Not hiding anything, but something's still missing... WARNING: Long OP

So this is the thread I mentioned I'd be making in the "Masculine gay guys" thread. And if it's in the wrong spot (if it should be in support or somewhere else), then please move it. In this thread, I AM going to mention things I've never even mentioned to family. That's mostly to get a good idea of what I'm talking about as well as to give sufficient detail of what I'm saying and where it's coming from.

I see I can make spoilers for this, so each part will have its own.

Spoiler

To start this off, I know I'm not one to go to extremes unless extreme situations are in play. Even then, I try my best to stay out of extremes. I know my energy level isn't that of my 4-year-old sister who somehow has the energy to light up LA, Chicago, New York (the entire state), DC and run all of the Amtrak and London Underground systems simultaneously. I know this because I know there are things she's done I've even been told I didn't do even when I was younger than her. Even growing up, I've met people who have about that much energy. And while I admit I still didn't have that much energy, it seemed like year by year, I was hiding something. Although I wasn't trying to, it seemed like there was a part of myself that wasn't really myself the next year.

Spoiler

Now a few of you know this part, and a few of you don't. When I was in about 4th grade, a thought came to me. A thought that really had me for whatever 10 seconds it did. That thought was,

"What if I'm not really a boy?"

Because there were a lot of things that boys did that I didn't do, and things that I did that boys didn't do. Boys were heavily involved with sports. Much more than I ever could be. I also watched the Powerpuff girls. Yes, it was a show with fighting in it, but my favorite character was Bubbles, mostly because she was the one I related to the most. I now relate to Buttercup the most, but not just because she's a big fighter. I also played with girly toys. I had a baby doll with accessories, clothes, etc. And although I had no idea how to parent the thing, I had fun playing with it. I loved playing dress-up, even with high-heels and necklaces, bracelets, etc. I'm sure I've even worn fake skirts by that point. It also seemed to me that boys were much rougher and had more of a passion for it. They liked fighting for whatever reason. Even with their own friends, it seemed like it was some tradition they were trying to uphold. Or that it was something that was necessary. I never saw that mindset, at least entirely in my head. I was always much more for peace and love. Seriously, I never got who would like to be punched in the face. That thought horrified me. And it seemed like only girls had that same thought.

But once I started thinking "What if I'm really a girl?" that thought got dismissed almost immediately for a couple reasons. The first one was my cluelessness on the difference between sex and gender. I mean, I saw the two words on forms. OFFICIAL forms. They must have been one and the same. I had a penis, so that meant I was a boy. But there was still a psychological aspect of it, as well. I did like competition. I did like sports. I loved baseball. Going to White Sox games was fun. Sports were always the best when I was playing them. I loved games in general, but still. Playing sports was really fun, and in certain situations, I could get about as competitive as the other guys. I also loved pokemon, and not just Jigglypuff. I loved almost every video game that got put out on the market that I could get my hands on.

I think I had the first thought for this main reason: I was the only boy who regularly talked to girls, or at least groups of girls. And not because I thought they were pretty, but I thought they were good friends. And they were. So there was definitely something different about me, something that seemed somewhat shunned. Nobody told me that hanging out with girls was a bad thing, but it seemed that girls segregated themselves with other girls, and boys segregated themselves with other boys. I'm not trying to say I was better than anyone else or that I was somewhat more special than they were, nor am I trying to take a hipster-like point-of-view. What I'm saying here is that whenever I stepped back for a moment about it, it seemed like there was either something that everyone else had in their subconscious that I didn't, or there was something in my subconscious that they didn't, or a mix of both. I knew I was different than everyone else because I was usually the shortest and that I had a rare liver disease, but until then, I didn't think I'd socially be different. But it somehow seemed that was the case, and I couldn't really put my finger on what it was.

So I gathered all those thoughts, and came up with this: "If there's some true way that this is possible, then I'm probably something in the middle of those two" But still dismissed it and put it in the way back of my mind until it wouldn't be found until I took the COGIATI almost 10 years later.

In the meantime, I sought to gain new friends. And to try and get as many friends as possible to show that I'm not really a hateful person and that I really don't discriminate.

Which ironically took an interesting route.

