Coming out to myself, and trying to accept my sexuality

From a young age, my sexuality was always fairly mild. My first relationship (at 14) ended because, despite some sexual activity, I had no desire to move forward, and no attraction for the girl I was dating. After that, I briefly considered myself asexual, but that wasn’t really the truth of the matter.

My family always made it clear that they would be very supportive if I were gay. However, the strength with which they made their support clear was really disconcerting – as a high school sophomore, it made me really insecure, because they were so persistent about making sure that I knew they’d be okay with it. It felt like they thought I was a closeted gay, and as a rebellious teenager, I felt the need to prove them wrong.

The main source of my insecurity was those around me: everyone else seemed to be getting into passionate relationships, and I started feeling self-conscious about my lack of attraction to women. In what I suppose was an act of compensation, I started asking women out, and dated as many women as I could. This started to damage my reputation, and made me even more self-conscious.

About two months ago, a guy kissed me during a party game. I was in a straight relationship at the time, and this threw me into a very reflective state. Over the next few weeks, I was very distant with everyone. I started experimented with gay porn, and started having feelings I’d never felt before. At this point, it became crystal clear to me that I was really only attracted to guys. I still don’t completely understand it, but in retrospect, nothing I felt for any woman compared to the flood of emotions I’m now experiencing. Every relationship was really projection, and throughout the course of my romantic relationships, I felt like what I was doing was somehow not good enough. I figured that, if I dated more, I’d start to be able to feel normal in a relationship.

Roughly a month ago, my relationship fell apart, largely due to me being distant with her. Since then, I’ve been slowly coming to terms with my sexuality. Looking through these forums has given me a lot of encouragement.

This has been on my mind a lot. The social part of me wants to tell someone about it, because slowly, I’m beginning to feel like I’m lying to those around me. However, an equal part of me says that I need to accept my own sexuality and figure out why I did some of the things I did in the past before I make that part of my public identity. Even this post is just my best guess at what motivated me, but it’s a good start, and a sort of compromise between coming out, and trying to figure out my own identity.

And damn, it feels good to write about it. The process of putting this into words makes everything seem so much more concrete and real.

I feel like it will be a long road ahead, as I struggle with coming out to myself, my friends, family, my workplace, and ultimately, everyone. It’s terrifying, but at the same time, I’m excited for the journey.

If you read up to this point, thank you. Any thoughts that someone could offer would be an amazing help, and I look forward to being a part of this community and supporting others who are trying to come to terms with their sexuality.

Happy Halloween (in the U.S., anyways)!
- pfk

 

Yeah. I suppose the biggest difficulty for me is getting over the internal blockades. It took me a long time to even experience sexual attraction, and when I did, it sort of spit in the face of everything that I tried to be throughout high school.