I'm tired. I'm so tired. I'm a highschooler but I feel years older. I'm pretty popular, and almost everyone knows who I am. I'm super natural with everyone and people comment on how genuine I am. But I just don't feel close with anybody. I feel so far away. I feel like people will be awkward and everyone will leave me, if I ever tell. I should be enjoying everything that I'm lucky to have. I worry about my best friends. They're both okay with gays, but they might be weirded out with how physical we've been with each other. (Nothing out of the norm for guys. Wrestling, punching each other, all of that.) I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking things. Because everyone knows me, if I came out it'll spread incredibly fast. I don't want to deal with that, but I also don't want to keep feeling like I'm lying to everyone I talk to. I've gotten so good at lying that I hate myself. Some of you have been in high school. You know that people talk about girls and blah blah nonstop. ...I just don't know. I hate that I can't be myself, and that I couldn't have been born normal. I don't want to lie in bed at night and feel so utterly separated from everyone because of what I'm hiding. What should I do?
You sound very much like me. I will just say when the time is right you will know. You will know when it is time to tell people. Try not to over think things. If your friends get weirded out that is their problem not yours. For me today is the day. I am telling my parents this afternoon.
Living a lie is exhausting. Even when we don't think about it, we are pouring psychic energy into projecting that mask. Coming out will change relationships for sure, but don't forget that it also means that some relationships will be deeper and stronger than the false, superficial relationships that you presently "enjoy." And there will be new relationships that you never imagined, friends you can really count on, who will support you, and who will turn to you for support. Yeah, it can seem like a big chasm to leap across, though once it happens we will probably realize that it was just a small gap. Mind the gap, sure, but don't be terrorized by it.