Spoiler

In 7th grade, I met a friend. Well, he was at that time. Kind of. He seemed to be shunned by everyone else, and I knew I'd had my share of that. So when we found a few things in common with each other, one of them being geekiness, I decided I was going to be his friend no matter what. But people kept telling me not to be his friend. Yes, he liked fart jokes. I knew there was a good reason to like fart jokes. Yes, he didn't seem entirely like everyone else. So what? What if he did like playing World of Warcraft all weekend long? I'll still deliver him his homework from school. It was easy, and I had time. The only reason I didn't play with him was because my parents kept telling me I couldn't. Not because of censorship reasons, but because I simply wasn't the most responsible person to juggle that and homework. Soon enough, we had a 3rd member of our group. And our bond pretty much stayed strong throughout Junior High.

Now in Junior High, well actually 6th grade, I remembered from 5th grade that I liked acting. It was fun. So I did it in 6th grade and got double-casted (with someone who's basically the more masculine version of myself and liked to gloat about that) as the Scarecrow in our version of The Wizard of Oz. That was a lot of fun, too. And I then played the part of the Silent King in the Junior High production of "Once upon a Mattress" in 7th grade, and the Modern Major General in 8th grade. The last one took a mark on me. Yes, it was one of people's favorite parts. However, it seemed like I was casted (and I was just about told this) because I knew the song. It was easy casting. I then lost just about all passion for acting.

So after awhile of thinking, I got curious on what really was popular, and why most people thought the way they did (biggest mistake of my life).

Spoiler

Now before I get into this, I'm going to point out that I had a high voice. An abnormally high voice for a boy. The only other boy with a voice higher than mine was the other person in the group of 3 I was in until High School. So my main worry was that once I would hit High School, I'd be bullied to ad-nauseum because of it. And boy, was I right.

Actually, before I hit High school, I kind of "changed" my voice into more of a croak so that people couldn't hear that I had a high voice. It ended up being more annoying than anything else, since I'd say something and people couldn't hear the loudest thing that could escape my lips. But I saw that every male who didn't have a low voice and wasn't in sports was bullied because of it. Facial hair? Nah. Don't worry about it. Not tall? Hell, Frank isn't tall. And he looks like (and sounds like) a gorilla. But if you don't have that Morgan Freeman voice, you better expect some torture.

Sadly, I have to admit I played a small role in that. In Freshman year, I made more homophobic remarks than Fred Phelps might have in a decade, and I've even contributed to the voice thing. Hey, it wasn't "man enough". I had a penis, I had to be a man... whatever that meant. Apparently, it didn't mean that you could have a voice higher than 250 Hz. It also meant TITS, TITS, AND MOAR TITS. Or GTFO. Why? I had no fucking clue. But those were standards. And society definitely had them. Also, being a man meant Bigger, stronger, faster. In everything. So I ended up about halfway through Freshman year with this mindset.

Spoiler

There was also one time where, for some unknown reason, everyone in Choir would go and beat on this kid. It wasn't anything serious. We didn't punch his face in or make him bleed. Maybe give him noogies or something. The kid was taller than me, btw. He was actually taller than a good amount of people in the class. And yes, I was a part of that. He never claimed to be hurt, and he really was an arrogant jerk a good amount of the time. So I think some of us thought he deserved it, or that it really was worth it. And he kept saying it didn't really hurt (he was one of those people that kept trying to be "manlier" and he still is). But the whole thing did a 180 when the two people who would usually be the most innocent on most other occasions were called out. One for starting another gang-up and another for giving the "hardest blow" (No. Stop. That didn't happen. Do NOT put a banana in that post when you quote this). The choir teacher (who isn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination) thought I punched him in the back, when what I really did was a 5-star.

For those who don't know what that is, it's a move where you spread your hand out all the way out and slam the middle of someone's back. It doesn't hurt as much as it looks. It really doesn't. I think I've been in conversations with the kid where we both agreed that move didn't truly hurt, so I made a move that LOOKED like I was being a badass, when I really wasn't. In either case, the two of us were called down to the Dean's office and told by the officer (a very respectable guy in any case) that if we did something like that again, we'd be arrested for battery.

So after a good, logical lecture from the teacher on why we don't do those kinds of things, even when someone does deserve it (he has gotten picked on a great deal of times by the teacher), the other "criminal" and I decided we wouldn't do those kinds of things again.

Spoiler

However, that didn't mean the mindset was gone. After voice retraining and finding out that my voice wasn't really as high as I thought it was and that it truly had finally deepened (I was elated at this. Not for the reasons you might think, but for reasons that will be stated later), Sophomore year was embarked. And that was probably the most interesting year I'll ever have in my life.

