This kept me up for around hour last night. How much of a bitch would it be to have a relationship while closeted? I can't see myself coming out to family anytime soon, and they pretty much scrutinize when I go out ("Where are you going?? When you gonna be back?!".) Have you ever been able to make something like this work? Am I pretty much shoehorned into coming out here? I'm getting pretty damned lonely here, not getting any less confused, and this sort of experimentation is years overdue for me.
How old are you that your parents have a right to know where you're going to be anyway? It's one thing to tell them when you're going out, but it's really not their business where you go or what you do as long as you aren't doing anything illegal. If your parents are asking, "Where are you going?" the correct response should be, "Out" or "out with friends". Since you'll be leaving the closet eventually, it's not even a lie.
I'm sure plenty of guys have gone out to meet guys w/o full disclosure to their parents. If yours would kick you out if they discover that you're gay (spying on you maybe?) then I'd continue playing by their rules until I could get out on my own with a stable roommate or solo. I've essentially been on my own since '93 and still haven't done what you're busting at the seams to do so I'm probably not the best source of wisdom, but I do wish you the very best and please be safe.
Me and my first girlfriend started dating over the summer when we were both closeted to all family and at school. It was a little hard but it worked out. It didn't last very long though, and a part of it probably was having to keep it secret.
I'm twenty but still heavily financially dependent on my parents. I also kind of have a lifelong good relationship with them...we do everything together around the holidays and such. I think that's what's bugging me most of all about this. I don't want my sexuality to ruin our good relationship with each other. I dunno what I'd do without that family support. It's scary wondering what my life is going to be without it. That's pretty much what I've done before to meet up with some local internet friends. They haven't had a problem, although I've pretty much made up where I was going out in part of my story as a sort of insurance policy. It's really that inevitable, eh? :/ That's what I kinda figured, it puts a strain on everything. But would it be any different than having a relationship with parents who do know and don't approve?
In all fairness, it's not really 'inevitable'. To quote Ugly Betty, "If you don't want anybody to know, they don't have to know." But--as someone who's recently come out (to several people, anyways)--life becomes SO much easier when it's not just you that's carrying that burden of knowledge.
I completely relate to this. I've always had such a great relationship with my parents, it's why I waited until I was financially independent and living on my own before coming out to them because I was so afraid that it would ruin our relationship. I have to say, after coming out to them, I think that it will eventually become a strengthening aspect to our relationship, because for the first time in my life I am being completely honest with them. That being said, if your family is already pretty supportive, it's doubtful that you coming out to them would radically change that. After all, you'd still be the same person you were before, only the sex of the person you bring as your date to holiday get-togethers would change. :icon_wink ^ This. Dude, I know you consider yourself just confused right now, but if it turns out that you are gay or bisexual, being out is just better. So much better.
Wow so this sounds like my story. While it's gotten easier as I grow up, at the same time, it was near impossible to date my first boyfriend frankly because I had to make up excuses of who I was going out with. I'm back in the closet as you might read from previous posts I've made, but with my first BF, it was like so hard because after I tried coming out the first time my Mom basically prevented me from really hanging with male friends, apparently thinking all of them were gay or something >_> But yeh, you don't need to come out, but I'm not really sure the best advice I can give you as I've dealt and am still somewhat dealing with this....
I'm in a similar position to you and so I can completely empathize with your quandry. Although I'm out of school and no longer financially dependent on them, I'm still living with my parents while I save up for a down payment on a house. So I will be in the financial position to move into a place that's truly my own as soon as the snow melts. In as much as I'm unsure about how my parents will really react to the fact that I'm gay, at least at first (mostly because of my conservative Catholic upbringing), I have made the decision not to come out to them until I am out of the house. Even so, I tried the whole Internet dating thing last summer for a couple of months. I went out on a couple of coffee dates, but in the end I decided that it would be incredibly difficult to hide any sort of meaningful relationship from my parents while I'm under their roof. For me, that just means that I troll the real estate listings online every day while I pray for winter to be over asap. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand the tensions that you're feeling, and especially the loneliness. But in the end, to be really satisfied with our lives, we have to live lives that are authentic to ourselves.
