Why did it take some long for me to admit it to myself?

I felt like I was discovering my sexuality at the same time as all the straight kids. At about thirteen I found men sexually attractive. At the same time, my friend Andy was starting to be a perv about women. I don't know, it seems pretty natural in retrospect. But that's just my experience.

 

yes and i'm pretty much sure that most of us have wondered the same thing.

but speaking for myself, going back years ago before i even came to this point, i knew that there was a possibility that i was gay way back as a kid. even as a kid, people actually brought it up to my attention because the way i acted pretty much hinted that later on in life, i would be gay. i remember when a friend of mine back in the 4th grade asked me over the telelphone if i was gay and i denied it so you know, i had some idea what it was but i didn't put two and two together. i thought that i wasn't gay but looking back at how i was, what i did, my feelings and thoughts, i was exact that. when i finally was able to make sense out of everything which was when i was 12, that's when i went into denial. the thing that bothers me is how come at that moment of time, why didn't i just accept myself then and there? even if i felt ashamed and embarrassed, it was probably the best thing that i could have done for myself at that stage in my life because i was going through some hard times. instead, i decided to build a life around a lie and hide from the truth. it was so bad that i actually tried to disconnect myself from the past on the things that i was ashamed of and lied to myself about the current feelings that i then had. if i had a crush on a guy, i lied to myself about it even though i knew what it was.

but if you look @ it, we probably weren't ready to deal with it. you know, maybe that's why we waited instead of just jumping out the closet early. who knows, we probably would have been saying "i wish i didn't come out as soon as i did. i wish i gave it a bit more time". you know, that's one way of looking at it but then again, i'm 100 percent with you on regretting not dealing with this sooner. i don't know why i just didn't say to myself that i think i'm gay and came here when i was 18 when i was about to give up the whole denial crap i was doing or when i was 15, when i was going through a near nervous breakdown denying that i was gay. what can you do about that though?

 

Yeah I can totally relate. I wondered why it took me so long to figure it out. I pretended to like guys all through elementary, middle school, and high school because I thought that's how it's supposed to be. I didn't realize that the feelings I had toward my female friends starting in kindergarten weren't "friend" feelings and I actually had a crush on them. I think it took me so long because I didn't even know gay people existed until I was in the 8th grade and it's hard in general to come to terms with one's sexuality when it's seen as abnormal in society. A friend even asked me in the 6th grade "Do you think you might just be a lesbian?" because I wasn't interested in dating boys. She already knew whereas I had no idea who I was. And I did spend some time in denial once I realized.

I think if society was more accepting of homosexual feelings we wouldn't have taken so long to figure it out. People wouldn't spend so much time trying to deny the way they feel. I didn't know it could be normal for a girl to like another girl or a boy to like another boy. I think this is the way it is with many gay kids/teens before they realize their sexuality.

Also, regarding the signs of us being gay...As young kids we probably didn't have a good concept of what it meant to be gay in the first place because we aren't taught about it in school or by our parents (well at least I wasn't). So it's hard for us to realize the signs when we don't even know what we're looking for. I don't know if that makes sense.... Plus many people don't start developing crushes until they are around 13 like summersforecast said.

 

I still occasionally wonder about this, although it's more idle curiosity than anger/sadness. I mean, I have an accepting family and friends, and I was never really worried that people wouldn't be accepting. But I just had ZERO clue. I chalk it up to simply being both very non-visually oriented, and being very slow on the uptake.

Lex

 

I think for me, it just took a while to figure out the difference between finding someone attractive and being attracted to someone. In middle school I looked at girls because I thought they were attractive (they still are), but since I didn't look at boys (because they were all, in a word, assholes) I had nothing to compare them to. So I went on liking girls, and ignoring any instance when I thought a guy as attractive until high school. Then, instead of ignoring those feelings, I flat out denied them, and ignored the part of me that knew I was lying.

As for why I lied to myself, I think it has something to do with public perception. To get through middle school, I had to adopt an attitude of apathy, adopting a persona that really wasn't who I was. The idea of being gay went against my perception of myself, and I guess I was afraid of who I really was.

 

In hindsight, I had hid from myself for over two years, ever since I discovered my sexual side (online) I had fantasied about women, but pretended not to know about it because my religion had always said it was wrong. Then I told myself it was no big deal and meant nothing at all. I don't know why I hid it so long, honestly.

