This keeps coming up - whenever someone 'comes out' there's all of this emphasis on how they've just shared such a "huge", "important" part of themselves. This makes no sense to me. Why is it so important? Am I missing something? I know I have issues that make me view anything consensually sexual as really dirty and wrong/something I don't deserve anyway, numb myself, (after a lot of practice) automatically avoiding social interaction, losing friends and making none... so that could be it?
Well, if you're ever going to have a same sex marriage or partnership, then you can't not come out to your spouse. Personally I don't see myself getting married any time soon, but it is very important to me that people close to me know that I like men. I don't want my parents and siblings wondering if I'm ever going to find a woman to settle down with. Best that they know I don't want any female partners. It's also important to me that my friends know I like men. I don't want them to try to set me up with some girl and asking what sort of girls I'm into, I don't want female acquaintances becoming attracted to me, and I want people in my life who I can share stories with relating to my sex life and dating experiences. I tried living in the closet, pretending to be straight, and I also tried not to be too obvious about my sex life in social situations. It's very, very tiring, trying to keep your homosexuality to yourself. And as you correctly deduced in your OP, it makes having a social life very difficult, and even undesirable. Coming out allows you to open yourself up to opportunities that you have avoided or not even considered possible in the past.
Okay, I get that. When you say it's "tiring" to keep it to yourself, do you mean that kind of 'always-tired-no-matter-what' feeling you get when you're depressed? Because that's what I have and it's never stopped. I'm asking because my sexuality isn't relevant and never really has been. I've ever acted on anything (largely because of things like age differences and the inappropriateness of it) and therefore I don't see anything really ever being acted on. So what's the point? Why is it "important"?
It's more like a boredom that physically drains you. A bit like when I was a kid and had to play football with the other boys. I hated the activity, and I was expected to work up some sort of enthusiasm for doing it and get excited about playing, when really I just wanted to be somewhere else doing something else. My social life felt a bit like that - Here I am pretending to be something I'm not. I'm not enjoying this. Can't wait until I get home and do something I want to do which doesn't involve trying to please or impress anyone else. And don't get me wrong, it is great to enjoy your own company, and I still do like to spend a lot of time on my own doing things I enjoy. If you are introverted, then that part of your life may never go away. But I do enjoy being around people now a lot more than when I was younger, and I actually do feel the need to reach out and turn to people for support and comfort and even just a bit of banter, whereas before I was just keeping all my thoughts and opinions to myself and not really getting anything off my chest, which I think lead to me having depression. If you feel that your sexuality is irrelevant, then perhaps you need to be more open about the fact that you're just not into sex, rather than what sort of sexual partners you might be into. I don't know how you respond when sexuality comes up in conversation, do you avoid the subject, or do you say things like "I don't discuss my sexuality" or "I like some girls, but I'm not really interested in dating or hooking up with anyone right now." ?
Keeping my sexuality secret for 42 years was severely mentally draining I found. I felt exhausted and unhappy. Being open about it at 43 has been incredible. But it's only a part of who I am. But I'm certainly living a better life and made new friends from LGBT community. I just got to a point one yr ago, February last year and told my wife. Now I'm living conditions my own.
Ok. What I mean is that I am socially isolated, don't have anyone to reach out to for comfort and support, can't imagine trusting anyone enough to include in a support system etc. and therefore I don't have any opportunity to bring up anything about myself. And I don't go out. It's not sexuality related, it's not knowing how to function as a person and socialise with people. The only time my sexuality has come up is if I am approached by a random guy and want them to leave me alone (and it works.) And erm, yes - I am interested in sex, but I'm slowly accepting the fact that due to everything I mentioned above, that sort of stuff just won't happen with me and I should distract myself with other stuff. So, if my life is going to be about pushing people away at a rate that is out of my control at this point, then why is sexuality such an "important" part of me?
I'm not sure how to answer that, but I will tell you little story about a guy I used to fancy (please bear with me, there is a point at the end of this). This guy never spoke about anything sexual. In some ways, I think this drew me to him - it was nice to know someone I could have normal conversations with and not have sex come up at all. And I tried hard to get to know this guy better, but it seemed impossible. Any time I sent him a text or message on social media or invited him out, I never got a reply. One time I even bumped into him at a gay pride event, but he spent the whole time hiding in the corner playing with his phone. He didn't stop to have a drink and chat with me, I didn't see him interacting with anyone else at the event. So I had to tell myself I was barking up the wrong tree with this guy and I needed to give up on any hope of getting to know him, even as a friend. It's not so much that this guy pushed me away - I kind of wish he did push me away by giving me some sort of rejection. It was more like he gave me the cold shoulder. He never acknowledged that part of his life to me. He could have said "you're a nice person, but I'm not what you're looking for" or even "thanks, but I'm not interested." So I think it's important to acknowledge your sexuality even if you don't intend to have any sexual experiences. The people in my life who I do have trusting friendships with are people who do share intimate details about their sex lives, and listen to my stories without judging me. If this guy had told me he has no interest in sex or discussing it, then I would have respected his wishes and not crossed that line and kept the friendship to just talking about things he was comfortable with. Seems he didn't want to talk about anything with me at all, because we haven't spoken in about 2 years. I don't know if this information is any help to you at all, or if you can relate to any of it, but I think how you acknowledge your sexuality can have an impact on how others perceive you and how they interact with you, whatever their orientation. I admitted to this guy that I liked him, because I already spent a big chunk of my life hiding my feelings from people and it made me unhappy, so I didn't want him to pass me by without ever letting him know that I liked him. Unfortunately, nothing came of it, and my feelings were hurt anyway, even though he didn't actually do anything malicious to me, all he really did was just keep to himself. Have you ever had a situation where a lady took a liking to you, but you did not reciprocate any desire to get to know her?
Honestly, I've always been really bad at knowing what it looks like if someone "likes" me because I always assume they wouldn't. As for the rest of it, that story does sound like someone who is very similar me.
Again, I can't offer you much advice, because you're asking why confirming your sexuality should be important to you personally, and it is your sexuality, so I can't make that decision for you. My experience as someone on the other end is that I wish the person had just given some sort of honesty. His standoffish, distant attitude caused me to wonder if I had caused some sort of offense. Maybe I did offend him without meaning to, and he never told me if that was the case. Or maybe he just found me really dull and uninteresting and not worth responding to. That's another possibility. Both aren't particularly nice scenarios, but that's all I've had to go on with my experience with this person. Most people do give me some sort of idea of why I wasn't a suitable partner or friend for them, but this person was so distant that I never found out the reason, and so all I've had to go on are negative assumptions. I do think it's good that you are questioning why people feel the need to come out and be more open about their sexuality. Hopefully you will come to a conclusion that works well for you.