Sophomore year was something I love and despise at the same time. I was still "in society", whatever that meant, I still tried getting the same friends I couldn't in the previous year, and I still had the "Male" mindset. Although I still though it fake. Which it was. But Sophomore year was interesting because I went for a group I normally wouldn't: The stoners/metalheads. I seemed to condemn this group because of reasons I was sure society had instilled upon me: That they all were low-life nobodies that worshipped the devil and loved eating babies and wanted nothing to do with you than punch your skull in. I thought this was something that was wrong, something that wasn't entirely true. I mean, how could a group that large have members that thought the exact same or did the exact same things? And how did I know that they really weren't just everyday people that were misunderstood? I mean, I'd been that. How could they really be that different?

I ended up with 2 close friends from both that group, 2 people who were almost polar opposites. I didn't know this until later in that year, but I still met them. One was very annoying at first considering he'd never stop talking to me (granted there was nobody else that would talk to him, and I was being tsundere about it), and another that was.. um.. a bit nuts. This person was more like Keith Moon. The stereotypical Keith Moon. He was the kind that would blow up toilets, skip school to smoke weed, draw penises on the wall, the whole shebang. Without getting expelled, at least. However, for some odd reason, he was in choir. I never understood why, but I never actually asked the question. He seemed to like singing whenever he was singing, so I never got on his case about it. The first was a bit special as well, but not in the "blow up your wife" kind of thing. He'd fuck her, yes. He was certain about that. But he took a direction that both surprised me and elated me at the same time: He turned out to be a brony. An obsessive brony. Granted, he was obsessive about anything he touched. But still, I got into this group. Meeting actual stoners, they actually were nice. Especially when they were high. I got high as well, and we all had a good time when we were high. From that point on, I knew that when people said they were having a good time when they were high, it was genuine and not something society forced on their brains. But still, there were the shady types. I learned that the hard way. But through all of this, and having them as friends, I got into habits that were pretty sexist. Although all I ever really did was make sexist jokes. And that's what ended up biting me in the ass.

Spoiler

A friend who was sitting next to me sang a small parody of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and put my last name in place of "Grinch". It was a joke. But someone who I thought was a friend of mine turned around and said "Yeah, he really is mean" We then discussed about this afterwards. My friend was still in his joking attitude while I was being completely serious. I got into this group because I was trying NOT to be mean, and that I was trying to show that I really wasn't a hateful person. And yet, through it all, I still was seen as mean and sexist through some people's eyes. It took me about the rest of my High School career to gain the trust of one person I deeply shared opinions with just so I could be friends with her. But at that moment, I realized I was not in the right group of people. I wasn't a metalhead for one, and I wasn't a total stoner, either.

I had to get back on track of who I really was.

Which was why I wanted to be friends with that girl. It was to show that my views really aren't sexist, and that I was just playing along, and that I'm really looking to be myself. But being with that group didn't seem "right". Although the people were actually fine, I didn't seem to actually, truly fit that mentality. It seemed to follow the "straight male" stereotype that most of society wanted everyone to play, and I clearly didn't identify with it. For some reason. I still had a penis though, so that must have meant that I was a guy.

Spoiler

But it took another friend to find who I really, truly am. A friend who was friends with.. the friend I wasn't friends with anymore. The "friend" I had in Junior High that kept lying to my face about everything and nearly got me to commit identity theft. The "friend" that claimed that he wouldn't be friends with me just because I wouldn't sit with him on the bus anymore. I knew there was something about her that I could relate to, but I didn't know what. We must have had something in common, because both of us at this point had innocently and naively made friends with this "friend". Thankfully it took her less than 3 years to figure out that this person wasn't a "friend" and actually made friends with the "criminal" stated earlier on.

It wasn't until my Junior year that I actually talked to her and got to know her. It turned out that she was transgender (bigender) and pansexual. She told me the basic things about being LGBT and the truth about what it all meant. That gender isn't the same as sex, and that it's sex that's the physical part of it, and most importantly, she showed me that being yourself, your true self, is something that will make you a much happier person than anyone else. She didn't tell me how to do it, but she seemed in a much better position than anyone else around her. She'd show up one day in a yellow dress, and another day in something very army-like. The only time I saw her unhappy was when the relationship between her and the "criminal" was waning.

