Coming out to best friend advice

Hi there!

So this is going to be a long and complicated story- bare with me. Also, i dont like to proof read my writing because i want it to feel like i am just talking to a friend so there will be bunch of mistakes in this post. Sorry.


I am 23 years old man that has finally came to accept the fact that i am gay.

Now the boring history part:

As you saw in the title, i am a Muslim- sort of- and i live in one of the worst places on earth for now. I was born into a rich family that had multiple houses in different cities. Being in my family meant that i constantly have people around me (helping ladies and such) it also meant that our house was big enough for things happen without my parent notice. So, by the time i was 4-5 years old, i would probably say that i have molested by at least 5 people (few of them are older cousins of mine). Things got better as i got into primary school in the capital and my parents ended up spending more time in our smaller house in Baghdad which was not as busy as the other big houses. Anyway, i dont like to talk about this a lot because it literally took me YEARS of reading self-help books and long talks with my best friend to get over it. So you get the point- i had a horrible childhood from this side. Of course there were lots of positive aspects to being who i am and i try to concentrate of that now. My parents love me so much i they eventually started to feel something was wrong with me but it was too late anyway. They became over protective of me by i still had few people who could hurt me. Throughout my entire childhood, i thought it was my fault and that somehow i give them a sign or something!!!! i thought of myself as a sick person that cannot tell anyone about his sickness.

so i grow up with this motion and it really ruined most of my early relationships in school because i would not let anyone get close to me! i was a very touchy child but with time, i stopped touching anyone- including my parents and siblings. like i didn't hug my parent for years and whenever someone tried to hug or kiss me i would come up with an excuses not to- like i have the flu or something. I was in an all-guys school so dating was not really an option.

For years, i ignored thinking about my sexuality, dating, sex, love, touching anyone....

Fast-forward to 2008- the year i got to college. My parents decided that going to college in Baghdad is not an option because i can’t keep skipping classes without anyone caring like i did in high-school during the bad days. So i had few options but i finally went with a newly established American university in the northern part of the country. So i apply, get accepted, and move up north within few weeks!!!

I go to this new city by myself and i am lost! i did know anyone or where to go. Then i meet a group of people who are also from Baghdad and are in this northern city for the first time. We (4 of us) end up renting out a 2-bed room place and becoming roommates. There was one guy in particular who i become so close to within weeks. By the first semester, we were attending the same classes, eating every meal together, go out to cafes and such together, and eventually sleep in the same room. i meant nothing to me at first, but by the end of the second semester, we were spending a lot of nights talking i noticed something strange towards him!!!

The third semester comes in and I realize that this feeling is a gay crush! So what do I do? I ignore it and act as if nothing happens for couple of months. We then move to a new apartment which only has one big bed- yep you guessed it, we share the bed. At first, this was all okay and I didn’t act or do anything strange. I kept my no-touching with anyone rule. After couple of weeks of sharing the same bed, I start to feel like maybe it is okay to touch him every once and a while. Like a normal hand shake and a manly huge wouldn’t hurt me!
By the beginning of the fourth semester, I realize that this is not going away. The guy is straight- or at least that is what he thinks and acts like. Day after day, I grow closer to him. We start watching movies together and few times, I asked if I could play with his hair- he said okay. Couple of times I asked if I could hold his hands for a while, he was surprised and asked why would I want that, I was like “I just feel comfortable around you and I want to do this- no big deal” so he let me. I remember one time we were back from school and our other two roommates were there yet, so I asked him if I could hug him, he said okay. I asked to hug him few times and as long as we were alone, he usually said yes.
One time, I ask him if I could hug him but he says, “Why you don’t give me a massage instead (over the shirt) because the constant hugging is getting awkward.” Need I to say that I instantly said yes? And then it became a habit whenever I wanted to touch him, I ask if I could give him a massage. He started to say “no” more with time because I think he started realizing that this not just a friendly massage. That did not stop me from trying until one day i think I asked him for a hug or something and he got really mad. Nothing happened then but he was coming up with excuses to fight until one huge fight happens and he decides that we should not be roommates anymore. I flipped out and started yelling and saying shitty stuff to him which only made it worse. We ended up not talking for 20 days and we live in a 850 SF apartment! It was the worst time of my life because it was then that I realized that I loved him! Like I really really loved him!
We tried to act as if nothing happened but it was eating me from the inside. One day (that would be day 20) I was sitting in a boring class and suddenly I started crying. I put on my glasses and left the class and sat outside by myself crying. I don’t know what but I called my mom and started sobbing on the phone. She freaked out and said she will come on the first flight out of Baghdad which was the next morning. My parents come in the next day and I start sobbing the minute I saw them. They asked what it wrong and I said it has been a bad week at school. They know that was not it but they didn’t ask a lot of question because I was in a bad shape. At this time, my roommate notices that this is really hurting me so he calls me and says that we can go back to being friends but not roommates. After couple of semesters, we go back to being roommates but all this time I was back to being the no-touching guy.

Things went well for the rest of the college year and we graduated and went back home. That’s where the real thing happened.
As I mentioned before, I never thought about being gay or straight before. I kinda did things without thinking much about it. But have always felt that I am different, that I am gay- I just choose to ignore it. Being gay, Muslim, and Iraqi is probably one of the worst combinations you can have in the world. So now that I know there is something wrong, that need to look into this more, I started reading stories online- including EC. For the past year, I have been going through an emotional roller-coaster of feeling accepting of who I am and hating it at the same time. You see, coming out to my parents is not an option ( I know many people say this but in my case it is really not an option- like I could get kicked out or killed to say the least). Coming out to my friends is a different story considering that many of them are Americans or/and very liberal Iraqis. It is still huge risk that I am not willing to take at this point.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I was thinking about coming out to my college roommate who is now my best friend. I feel like I owe this to him. He has been there for me throughout the past 6 years. He listened to me talk about most of my problems- including the molestation part. He helped me build healthy friendships with people at school that I would not be able to before.

I don’t expect him to say “oh thank god you are gay! I am too! Let’s be lovers”. In fact, I think he will stop talking to me for a while, maybe forever. I am like 60% sure he is gay but I know that he won’t admit it, ever. I think I am already getting over him but I still think of him as a best-friend. We text each other every day. We go to the movies every week. I still tell him all of my secrets and he tells me “some” of his. I say some because he doesn’t like to talk about personal stuff a lot so I have to question him to get anything out of him.

I have finally accepted myself and I am working on leaving the country and starting a new life in the States. I feel like telling my best friend is going to help me because he is the one I run to for support with everything in my life. I don’t want to tell him that I love him. I just want to let him know that I am gay. I feel that our friendship is far too important to me to risk losing it. My plan is to come up with a fake story about a friend of mine who came out to me and I will see his reaction to the whole thing and then decide is I should come out to him or not.

WOW! This was one long thread. I am really sorry for making it this long but I tried to give you some of the headlines. There are so much more to my life and hopefully I will start sharing more with time. I loved reading posts here at EC and I know that EC’s members are great people who want to help.

Again, apologizes for the grammar/spelling mistakes but I really don’t want to re-read it because I know I will started deleting stuff.