobia because even though they always insulted someone else and not me (some feminine guy for example), I could still feel the aggression directed towards my sexuality. But it's not going to work, trust me. You'll just become the uptight guy without a sense of humour or like you said, worse (since you're still closeted); the gay guy. If you want to make a difference, I'd suggest you simply don't participate in anything you find offensive. It's tough but your friends will get used to it. I made it a point to not partake in not only homophobic but also sexist jokes that my friends made because slang in their native and my second language frankly makes English sound sweet. And while they didn't stop saying all that crap in front of me, they did stop expecting me to chip in. It'll make you feel good about yourself. As for the dating, don't do it. It's not going to work and you'll probably be scamming an innocent girl. I got my first and only girlfriend in Class 10 which would be Sophomore year in the US and it was a pointless experience. Thankfully she didn't like me either and only asked me out because some girl she hated apparently had a thing for me. I was pretty sure I was gay back then and I agreed only to put an end to any rumours about me. We did pretty much everything that couples do till third base but after that I flat out refused to sleep with her and confessed to everything. Then she confessed too and we basically plotted a clean breakup to fool our friends. And there's nothing to miss. Fake dating is dry and pretty draining too. It won't decrease the pressure, only increase it. Your friends will keep bugging you for details of your 'progress' and trust me, it's way easier pretending to be straight as single man than it is while dating. Think of it as saving your time and energy for someone you actually want to be with.
