Coming to terms with myself, making confessions

This is my first post. I have been examining this forum for the past week or so as the past week has changed me life with furious speed. I'm going to write this personal exposé in part to seek advice on coming out, but also to try to understand myself, my actions, and my future.

I am 21 years old and grew up relatively wealthy in a small, middle-class town in upstate New York. That oft-ignored expanse between Pennsylvania and Canada. My parents were Republicans, but had not been outwardly religious since we stopped attending church when I was 8 or so. They were not perfect people. My father has a huge ego and my mother was and is incredibly neurotic. By and large though, they were loving and gave me an exceptional childhood. I spent K-12 in public schools with GSAs and generally accepting environments. I sucked at sports and did okay in the arts, namely chorus and student theater. I describe this at length only to make clear that very little in my upbringing suggests an oppressive or unwelcoming society.

In spite of this, for the past ten years, I have been repressing and suppressing my sexual instincts. Only now have I begun to realize the incredible scope of what I have been doing. At eleven years old, in my last year of grade school, I distinctly remember another boy drawing a crude stick-figure drawing of gay sex on my homework assignment one day. I, having never thought about sex before, (but having a sense of propriety) erased it immediately. From that moment though, I realized that the drawing was incredibly fascinating to me. Soon after I started spending long hours on the computer admiring the male anatomy. My parents, who I don't believe realized this, tried to give me "the talk" about sex and puberty but I adamantly refused to have it. While alone, I actively indulged in my baser instincts. I did not want to discuss sex with my parents or anyone else for that matter.

I kept up this closed-ness until the end of high school when I started to engage with girls. When college was staring me in the face, I began to think that discussions of sex, alcohol, and using cuss words were appropriate given my age and place in life. I gradually started to talk about all of them and I made it to first base. Hooooray.

I went to college at a fairly prestigious university in Washington, DC. I had spent part of high school riding the Ron Paul wave and that led me to volunteer on some local political campaigns. I eventually realized that too much of Ron Paul's stuff is batshit crazy and decided that I fit better within more mainstream conservatism. With that, I went to school to educate myself and work/network my way into the conservative political institutions in Washington.

Over the past four college years, I did a few more student theater performances as I did in high school, and I joined a fraternity: a real, hard-talking, hard-drinking fraternity. I have also interned or worked at a GOP Congressional office, a branch of the Republican Party, a massive super-PAC that has raised and spent tens of millions on GOP Congressional races, and now for the government affairs department of a major corporation part-time as I finish up school and seek real full-time work. This may raise the question of marriage equality. Up until now, I honestly haven't cared about it. My political passion has been largely directed at budgetary and free speech issues.

In college, I eschewed the stifling prudishness I had in high school and started seeking out girls for sex and relationships. In private, I continued to scour the internet for gay adult videos and pics as I had for some time. In public, I made no reference and gave no indication of this. I would try to watch straight stuff online too, but even when I did I generally focused my intention on the man.

Still, I did not want to admit to myself that I was or might potentially be gay. I wanted to be a real man, who had a real biological family to raise. Mom, white picket fences, apple pie, America. Everything mainstream had immense appeal and continues to have immense appeal to me. I thought homosexuality would shatter that entire imagery, and maybe still think that. I'm trying to see other options. Anyway, I put this avowed higher interest over my prurient gay instincts and said "No, I am better than this." I apologize if this offends anyone. It offends me now.

So I tried many times and hooked up with many women, most of the times they were less attractive than me by objective standards. I tried to engage in various sexual acts with them and had a host of one-night stands and brief relationships. Almost every time, I would have trouble either maintaining an erection or finishing. Yet still, I would not entertain the possibility that I might be gay. I told myself I needed more practice and eventually the straight sex would work out. I could handle it. I would fix it. I convinced myself all of these things were true. Maybe somewhere a little voice might be asking WTF? If so, that voice was drowned out by my chosen ideology, culture, and sense of dignity.

