Wow. I can't believe I did it. But I told one of my good friends that I am gay. It was a struggle, and I had been wanting to do it for MONTHS. It finally got to the point where I would feel awful every time I hung out with him without telling him, and the fear of being depressed about not telling him was just as great as the fear of telling him. FYI - my friend is a gay dude who I've known since freshman year of college. So I've known him for several years, even though I didn't really see him after college for a few years until he finally moved to my city 3 months ago. He just finished grad school and is a PhD psychologist. So, when he moved here I was ecstatic because he seemed like the perfect person to tell. I still can't quite get my head around it. It was so surreal! It was like I was in this state of unreality, but I mean, I think it's because I was so scared and it's something that I was hiding for so long. WOW. I feel like a weight has been lifted off, but I still feel a bit strange. It is still sinking in. I basically wanted to tell him the night before last, but I chickened out, didn't have a good chance. When I went home I was SOOO bummed. I just felt awful. So I was like...I'm just going to keep feeling awful every time I see him and don't tell him, so basically I resolved to force myself into it. I was down there by his house last night, so I had a second chance. I texted to tell me when he was home and that I just wanted to talk to him about something. He was like "sure, is it something serious??" So I didn't want him to worry so I just said "Oh no don't worry, I'll see you in a bit " I then had to play a slow-pitch softball game, which my head really wasn't in for obvious reasons. Sucks because it was a playoff game. I played well but I was not really into it. Anyway, the softball game was over and I was like....It's now or never. I didn't want to go back home without telling him. I was just as scared of the depression of going home without telling him as the though of just going to his house and spilling it. I texted him that the game was finally over, and if it was too late I could maybe come back the next day or another day this week. But he said "No it's fine I'm just laying around." So...I waited a while, drove to his house, parked, then texted "Ok I'll come by." I then sat in the car for like 10-15 minutes and tried to calm myself down. I couldn't back out, and I couldn't go in there and make something up and avoid it. By the way, on the way down to his neighborhood I just kept saying what I wanted to say to him out loud over and over and over. While blasting music. Hahaha. I figured if I said it enough times I could just go in there, somehow unhook my emotions, and just spill the words. I figured once the words were out of my mouth the pain would be over. It's just getting past the "I'm gay" that's so hard. I went into his apt and he was watching some TV show called "hoarders" and so we talked about the show for a bit. Then he asked me what I wanted to talk about. I just turned to him....and I forget my exact words...but I was like "Soo, I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, but basically I'm gay." And he looked surprised but smiled and was like "what? That's great!" And I told him he was the first person I told. And we just talked from there. He was SOOOOOOOOOO awesome. We talked for like an hour and a half and I told him everything. Wow. He's like the best listener ever, and so empathetic. He's been there before, obviously, and he and I had kind of the same process it turns out....he was so neurotic too and researched as much as he could about everything and didn't do anything with any guys before he came out either. So, we talked about it for a while, and he asked me how I felt about it and everything. Basically I'm SUPER lucky to have a really cool gay friend who is a PhD psychologist. So he knew exactly how to act and even if he wasn't a psychologist he would have been so cool anyway. He sent me a text later that night and was like "Thanks again for talking to me! I'm glad to have you as a friend. Have a good night!" I mean. Seriously. Such a cool guy. He was stoked that I told him first, he was honored. So....yeah. I felt kinda weird during the whole thing. I just felt surreal...like "did I really just do that?" And I'm kind of having some flashes of fear and unease, but overall I feel good. I mean, my mind is playing tricks on me, and I still have traces of the "maybe it's not true, I don't want it to be true." But honestly, I have to remind myself about the facts - that I've crushed on SO MANY girls, and only like 2 guys. In my whole life. And I haven't had a true crush on a guy in like 7 years. And when I remind myself of the facts, I feel better. It's not easy to change years and years of blocking something out and fearing it. I think it's going to get better. I feel more confident, and just more at peace with myself. Now that I've taken this step forward I can stop the mental wheel-spinning finally. I told him a major reason for forcing myself to do this was because I was developing major ADD and I couldn't focus on work for the life of me, and it was costing me financially. Wow. And he got me the names of some good psychologists that have experience dealing with sexuality stuff and he suggested I go because it really helped him when he was first coming out. So I may go for a bit just to work on my internalized homophobia stuff. It sucks because I don't want to pay all that money, but I think it's good for my life. I still have a lot of internalized homophobia issues, so I'm not bursting through the doors singing songs quite yet. I still find myself uncomfortable with lots of aspects of lesbianism (especially that word itself. I much prefer gay). It's going to take me a bit of work, but I figured the best way forward and out of the rut I was in was to just tell him. At least him. So, I finally did it.
Congrats! Your friend does seem like the perfect person to confide in about just about anything, but especially your sexual orientation, since he knows what you're going through. I've gone through that same questioning process, thinking at times that I'm bisexual or even straight because I had two or three genuine crushes on men. I would also remind myself that I have had far more genuine crushes on women, both real and fictional. It's rather like trying to focus a laser beam, performing a science experiment, or like trying to identify an object while blindfolded--you are unable to observe the inner mechanisms, so you must collect evidence by feeling, observing what you can see, and making an objective assessment. It's imprecise, but being close is good enough.
That's really great!! Congrats on going for it!! I had the same problem and the only way for me to make it stop was to have a tangible thing to "remind" me in a way. I bought myself an HRC ring and, as weird as it sounds, it was tremendously helpful. The weird feeling should go away with time, though
Thanks everyone, and thanks for the thoughts on questioning yourself. Right around when I came out to my friend I had a mini crush on this guy I just met. He's really cute but I've already forgotten about him. Hah. And I'm still crushing madly on a girl. So yeah. Just gotta remind myself of the facts.
