Coming Out and Staying In

Hey, so this is my first thread on this forum aside from my welcome message. I guess I'd just let to share my story with everyone.

Basically I'm a gay man, 22yo. I have come out to most of my friends however I haven't told my family yet, and sometimes I don't think I ever will. I don't have a great relationship with my parents, and I sometimes think that I'd be better off without them in my life. Nothing to do with my sexuality, just that they can be really horrible people.

Starting from the beginning all I can say is I've never remembered a time in my life when I've not been attracted to men. I can think back to at least eight years old and noticing guys (I used to watch a kids' tv show and there was a presenter who was my favourite cos he was cute lol).

Growing up and going to secondary school others had noticed that I was different, and I got bullied for being gay. I used to rationalise it to myself and say that I wasn't gay, but that because I'd been brought up by a single mother with not many male rolemodels I was just a bit more feminine than most guys. In secondary school I had sex with a few different guys but still didn't think I was gay. I guess I was just so used to denying it to everyone else that I was denying it to myself.

I went off to college at sixteen and made a few new friends, who were all gay. One friend I had, Robert, is the first person I came out to. It took a couple of years but I told him I was bisexual (still in denial). Eventually, I told one friend, then another. So I had a small group of people who knew the truth. But, I know I was still in complete denial. I was still having visions about getting married and kids.

The friends I made in my first year at college ended up taking a different course, so I made a new group of friends. One them was a girl named Alana, who is a lesbian. At the time she was struggling with coming out and I never told her about myself, but a lot of what she said and did made me worried.

It took me a while but I eventually realised that I was unhappy denying my sexuality and trying to pretend I could get married and have kids and I came out to my new college friends. After that, I became pretty much open about it. I started working and found it easy to come out to my colleagues, and recently told a guy I used to speak to at college when I met him on a night out.

Yet despite all of this I haven't told my family and I absolutely dread the thought of it. My dad has expressed homophobic sentiments, and my mum, well, she would see it as a gossip piece, something to tell her friends, and then every detail of my personal life would be in the public domain. I know one day I will either come out to them, or I will leave home and cut all ties with them.