whats it going to take??

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and welcome to the forums.
Not sure how to answer.

Can you list some things that would make you happy?

What is happiness?
Happiness: A mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy; good fortune.
OR: When what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.

Synonyms: contentment, pleasure, contentedness, satisfaction, cheerfulness, cheeriness, merriment, merriness, gaiety, joy, joyfulness, joyousness, joviality, jollity, jolliness, glee, blitheness, carefreeness, gladness, delight, good spirits, high spirits, light-heartedness, good cheer, well-being, enjoyment, felicity; exuberance, exhilaration, elation, ecstasy, delirium, jubilation, rapture, bliss, blissfulness, euphoria, beatitude, transports of delight; heaven, paradise, seventh heaven, cloud nine; humorous delectation; rare jouissance.

 

Welcome to EC!

You have buddies, apparently. If I were to ask what they liked about you, what sort of answers do you think they'd give? "He's fun to be around." "I can really be myself around him." Stuff like that, probably. You know what they wouldn't say? "He's straight." If they're your friends, they can handle something simple like "I'm gay". Then you can commiserate together when none of you can find dates, and celebrate together when you can.

Lex

 

You say it's years since you have been on a date (with a girl) and I'm wondering if all of that time out of the 'dating game' has affected your confidence and self esteem, so you find yourself in a bit of a vicious circle. What do you think?

The way I read your posting, it sounds like all of the buddies you hang out with are straight, so it must have a limiting effect on your opportunities to even try to meet a potential date. Afterall, they are unlikely to go to venues where LGBT people hang out in large numbers.

Add all of that together and you can see how you might have found youself in a bit of a rut with a worsening mood and outlook. One way or another, you need to try to break the cycle and therapy may be the beginning of that process.

You know your friends better than us, so how do you suppose they might react to you coming out? Have you ever heard them make negative or homophobic comments that would make it more difficult for you to come out to them? Coming out can be very liberating and it can certainly ease a lot of stress and tension and give you a new found sense of freedom to enjoy life, but it can be made more difficult by the reactions of other people. Having said that, your approach to coming out can also make a difference. Have you actually thought how you might approach it?

Keep sharing your thoughts with us as it might help you see a way forward.

 

Whynotnow81:

I was 29 when I finally, confidently, with a raised brow, a shitty grin, a great outfit and a skip in my step flung open that closet door, nearly blowing it off it's hinges and didn't look back for a second. Shazam! ::triple snap::: FAB UL OUS! right?
ha ha no way ...not for a second. I'm as straight acting as can be, my friends were all shocked I was gay they had absolutely no idea. And I cried..well bawled...when I told them. My best friend thought I was going to tell him I was dying from horrible, nasty cancer from the way I was acting, he later told me.

Of my group of friends, my two best friends, all my close friends...and everyone down the line. Nobody ever told me they couldn't handle it, they all had words of support. I didn't lose one friend. That was eight years ago now and we'll all still friends.

So I'm responding to your post now, because I read your post last night and then later on it popped into my head what I wanted to tell you about the upside of coming out. Well, other than the fact that your chance of having sex increases by 100%, which is nice. And you suddenly find out a lot of interesting things about people you would've pegged as completely straight - people relate to your being gay with some stories and past experiences of their own which are sometimes ..to use a cliched term... "Stranger than Fiction".

Anyhow, you didn't really type much here about yourself but from what I gathered I wanted to tell you one of the nice advantages to coming out.... YOU CAN BE WHO YOU ARE. I know that sounds a little obvious and simplified but its something that straight people simply take for granted and something I didn't realize what a gift it was until I'd been out for years.

If I could invite you into my head for a minute, to think what I thought and feel what I felt, I think you'd find it oddly quiet compared to your own conscience. No more anxiety, no more fear, no more hiding, no more reminding myself to look down at the breasts of the woman I'm talking to at least twice a minute so she won't suspect me. Instead I have confidence, peace and an appreciation for myself I never felt growing up.

Coming out is just another step in self-acceptance and learning to love yourself. Its part of being the person you were meant to be so that when you finally find someone else you can love, you can offer them someone who truly makes them a better person for being with you. And yes, some people won't like you and some people will, but I promise you most of the time it has more to do with your personality than who you take to bed.

So, yes you *are* living a ridiculous life as you say. There's a whole 'nother life waiting for you to step up and claim when you're ready. What finally did it in for me was being so full of depression and anxiety, I didn't wanna live my life anymore if it had to be in the closet never loving or being intimate with anyone.

And what finally tripped the last pin on the lock of my closet door wasn't for my sake, it was for my friends. The group of friends I have, we've been friends for so many years, at the time I came out it was over 12 years. I imagined another 10 years going by and still being in the closet and then finally they find out I'm gay. Being friends with someone for 20 years and never knowing I was gay. And I imagined the worst. What if they felt like I had wasted their life? What if they felt cheated somehow by being friends with me - a faggot? I reasoned that even if my friends were that bigoted and ignorant, I loved them all too much to hurt them like that. 12 years was bad enough, I couldn't go on lying to them, I had to let them know so they could choose. Even if it meant losing them at least I wouldn't be wasting their lives any longer if that's how they really felt about me.

Well turns out all that craziness was in my own mind. Starting with my best friend and echoed on down the line. He hugged me, told me he loved me and said I was the same person to him I always have been and nothings changed. "Sublime joy and relief" is probably the closest you can come to accurately describing how I felt at that moment.

So yeah, peek your head out. Have a look around.

GOOD LUCK
ROCK ON

 

Great to hear the update and so pleased your friends are supportive. We can build coming out up into a great big monster, even though the reality is often different. Well done and good luck for the future. Keep us posted?