I will try to make this as basic as possible. Less then one month ago I never had any serious feelings to be in a gay relationship. I have a girlfriend of 7 months and it has been a difficult experience. We started dating only a couple weeks before she went to college. Things have been fine but even a month into the relationship I was weighed down with the knowledge of knowing that the relationship will be a dead end as I will not be attending the same college. That has been a struggle and it is a shame because she is absolutely beautiful and we are very much alike. Yet, in these last few weeks I have developed these feelings which are truly out of the blue and it is off and on. One moment I may be feeling 100% gay and the next 100% straight. It has turned me into a train wreck from my usual happy self. I have always wanted to be a father and I just feel as though those dreams can now be dashed away from me. I will have bursts of happiness and bursts of sadness but I just cannot handle being taken through what I was once sure of. One moment I can look at a man and be happy and the next a woman and then turned off completely from one or the other. To again express, prior to this I never had any feels of homosexuality and have never fit the stereotypes, which may not matter. The fact that I am making this post all seems bizarre. So I find this all very strange. I know the idea of going through a "phase" is commonly refuted and I am the type of person who wants to cut the crap. So what are the thoughts of those here? Give it to me truthfully I just need opinions.
There are actually a fair number of people (I was one of them) who manage to go through life blissfully ignorant -- completely -- of their gayness until something (who knows what) clicks and they start becoming aware of it. Denial is a really, really strong factor, as are the issues you describe (wanting to be a father and essentially giving up that idea [[though you don't have to, and that's another story] and similar losses that come with letting go of one's "straight" identity. So as you are exploring your sexuality and beginning to come to terms with it, it makes perfect sense that you'd swing from one view to the other, and I think most of us that have dealt with coming out issues have done the same. Although you are the no-BS type, you have to give yourself time to allow your conscious and unconscious to come into agreement with each other, and there really is no shortcut to that. What you can do is take a look back through your life and see if you can see earlier signs you may have ignored; in my case I was almost completely asexual entirely until my early 20s, and that was my denial mechanism. But once I came out, I was able to look back at behaviors and beliefs I had when I was younger and go "Duh! Gay!" even though at the time I was totally oblivious to them. Think about where your eyes wander when you're out and about. Do you look at guys? Do you enjoy a nice set of abs or pecs more than a pair of tits? Do you find a guy's ass more appealing than a girl's? When you masturbate, are the images that come to mind guys or girls? When you look at porn, is it straight or gay porn? If it's straight, are you watching the guys or the girls? All of these can be pretty convincing clues to your sexuality. Also, sexuality is somewhat fluid, and only about 10% of the population is totally gay or totally straight, and everyone else is somewhere on the continuum, though most end up toward one end or the other. So it's possible you have some attraction to both. Finally, the process of understanding and coming to terms with *any* loss (including the "loss" of your identity as a straight guy) typically goes through 5 stages (denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance). As you are trying to reject the possibility you're gay, that's denial... anger is the "why me? Why did this happen?"... bargaining is the "well maybe it's a phase" and the others are pretty self-explanatory. Nearly everyone goes through this, though for some it takes 15 minutes and for others 15 years (most are closer to 15 minutes!) So give yourself some time to process. One other thought: Being gay does not rule out being a parent. Gay parents are becoming more and more common, and our social work/therapy expert Blair used to facilitate a pretty large group specifically for gay men who were adopting or otherwise raising kids... and such things are becoming a lot more widespread. Hope that helps!
I'll second everything chip has said and add another thing. I was with a girlfriend for 2 years, i loved her, i fancied her, and i could have stayed with her forever at one point. But certain things can change with time, don't do anything rash, give yourself some time, this isn't something you can think over in ten minutes and make a decision. The consequences of making the wrong decision could be quite severe, so don't worry about a label, don't worry too much about the future, just try and learn things about yourself for a while. Hope this helps, i do tend to ramble on!
Thank you for your comments, there is just a part of me which wishes things could be different and I just feel so totally alone in this mess. What kills me the most is that my girlfriend sees a future and at a point I could see it but now I cannot. I just feel so terrible for her because if I come to light on this I feel no one will be more shocked or more hurt then her and thinking about her reaction just kills me.
You might want to break things off with your girlfriend sooner than later - not due to "the whole gay/bi thing" but because you already seem convinced that it's a dead end, so why prolong it? I'm not saying it'll be easy, but you may as well get over that hurdle before trying to leap over any others. As said above, it's tempting to try to "solve" your sexuality immediately. But often times (especially when things get screwy like they have with you), it takes time for the picture to become clear. Allow yourself to be whatever you are. If there's a girl who's currently getting you horny - either in real life or in porn or in your imagination - killer. Run with it. If it's a guy, killer. Run with that. Don't worry about whether this "proves" you're this or that or the other. Don't go any further than "this is what's making me horny right now", and enjoy it. Lex
