Do any of you have advice for some people in the community? For me, I'm a bisexual guy in highschool who is pretty much cemented in the closet. Any advice on how to be myself while being in the closet? (I realize that question doesn't really make sense )
It does make sense. I would work on learning to love and accept yourself. I know it sounds cheesy but that is truly the first step. I was in the closet last year at age 29. I thought out of the many issues I had at the time, my sexuality was at the bottom of the list. However, It was the root issue for everything. Once I fully accepted myself, all my other issues became infinitely easier to overcome and I was able to be the person I always wanted to be. I have made more rapid progress in the last year vs the last 29 yrs combined. All it took was accepting myself and falling in love with the person I will become.
Hey I am sort of in the same position I’m just trying to figure out who I am and what I am or what I want. My school isn’t the best place to be open about pretty much anything other than what they consider the standard straight population. It’s a constant struggle and you need to find some friends that you can be yourself with to survive at least that is what I discovered that works for me. Have one or two people to confide in I feel much better when I am around them and they have given me a lot of strength. Sounds silly I know but it works. If you ever wanna chat let me know. Good luck.
Hey man, sorry to bother you, but I could really use some advice. I just saw that you had replied and I just wanted to reach out to you because your info just really stuck out to me. I know you already given me advice on my original post, (which I really appreciated btw) but I just wanted to ask you another thing. I am literally half your age living in Arkansas, which is what made you stand out to me, as you're an older guy (no offense) and you're also gay. Enough rambling, my question is how do you deal with things like homophobia in a place like where you live. I have no one to talk to about stuff like sexuality without them trying to change me, so I just want advice on how you have dealt with things like homophobia (I also unfortunately have to deal with bi-erasure too lol). Part of me thinks that I should just bottle it up. I'm not in a relationship right now, but part of me thinks I should just get with a girl and never tell her that I also like guys. I know that's probably not healthy at all, but it's kind of the position I'm in rn. Again sorry to bother you, but I can't talk to anyone older about this so I would really appreciate if you wrote back. Thanks! <3
BiBoBi.....I'm sure that Chillton will get back to you, but I thought I'd say something too. First off all of us "older guys" will tell you that you have plenty of time and not to get in a hurry! Unfortunately male sexual urges (that's you) tend to be at their peak from about 15-25. You are starting into that part of your life and that makes waiting difficult. What I have noticed watching a lot of gay/bi youtube relationships (if you want to take them for real ?? ) is that first relationships, especially in LGBTQ couples rarely last. They don't often last in straight couples, but I think the odds are a bit worse for us. Being alone is not fun when you want so much to have someone to be with, but being with the wrong person is really terrible. I guess the best I can say is not to jump too quick to be with a girl just because you can't find a guy. That may turn out to be a decision that can turn into being a father and in a marriage that you don't want way sooner that you want. Just please be careful! .....David
No bother. We're all here to help, and because we all like the community here. I used to see a guy who went on trips all the time to visit Arkansas. He went to concerts, explored the cities, and all the national parks. He said it's kind of a peculiar, but cool state. Half of the areas there were either super LGBT friendly or super homophobic. It just depends, and you have to know where to go. I want to visit all the Badass caves in Arkansas. Currently Texas is a bit more LGBT accepting in comparison from what I gather. Some of my experiences are very intense, so my advice isn't for everyone. I first tried to come out in college as Bisexual and experienced a lot homophobia and gay bashing, even from the gay community to. At first it really messed me up, and I decided to walk away and I was ashamed of myself. However, it escalated to psychical violence, assault, and people taunting me to end my life. My life was threatened and I was forced to fight and defend myself. After I put everybody in their place they thought twice before messing with me and left me alone and I kept to myself. Standing up for myself gave me the confidence I never knew I had. I realized confidence is everything, and later truly accepting yourself is just as important. In many ways homophobia is basically just bullying or prejudice. The best way to stand up to bullies is to be indifferent and show them their BS will not shake you and you're not to be trifled with. Once you build up that confidence and you believe in who you are, then you'll find out most of the time that the only thing holding you back is yourself. I know all that may not click with you right now. If somebody told that to my 15yr self, I would've said they were full of crap. So there are some ways to build your confidence, and you have to be in a long-term mindset. Discover and set future goals you can work towards. Take steps to achieve your dream body any way you can. Start projects and constantly work on improving your skills. Find some hobbies or activities and get good at them and enjoy doing it. Keep picking up every bit of useful knowledge and skills you can. Research and go to places you like, whether it be a simple shop, park, or activity. Keep exploring and seeking everything in life, even socially. Talk to anyone who wants to, even if it's boring. It will give you confidence and it's up to you to steer the direction of the conversation to make it more exciting. push your limits and keep achieving higher ones. Start depending on yourself mostly, and stop waiting on adults, teachers, friends, and people to do the right thing. If there is a problem you fix it and know when to walk away. Seek the life you want and not what other people tell you to do. Don't apologize- just do better next time. Maximize the most out of your day and don't wait for it to end, you should never be bored. Biphobia and Bi-erasure for men is definitely real unfortunately. Women experience this also but not as much as men do. Many Bisexual women are turned off by Bisexual men to. I'm not sure as to how much, but it is for sure a noticeable occurrence. Whenever it came up that I identified as Bi around women, they were either disgusted or at the very least slightly adverse to the revelation. However, when I later identified as gay, women praised me nonstop or were unphased. It is what it is. I understand wanting to bottle it up and keep to yourself, but that solution is temporary in my experience and observations. It just imposing a limitation on your potential and capabilities. Do what you got to do to survive, but just know you may not be able to keep it secret forever. I Bottled up everything just until last year until my breaking point, and my extreme progress this year scares me sometimes when I look back. I don't even recognize myself in the mirror anymore. Not that it's a bad thing. Life is just dramatically different now. There is no rush to get into a relationship right now. You're young but you only live once to lol. But if I were you I would primarily start flirting and going on dates with girls and feel out the dating scene first. Only because that's the norm and it will be less stressful. In the mean time you can apply that experience to yourself and slowly start building confidence, accepting yourself, and figuring out your personal dynamics of your sexuality. baby steps and all that. In my Honest opinion, for now it's ok not to reveal your hand that your Bisexual to girls. However, if you have had a gay relationship or sex eventually one day, than they deserve the to know the truth before you start officially dating. Even if they turn out to be homophobic. Trust me, I have seen blow up in other guys faces and it wasn't pretty. Other people may disagree and i'm welcome to criticism. You also may discover your primarily attracted to girls and there may be little need to acknowledge your attraction to men. You'll just have to feel it out and discover it for yourself.
