Story So Far

Hi there

First time posting on this site. I've read a lot of these threads over the past couple of years and found them to be really helpful. Now I finally feel it's the right time to post my own and get some feedback/advice/general comments. Hopefully someone out there will relate to my story and I can give back to the sense of not being alone that I have felt from reading some of these posts.

I'm 24 and like many people on here I've struggled with my sexuality for a long long time. I can't remember any time specifically when I started being attracted to men but I certainly developed a curiosity early on.

Unfortunately, an incident occurred when I was relatively young (about 12/13 I think). I had searched for information about being gay on the internet on my home computer and forgot to clear the search history (doh!). Later that night while I was in bed, my dad came upstairs and woke me up saying to get downstairs now. I then endured a 1+ hour inquisition from my parents about why I had been searching these things. I can't remember lots of detail about it, but I remember being very cold in my pyjamas and them being so angry and I could see the 'hate' in their eyes as they asked if I thought I was gay. I of course denied any such feelings and said I simply been curious as people had been talking about it at school. This seemed to satisfy them eventually and it has never been mentioned again.

However, it left a lasting impression on me and, while I have a reasonably friendly relationship with my parents, I have never forgiven them for the way they handled it.

I think my mannerisms would probably be described as 'masculine'. In that, at school, there was never any further questions about my sexuality. I captained the school hockey team, was in the rowing crew etc etc. I had a couple of gfs at school, but I was more interested in sport and doing well in my exams so they were nothing serious. Anyway I eventually went to uni to study medicine.

At university things became much more complicated. In my second year I met a boy who I basically instantly fell in love with (cliche I know but can't explain it any other way). For the first time in my life I thought about this boy all the time, wanted to be next to him all the time yadda yadda (I'm sure many of you will know the feeling) but he revealed very early on that he had a gf and this broke my heart. However, instead of sobbing off into the distance I couldn't not have him in my life. So I suppressed my true feelings for him and became his friend, and very quickly he and I became best friends.

I could actually write for ages about me and him, but I'm conscious that this post is getting very long now, so suffice to say we remained best friends for 4 years in which time he split up with his gf and started seeing someone new. All this time, being with him made me ridiculously happy, but whenever he was with his gf or mentioned her etc, it hurt so much. So this year he finished his degree and moved to another university to do a masters with his gf, and I graduated as a doctor.

Not having him around has been the most painful thing I've experienced but it made me look at my life and think about what I was doing to myself. I realised that for 4 years I had been secretly hoping that he would eventually fall in love with me too. I just couldn't understand how you could love someone so much and they just felt nothing back, I didn't think it was possible. But now I was able to see that nothing was ever going to happen with us.

So the situation I find myself in now is that all my friends think I am straight, and I have convinced myself that I must be gay because of how much I love my best friend. I've hooked up with a few girls at uni but because of my love for my friend I never really cared about them and no relationship ever came of them. So in the past couple of weeks I turned to online dating and met a guy who on paper would be perfect for me, he's very into sport, he's intelligent and I find him attractive. We slept together and it was good but afterwards it didnt make me feel as happy as I thought it would. I'm not sure if it's because: a) I am gay, just not that into him. b) I am gay, but still in love with friend so can't handle being with anyone else, c)Not gay, just had a one-off love for a boy and that's it.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I've never told anyone any of the above before and I wanted to write as much as I could in one go. I just feel that I have a job I love, friends I love, but my struggles with my sexuality is keeping me from fully living my life. Please feel free to comment. I'm a bit emotionally drained now...