I keep falling back to living "straightly"

The first step doesn’t involve another person, just you. You are unsure about your sexuality and you’re “questioning”. Only you can answer that question. The fact that you say your straight relationships are always doomed to fail implies that you are not straight – in fact it implies you are not truly attracted to women. What would a “real relationship” look like? Would it be with a man?

 

I guess I'd ask you to state clearly, to yourself, what you want.

Are you pretty sure you're gay? Do you want to come out?
Do you want to hook up with a guy?
Do you want to date a guy?

All of those are possible, but very few of them of just sort of "happen". You'll have to take some steps to make them happen.

Lex

 

Its not weird at all. And its good you’re “talking” about it.

It seems to me that, for now at least, you should accept that you are bisexual. But it also sounds like you have some issues with the homosexual aspect of your orientation. If you want to experience a fulfilling relationship with another guy you will need to deal with those issues first.

Its extremely common for gay and bisexual men who are outwardly entirely non-homophobic to experience very deeply a sense of “self-homophobia”. You might be completely happy to accept that another guy is bi or gay, but you struggle to accept that aspect of your own nature.

One of the struggles I think all of us go through when we are young is getting used to the fact that our relationships are not going to be “straight/universally-accepted”. That can be very frightening, especially if you come from a culture that doesn’t readily embrace alternatives. At some point though, we just have to accept that reality if we are going to find a fulfilling relationship.

Does any of this make sense for your situation?

 

“I'm very self-conscious and worry what others would think of me. I can't seem to get over that. I know most people I know suspect nothing and would be shocked.”

Even though I’d accepted for myself the label “gay” when I was twenty-one, I was still in exactly the same place as you when I was twenty-five. I still had a long way to go before I came out as gay to my family and friends.

Like you, although there were still some mildly homophobic people in my social circle, it was really only mild. And in general, like the rest of society, they were beginning to express more openness to difference.

Slowly I realized that my family’s and friend’s homophobia wasn’t the real issue. It was my own homophobia – my fear of myself being identified as gay by others. There is so much inertia in life – we set out on a route of denying our identity to others and it becomes just how it is. It seems easier that way… just to stick to the same route.

But, its so corrosive because it prevents you from being whole in the eyes of the world. They see a you that isn’t you. Not fully anyway. And, lets face it, you want to meet a guy and celebrate a relationship just like the straight guys do.

But inertia is incredible difficult to arrest. To stop the fly-wheel of deceit or repression is a huge challenge and the longer it goes on, the more inertia it gathers.

For me, quite out of the blue and perhaps influenced by a whole load of circumstances, over the course of a couple of weeks I just knew I was going to come out. I simply had to. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

And when I did… you know what? Almost everyone – and ALL of those that really mattered to me were completely supportive and proud of me.

 

You need to first accept yourself for who you are. That might be bisexual or it might be gay or, yes, you might actually be straight. Before coming out as one thing or another it’s worth taking the time to understand where you stand on that spectrum and get used to it.

In working that out it’s worth keeping in mind that gay (or the homosexual aspect of bisexual) desire isn’t only about sexual feelings for other guys. As a gay man I am indeed physically and sexually attracted to other guys, but I have been aware from my early teens that my romantic and emotional needs – my understanding of love if you will – are also homocentric. I say this because I feel there is almost always too much emphasis on the sexual/physical aspects of homosexual desire and far too little on its romantic and emotional aspects. That’s probably because men are crap at talking about those kinds of things, even if we feel them very deeply.

Also, keep in mind that once you settle along the spectrum you wont have changed a whole lot about you. You will still be you. All that will have happened is that you have learned to accept a small (but very important) aspect of who you are. Sexual orientation is only one element of what makes us us. You are right, people put far to much emphasis on it as a definition of who we are.

Gay men and women exist in every culture and on every continent and they have done so throughout recorded history. They are as varied as is the balance of the population.

 

Just wanted to say that I can totally relate to your situation. The fact that I'm questioning myself is preventing me from feeling attraction towards other people of either gender. Even as a child, I never fantasized about boys or had crushes. It used to annoy me because all the other girls wouldn't shut up about the boys they liked, I was definitely the odd one out.

Now-a-days, I'm aware of people who I think are cute/attractive, but I never seem to want more, or I'll prevent myself of developing feelings because of how I'm confused and questioning. It's like I brainwash myself to think that it just wont work so why bother trying.

Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in how you feel.

 

aITO & Hsj22

I don’t want to hog this thread, and I hardly feel qualified to advise either of you. But it sounds like both of you are hung up a bit on the sex part of sexuality.

Lets forget physical sex for a while. If you could just imagine for a while a deep, romantic, loving friendship with someone that would not involve sexual intimacy, would that work for you?