Fast forward to last summer. I was introduced to a girl and we hit it off in many ways. She seemed friendly, accepting of the more quirky, geeky qualities I have that I generally don't show people around here. She was a fun person and great cook. I wish I could tell you that this was the reason I asked her out, but it wasn't.

I asked this girl to date me for one reason: we "successfully" had sex a few times. What was special about her sexually? Nothing really, I just took some somewhat extreme steps to make out sex life work. I limited my masturbation as much as possible (didn't always work). I thought of men or occasionally other women during our sexual encounters. Consequently, she would often remind me to look at her during sex or talk dirty more in the bedroom. I took yohimbe, an herbal stimulant and aphrodisiac every time I thought we might have sex in a given night. That made a major difference. I kept one yohimbe capsule on me whenever I could, just in case. Sometimes all this stuff wouldn't matter and I would still take forever to finish in bed. At first she was concerned about this and I had to convince her it was just temporary or I was just tired or stressed. By the end of the relationship I had so convinced her of these explanations that she was offering ME encouragement in the bedroom when these things happened.

Outside of the bedroom, I was the best boyfriend I could possibly be. She was having an extremely stressful year with difficult classes, fights with friends, lack of money. I had the patience and money to help her through all of these issues. She felt bad for pushing all of her emotional problems on me and accepting so much "charity" from me and my wealthier family. She felt that I was the only one loyal to her and keeping her stable in a tough time. This certainly helped intensify my already inflated ego. She didn't know I was doing these very good things for her, not out of real love for her, but so I could have the kind of family I wanted. She didn't realize that all of my kindnesses were ways to use her as a means to an end. I on the other hand, knew this, but did not acknowledge it or consider the possible consequences.

I lived like this for just under a year without questioning it much. I told her I loved her and agreed that we would be together and live together and eventually marry and have kids. I went along with all of that, because I wanted to believe it. Last week though, something happened.

Last week, a very good friend of mine. My fraternity brother, my roommate, my co-worker, my classmate, my fellow Republican came out to me as gay. While I had kind of suspected this, his sudden moment of pure honesty and authenticity had an overwhelming effect on me. This was someone who I respected as not only someone equal to me, but someone BETTER than me. He had sex with several men (and one woman) and had only every told his parents and a couple other friends. I was shocked at this. I never asked him about his sex life and he never asked about mine. We had an unspoken don't ask, don't tell policy in our room. Suddenly, he was telling me he enjoyed gay sex, gay relationships, and wanted a real family? He told me that it was too difficult to continue living in the shadows and that he was seeking true empowerment. All of this honesty shocked me and scared me and fascinated me all at the same time.

What amounted to a frank admission on his part felt like an emotional interrogation on my part. His honesty was a bullet shot straight through my soul, cracking the edifice of my entire existence. I had known gay people before, but had never experienced this. So I fixated on his coming out for the next few days. I ultimately concluded that while I might be able to continue living in a repressed manner if I really tried, I genuinely wanted to experiment and see if I could love a person rather than an ideal or ideology. The possibility had seeped into my conscience Inception style, impossible to eradicate.

I told me roommate an abbreviated version of everything and he backed me up on my decision to end my current relationship. I let him know how significant his coming out was for me and he was encouragingly supportive. With that assurance, I firmed up plans to break up with her this weekend.

Somehow I thought it was a good idea to do it at her place, at the end of the night when I had just shown her a great time and she thought we would be having sex... :bang:. Terrible timing. It gets worse. When I broke up with her. I didn't feel ready to come out to her and so I listed off all of the other reasons I was breaking up with her. These all generally had to do with her mistakes and personality flaws. I watched her break down in shock and confusion and hate herself thinking that she had lost me because she pushed me too hard and nagged me too hard and stressed me out too much. I just sat there and nodded and tried to think up things to say. She had admitted not long before that she didn't think she was good enough for me. That was of course, totally false. At that moment, I just let her believe it though. I let her suffer for me.

