So, my confidence with guys has pretty much gone downhill even though it wasn't that high to begin with (I've never really been an 'out there' person in any way). It seems like the people I have an attraction to just seem to want only 1 thing, sex. I pretty much have an old head on my shoulders and love getting to know people before anything goes further, but it seems with everyone these days its sex or nothing at all. I've dated 2 guys and both of them haven't been honest to me from the start. The first (I'll call him 'X') was around 4 years ago after I split with my ex girlfriend, he actually came to me and said he had feelings for me and even though still closeted at that time. I thought my luck had come in because X was quite a looker and I was bigger then what I am now (I weighed a lot). We went out several times and my attraction grew to something more then a physical thing. My Confidence was so high at this point I decided it was time to come out to my group of friends and one of em knew this guy (friend of a friend) so I thought it would all be fine with atleast that one person. I was wrong, when I came out to them I was given the usual array of homophobic insults and walked away from it. The following friday 2 of em unsuccessfully attacked me on the way home, left me a little shaken. X suggested that night that we go out and have a few drinks to loosen me up so I could forget about the incident, so we went out and had quite a good time. Both of us ended up getting a little tipsy so it was decided that I would crash at his, and I setup bed on his couch. I woke up to him feeling up my leg, and jumped up because I didn't know it was him. I told X I wasn't ready to go further yet and to be honest I almost was, I just didn't want it to be while under the effects of drink or anything else (never touched drugs). X suddenly changed and got extremely aggressive and practically demanded that I give in and do as he says (almost like a "my house, my rules" kind of attitude). Feeling as uncomfortable as I did I got myself dressed and thats when he hit me, that was a massive shock to the system and X changed from being aggressive to being sorry. I just walked out and have never seen or heard from X again. The second person was recent and is someone who I work with, lets call him 'R'. Me and R had always been really friendly in work and would always be pulling eachother to the side in work and talking about anything and everything. At this time alot of people in work knew about my attractions for men and were guessing how I felt for R. R was generous enough to let me stay in his spare room when I had previously came out to my parents so they could have some time to adjust which I was incredibly grateful for. Over the coming months me and R began going out together as friends and then came the flirting, which also continued in work. One person in work came upto me one day and said "You and R seem to click really well, you seem like just the sort of person he needs instead of the idiots hes been with before", which I was surprised at because I dont consider myself to be anything special. From that I asked R to goto the cinema with me, which he agreed to. When outside the cinema in the car I told R how I felt and got almost nothing as a reaction to it so we carried on and watched the film. After it finished I tried telling him again go get "I don't know why everyone wants my body" as a response, and i'll admit I enjoyed verbally smacking him down because like myself, he doesn't have a model body. We continued as normal and he started to change around me, and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was happening so I just let him carry on like he did. One Sunday I was getting ready to sleep, when I got a text message from him asking me out on a date to one of the local mexican resturants, I said I would but it would have to be somewhere else as I don't like mexican. The following saturday we went and had a pub lunch at a very nice and clean pub, the table we sat at had me with my back towards everyone. At this time my confidence was peaking but he had changed and was looking nervous about the whole thing as we ate and I tried my best to get him to ignore the fact that other people were there. We had a drink before we left but he went weird on me and started insisting he was straight and that 15 years of gay feelings were just a phase (hes 6 years older then me) so we ended up in an argument and we didn't speak for days after that. I eventually messaged him over facebook saying that it was stupid and we should just carry on as friends, which was fine and we carried on as we were before without any flirting or anything, despite my feelings still being there. We went out one Sunday (I shouldn't really have because of work) and played bowling for several hours while I drank (bar inside the bowling alley) and he got more flirty as I got more drunk. We followed that up with a long drive (roughly 120 miles) in the middle of the night and he changed his attitude again despite me stopping myself from letting my feelings take over, he began to attack me telling me my feelings were fake and trying to come up with anything he could to bash me. I went home and confronted him about it the next morning, thus getting the attitude of "I'm older then you so I know better" so I told him I couldn't be bothered with his crap anymore and I've not spoken to him ever since. I was speaking to a mutual friend of ours and she told me that he had told her he only ever wanted to have sex with me and nothing more, and since our incident R has been destroying a lot of friendships that he has with people in work by insulting them about anything from illness to family life. I now pity the fool he gets with next, but the whole thing had left me feeling quite down with memories from X coming back aswell. I don't even know what I can do to help get my confidence up when it comes to men anymore, I have a great friend who I can talk to about everything but hes a straight guy so can't really help me on the guy front. It just feels like I'm going to walk into men who have the same attitude as the 2 people above, I'm one of those that runs high on emotions which others seem to think is a weakness that they can use to try get me into bed, I'm not even remotely good looking lol. I feel like I'm going back to my old introverted self or just being a recluse again. Is it really that hard to find someone whos honest for once? Sorry for the massive wave of text here, I just thought its about time people knew where I had come from to get here...