 

With each generation, it will get easier to come out sooner, as we are making headway in acceptance as a society. For many, me included, it has taken more than twice as long as you. So, it is a matter of perspective and when one realizes that it won't change and being gay won't go away even if you would rather not be gay. It just takes some people longer than others to accept themselves as they are and to realize it is fact and not choice. Most people would rather choose an easy life.

 

Something told me while I was growing up that as a male, I've been proscribed by fate a healthy dose of vagina and boobs in life. Essentially, I'm of course meant to like girls.
Homosexuality is never really discussed before the teenage years as a reasonable thing; it's often a joke in the movies your parents might watch as an odd character with a funny lisp, or otherwise something to be mocked among manly men. Lesbians? A fetish, a gym teacher, or a butch Home Depot employee. Watching children's movies or TV shows, the guy gets the girl in the end--homosexuality is never discussed here. Your parents always tell you you're going to grow up, marry a beautiful specimen of the opposite sex/gender, and make pretty little grandchildren for them. That's just the natural order of things!

And that seemed to take precedence over any homosexual thoughts I might have had. It was always there in the back of my mind, but I just ignored it. I had cute little "crushes" in elementary school. I "crushed" on pretty women from movies, just like I was supposed to. I tried dating a girl--worst 3.5 months of my middle school life. I tried liking two more girls after that, but found myself increasingly attracted to the jock in my math class instead. I was kidding myself, and that eventually became clear. It came as a slow acceptance rather than a realization, I think. I also owe a lot to a friend of mine who saw it a year before I did; without her, I would never have brought myself to acceptance.
And it was less "gay? That's me!" and more "I think gay explains what I'm feeling." If that makes sense.

So for me, it was the imbibing of media and family influences not condemning homosexuality as much as glorifying heterosexuality. I didn't feel shame for who I was, but I pushed it off without an explanation of why the thoughts were there.

 

Probably part of it for me personally was that I genuinely like girls too, had&enjoyed sex with them... And partly because I grew up in a very gay-unfriendly environment. Of course, looking in retrospect, it's obvious that yea, I always had that queer side, and yes, not acknowledging it hurt me badly... All water under the bridge now, but of course I wonder about all those things.

 

I think for me it was because I didn't want to admit it and I just wanted to be "normal" because my whole life I've been the one in my family who's different. I also used to care a lot of how other people looked at me and judged me and I knew being gay was hard because the world isn't the most accepting place. I remember being about 14 or 15 freaking out about it when I first started thinking about it and calling my sister and all she said is "So what if you like girls, it's not the end of the world." The only reason I came out as bi a few years later was because I had friends who were bi so in my group it was normal. And I recently came out as gay because most of my friends now are gay or bi and I don't really care so much what people think of me anymore. I am who I am and if you don't like me then that's your loss because my sexual orientation doesn't define me. Took me a while to realize that tho.

 

I kept waiting for the "normal" to kick in. I shoved who I was so far down inside of me that it took me way longer than it should have to accept who I was. Now that I have, I can't believe how much time I wasted denying who I was. All the experiences I missed out on. But, as the saying goes, de-nile ain't just a river in Egypt. The human capacity for self deception never ceases to amaze me.

 

It took me a long time because of a whole lot of factors. I ignored it, denied it, dismissed it.

I started being attracted to women when I was like, eleven or twelve. The signs that I was gay were all there early: being turned on by women, fantasizing about women, getting overly excited about lesbians in movies or on TV or in books (but hiding it due to shame), that kind of stuff. But I didn't really show an interest in either men or women in terms of dating throughout high school. Just wasn't interested. Even when I started hanging around the Gay Village in my city, around the time I moved for college, I didn't question my sexuality, since there are always more men about than women (wonder why?), and anyway, no women ever showed interest anyway, since I look "straight" (see: femme).

Anyway, I assumed, since I had never been in a real relationship, that I was straight. Everyone always assumed I was straight, so I let that be. I never questioned that I might not be. Well, okay, I totally questioned it, but I didn't want to, it was too uncomfortable. I convinced myself that it's normal for straight girls to only fantasize about women. Heh.

There's also the fact that I wasn't comfortable with the idea of falling outside of the norm, sexually. It's the kind of thing where it's okay for others to be something (gay, in this instance), but not me. Not, not I! I was not gay! I couldn't be gay, it just wasn't possible, I was straight, and would have straight relationships because that's the norm, and I'd get married and have children just like everyone else. Right.