Through her and a few other friends (mostly online), I slowly accepted myself as someone who is more feminine than the average male, but not entirely so much to be "100% girly", a total bottom and what most people might call "cute". Someone that doesn't fit society's standards, and not just as a geek.

But even through college, even through all the art I do, through displaying things on my walls, my backgrounds, even my t-shirts, I still feel like I'm not entirely myself. There are still too many moments where I'll expect myself to be pretty feminine, but I just have a straight face or some other more masculine expression. Basically, I'll have a reaction in my head, but the reaction on my face or my body expression doesn't match it at all. And it's something that I've noticed more and more often, now. While it's not the biggest problem ever, it's still something that I want to get rid of. Keep in mind that this isn't the kind of situation where you'd do something different than what you'd think out of courtesy or at a poker game, but just a regular time on the bus, or with family or even just a fireside chat with friends. This is all subconscious stuff. None of this is really out of fear or anything, at least not that I see. I'm not trying to hide anything because I don't have anything to hide. All my cards are on the table.

I'm not really entirely afraid of society because I know I'm different enough, already. I'm also going into the film industry, which is probably the most LGBT-friendly industry you'll ever find for many, many reasons. And even in that, I hold a job where I'm behind a computer screen in a room that nobody can find me at . So with all of that, I have a couple questions:



1. Has this thought come across anybody's minds? I'm not talking about the people who are totally closeted or are afraid of being themselves. I'm talking about people who are fully out, wearing rainbow this and that, with HRC stuff and whatnot. And people that are mostly done with that process.

2. Has anybody gone through this and had a solution?

3. What could the subconscious stuff come from? Is it actually fear and I don't know it, or is it something else that I would have no idea it would be at first thought?

I really do appreciate answers, if there are any. I know this is mostly a support site simply for coming out and dealing with family, friends, religion and whatnot, but I also know there are people who are way beyond that process.

Thanks ^^

 

Okay, let me get this thing (ha) straight. This isn't about gender. This isn't a "Do I fit this gender" kind of thing. I've gone through that process, and it took me 3 years. That's something somewhat related, but also mutually exclusive. This is more of a "How do I become my full, 100% self, if it's possible" thing. I've noticed that I'm probably not. I asked if anybody else is at this point because I didn't know if on a site like this, there WOULD be people who are past the coming out phase and at least nearing this point.

Mailman has a better idea of what I'm asking, here.

I've noticed kind of the same thing, but sometimes almost the opposite. When I'm alone or in my room, I seem to act like just some average joe. But around friends, especially ones I've made in the past year, I put out a bit more energy and emotion. I'm also a lot louder. But even still, I don't feel like I'm being my full self. Even though I'm not really hiding anything, or at least I don't think I am. I think there's something that's in my subconscious or something that needs to be taken out, or that there's something that needs to be changed in order for this to happen.

Am I making any sense here? I'm not trying to be condescending. I feel like I may be the only one on this and that I'm the only one that understands this entirely. I'm glad that someone does at least remotely, though.

 

At least the two of us agree on something. And yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Hm..

Naturally, or ideally, at least around friends, I'd react more based on my emotions. To give you a good idea, it'd be something similar to tumblr, if that were a human. I'm the kind that would (and has) cry or laugh really loud at movies, or dance to groovy music (I'm not a huge fan of EDM, so I don't really dance to EDM). I know if I was crying while walking down the street, someone would probably think something's wrong with me. I don't mean mentally, I mean they'd probably suspect that a loved one died or something really bad happened, when all I'm thinking about is Wreck-it Ralph.

But as I said before, I'm not the kind that would go to extremes. For example, I cry when watching Les Mis (in full) or when listening to "On my own" because I'd been in that position. However, it wouldn't be to the point where there's no juice left in my eyes or where I'd be throwing some sort of a temper tantrum.

I know this because when I was with my boyfriend, there was a lot more of me that was.. me. The above was much closer to what I would really be like, and I was still thinking as logical as possible when I wasn't in those kinds of moods. So although it wasn't to the point where I knew I was fully me, it was still closer to it.

Basically, here's how it is: In an emotionally directed situation, I'd be thinking emotionally and reacting as such. However, I still have some sort of a poker face in those situtations.

 

Actually, the 2nd example is what I'm talking about. It's that feeling that, yes, we've grown up, but there's still part of us that is actually us that we've kind of left behind and is nagging for us to take it back.