Omg, thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me! Unfortunately, I live in a very homophobia-dense area of Arkansas but this has given me a whole new outlook on how to tackle these big and small problems. This is the one time I'll listen to a stranger on the internet lol. Seriously tho, thank you for helping me on my personal journey! <3
The way I see this, the change from bisexual to gay took you out of their potential dating pool, so they immediately changed how they saw you. They were no longer judging you as a potential partner, but as a potential friend.
Ditto @Chillton, i think he gave you some excellent input. i also think your question is great and shows insight. Though being "in the closet" is typically a reference to LGBQT+ people, the truth is most people have closets where they hide a part of their self. Finding or being a person who is both self aware and open is a rare find indeed. As i see it, self discovery/awareness is the essence of living. Being open (i.e. "out") about who and how we are requires self knowledge first, then we need to learn how to articulate who and how we are. Communication. The fact that you are asking a question like this at the point of your life means you have already set your foot on that life long path, which is remarkable and significant to my way of thinking. i think part of learning who and how you are is learning how to look and listen, both to your self and others. We come up with labels like "gay" or "Bi" as a means to communicate who and how we are, but it can be easy to get things reversed and those labels can become a type of closet of their own. For instance, if we call our self "Bi," and even more if we tell someone we are "Bi," then we can feel corralled into a sort of obligation to now be and act like our idea and others idea of being "Bi." So instead of using a word to try and convey where we are at any given moment, the word becomes a sort of standard we feel obligated to live up to. That's not to say that labels are not useful or important, i just think it's important to use those labels to serve us and communication, not the other way around, where we find our self serving the label. Hope that makes sense? It takes time and experience to learn who and how we are. Thankfully, some things in life are more constant than others. For me, my sexuality has stayed pretty constant my whole life, so the label "gay" has worked for me. But what it means for me to be gay is very individual. So, while you may feel most comfortable with a particular label, like "gay" or "bi," i think it's more important to learn to understand and define what that means to you individually, not as just a generic member of a group. Because you are more than gay or bi and all your other parts shade and affect that part of you.
i'm up way too early, but my brain is now engaged and won't let me go back to sleep (rolls eyes at self). Another way it helps me to look at this is the analogy we use: "closets." When i think about it, a closet is just a room within a room within a house. It's a place were we keep stuff we don't want on display. Random strangers walking by our house see the outside, but they have no idea what's inside. Then we may have friends or distant relatives that see the rooms when they come over for dinner, but not the closets.. (except the nosey aunt or uncle who looks in the medicine cabinet while visiting the bathroom). The only people who see and know what's in the closets are usually the people we are most intimate with, and even then, we may have stuff tucked away in a shoe box or lock box, hidden in a dark corner we hope they won't find. Where the analogy of closets runs into problems when it comes to our sexuality is, that's a part of us that is connected to finding intimate mates, so it becomes important that people know as part of being able to find intimacy. Straights don't have to worry, or even think about that, because "straight" is the presumed setting unless told otherwise. I.e., everyone just assumes everyone is straight, and most of our social structure is set up with those assumptions. No one has to come out of the closet when it comes to being straight, because in heteronormative society, you're automatically presumed to be straight, and treated that way your whole life unless you change that perception. No one gets threatened or belittled for being straight. No one is told they are going to go to hell for being straight... and on it goes. So much of the advantage of being straight is not even conscious. If one is different, not straight, and wants intimacy, one has to decide how to make that known. Some are out and proud, they have a rainbow flag on their "house," vs storing it in their closet. Others live their life more privately and keep their sexuality in a room where friends and family know about it. Others still live with their sexuality still hidden in that lock box in the dark corner of their bedroom closet, where only they know it exists.
Hey dude, I was just looking at your profile and saw you had commented on here and I missed it lol. I would actually love to talk, pretty sure we're the same age too! Message me back if you want! <3
Yes absolutely I’d like to talk. Once you have 10 posts we can chat in a more personal way rather than in a thread.
Also, I created this thread as advice for myself, but I would love if other people would come in and get the help they need if they want. <3