I think you need to make some gay friends in real life. Like, get involved in community activities in your area. Think of it mainly as a way to make friends, but it will open up your dating prospects, too. By community activities, I don't mean "clubbing." Volunteer at the local LGBT community center, get involved in political organizing, or join an activity group that caters specifically to the gay community, like a book club or whatever you are interested in. If there isn't anything in your area, you can start something yourself. Meeting people through social activities or things like that will make it more likely that they will want more from you than sex. It will be really good for you to have friends that are gay. Also, knowing more gay people will make it less likely that you just date whoever you meet that is gay, which sort of seems to be what you've been doing.
Maybe so, since i've came out to people as being bi its become more apparent to me that I might infact be gay and I wouldn't just date someone because they're gay as I generally try to find some connection. My feelings for women Have near enough completely evaporated as if they were never there in the first place. X was gay and R was bi and both were out to people they knew apart from R whos family didn't know. I'm trying here to not to make any excuses but I find it really hard to connect with people, and the only 2 places for gay people are one place which is for youth and another which is the local gay bar/club. I work a late shift so end up living in American time. I had a really good friend a couple of years ago who was infact gay and out to most people, infact most of em were gay also but I felt uncomfortable around his friends because they were so open and I was still working out who I was. We fell out over something stupid, I was out of work and could never do the activities that he asked because they all involved money and anything that wasn't money orientated he would just dismiss. Eventually he kicked off and claimed I was being homophobic and I really couldn't be bothered with an argument with him (I don't like fighting/arguing). I don't appreciate it when people throw around accusations without talking about it first so I just let him go. Funny thing is before I became out of work, he was one of the best friends I had. He would of been the first person I came out to. I don't really know any other gay people my age, so its hard finding someone who I can relate to in that way. People often don't believe me when I say I'm shy, especially those I work with because I can be quite loud in there because I know that none of it comes outside of the workplace. Being out is still very new to me....
Maybe you could look up your gay friend you mentioned. It seems to me like the things you fell out over no longer apply. Before, you may have seemed uncomfortable with gay people ("homophobic") because of your discomfort with your own sexuality. But now that you are out, you won't feel or act the same way that you used to. And, you have a job, so doing things that cost money shouldn't be a big problem. Do you think you could get in contact with him? It really seems like he would be a good person to be friends with at this point. Through him, you would also get to know his other friends. Youth things are often open to people into their mid-twenties. Is there any particular reason you don't want to be involved in that? I very much wish I had been out (to myself, even) when I was still young enough to participate in the youth programs.
I'm not too sure If getting back in touch with my old friend is such a good idea, he said some pretty strong things which I wouldn't take from anyone to be honest. Sounds about right that I could of been thinking in a homophobic way when I wasn't 'out' and around other gay people, I did hate the fact that I felt I couldn't be myself like they were able to. I think also that was to do with me clutching onto the fact that i've had a girlfriend before, but today it seems i'm more happy labeling myself as gay rather then bi (which I did because of the ex girlfriend) and one of my managers has reported to me that my workload improved significantly today (I wasn't a bad worker before lol). As with the youth group, i'm just mega shy and everything seems different now I'm happy with me. It's just that 'getting out there' part which I have to work on now. :icon_wink