When I returned, my gay roommate and a newly initiated gay member of the fraternity were chilling with a straight bro and his girl. They latter two went to bed while The two gay brothers talked things over with me. They all said it was okay, I did what I had to... But I was dying inside. I felt so incredibly guilty. I had just let a poor, wonderful, innocent girl take the blame for my actions. I looked her in the eye at that critical moment and let her take all the pain onto herself without acknowledging the honest truth of the matter. I told myself, "Fuck whether I am ready or not", I have to tell her. So I typed up an email explaining everything. I let her know how I had used her and lied to her and how the last thing in the world she ought to do is blame herself. No pomp, no ego, just contrition.

The following morning she sent me a reply thanking me for the message and letting me know that it made sense, although it was incredibly shocking and she didn't know how to handle it. Most shockingly to me is that she forgave me and in a few weeks she wants to meet up and try to be friends, and she wants me to seek help and develop a support system. All of which is a good idea I think. I greatly appreciate her forgiveness and support even though I definitely deserve neither.

Today I went for a good long walk and laid myself down on a large boulder beneath a grove of trees on Roosevelt Island, a woody park that sits in the Potomac between DC and Virginia. I laid there for hours and hours staring and breathing and crying. I cried over the emotional pain I inflicted on an innocent girl. I cried for worrying my parents. I cried for all the time I've wasted in life. I thought of all the little things I've done to deny the truth. It was somber, but cathartic in its own way.

Now I'm here. Just back from my last fraternity chapter meeting ever, writing this. This is where I'm at. I am now out to three people not counting myself. I would also only count it as partially out since while I strongly suspect that I am gay, I don't want to call it anything other than questioning until I actually have and enjoy a sexual experience with a man. After all these years of feigned certainty, I don't want to rush in to a different certainty. My parents will be driving down next week so I am looking forward to coming out to them. I'm sure they will be supportive. I will likely soon tell other friends and my younger siblings too. Being honest with important people has helped me come to grips so far. I can only assume to will continue to be that way.

Now, I'm just looking for as many different inputs and support systems as I can. I don't fully understand who I am. I am unquestionably guilty and distraught over the great amounts of harm I have caused to myself and others. I deeply regret all of my actions. I feel like I clearly have a faulty moral compass that has led me to build up a house of cards Kevin Spacey couldn't begin to dream of. Anyway...

If any of you made it through this seemingly endless stream of consciousness, I commend you. Any comments on accepting oneself, on what my next steps should be would be, or on anything at all really would be very greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you all for your comments and support. It's all very encouraging. I'm sorry for the length of the post whrla. It's obviously an aberration, written with so much detail not because any of you really need it, but because I want to be comprehensive in the way I collect and analyze my thoughts and reflections at this point.

Anyway, I don't feel any guilt about these gay attractions I have had, nor do I feel bad about trying heterosexual relationships. I guess I just regret internally knowing the truth of the matter for so long and covering it up from someone who deserved to know.

I feel better having told her everything in the email, and will probably feel better still if/when we meet up again after graduation. As jazzhands said, at this point it's probably best to focus on the many positives here.

Anyway, I'm really happy I posted this as it seems you all can understand things and empathize on a very real level. I really appreciate that and will do my best to reciprocate with others here as best I can.

---------- Post added 29th Apr 2013 at 01:09 PM ----------

I think part of the reason I was so "courageous" to date and hook up and all is because fraternities *strongly* encourage that. If you get laid or lose your v-card and the chapter finds out, everyone loves you (usually). It brings a heightened social status along with it. I'm not sure if I would've been so proactive about relationships if it weren't for that added pressure.

I get the aversion to them. Any relationship means taking some risk that it won't work out and there's an even greater risk when you're unsure of where your sexual and/or romantic desires are. I think that actively putting yourself in social situations will help some. If you become comfortable with engaging with people on non sexual/romantic stuff first, the rest will follow. Then the challenge becomes building the relationship in an honest and authentic way.

I know that's all kind of vague, but it's the best I got.