The Worst Kept Secret...

Hello all!!!

First time poster, but as you will see, the things on this site have helped me come to the point I am at, and I feel the need to share my experience. I really hope this isnt too long, but I didnt see any rules regarding length. I hope its not dismissed with a flippant "tl;dr" :lol:

I was born in Salt Lake City, UT, in 1988. Right off the bat, it was obvious that I had...odd tendencies. I was quiet, and introspective, and showed a burning desire to learn everything I could about everything around me. To this day I chew through books, rabidly studying any subject that fosters even so much as a passing interest. I would also create rich fantasies, complete with full characters. I would enact them by myself, and these players in my fantasy were my imaginary friends. I loved pretending I was a girl in these stories. Most of my characters were female, and it was always a point that made the experience so much more fun and exciting.

My family is inherently hetero. I didnt realize gay was even something that happened until I was probably 18. I was raised as a very loose Roman Catholic in Salt Lake City, UT. My dad took the local high school football team to state as a running back, my stepmom played soccer at the college level. They worked out every morning and expected their kids to be just as healthy and active. I was paraded across a hundred baseball diamonds, soccer fields, football fields, hockey rinks etc. I hated every minute of it. I had no interest in anything like that, and it seemed the pushing I got from my father just made me hate it and push back all the more. I eventually ended up playing lacrosse in high school and loved it, but thats another story. Eventually, on an offhanded suggestion from my grandma, my stepmom asked how I would feel about enrolling in a youth theater group over the summer between 7th and 8th grade. I tentatively accepted.

And boy, did I find my niche. These people were acting, putting on shows, pretending to be other people. Hell, Id been doing that for fun my entire life. Id never been happier. I got back to school and enrolled in advanced theater. Since then I was as heavily involved in the creative arts as I could possibly be. In high school I competed at state levels (just like Dad! hyuk hyuk), I participated in plays. And then senior year I landed the lead in MacBeth. Id always been obsessed with Shakespeare. This was my dream role. Life was great. I never thought about guys, but I never really thought about girls either. I was just living and doing my thing and it felt great. Im not one to brag but I was constantly pursued by girls through junior and senior year. I would turn them down on the basis of not wanting a relationship, and never think twice.

Eventually I met a girl through a friend in theater and we started dating. She was my first relationship, and Id never even been kissed before. So making out was pretty awesome. It wasnt until one day that we were making out and she took her shirt off that I was hit with a lightning revelation: I dont want to have sex with this girl. I knew what sex was. I had The Talk, and more importantly, The Internet. And I knew at that moment I didnt want anything like that with this girl.

Well I practically dumped the poor girl on the ground, made an excuse about being nervous. We laid there next to each other, and I could feel her confusion, her anger. I knew she felt rejected, and I knew she felt like it was her fault. I eventually felt guilty enough that I asked to continue. She agreed, we went through with it, it was awful. Awkward and strange and unfulfilling. The next day we tried again, to the same results. This time my phone went off during and it was like a gift from the cosmos. We broke up not long after.

I graduated high school in 2006 and moved out. I got a cushy job through my grandma at a big medical lab handling testing samples (blood, tissue, etc). I was renting out a room in the basement of my best friends parents house, but we pretty much had free reign. It was around this time that my first gay thoughts started creeping in. I would be playing videogames with my friend, and look over at him, and imagine kissing him. My mind would recoil in horror and bury it almost immediately. It was the mental version of, "La la la! I cant hear youuuu!". I refused to acknowledge these thoughts, and I certainly didnt want to think about the implications. I dismissed them as flashes of an overactive imagination. I moved out of his basement after months of nagging from both our parents and found a cheap place downtown.

Here is where I gradually started slipping. I could feel my identity eroding, and did everything I could to hold on to the old me. I buried myself in videogames and books, shutting out reality whenever possible. I found alcohol and tobacco. I found food. Working out became a hassle. I gained 100 lbs. I stopped going to work, I got fired. I stopped seeing friends. I didnt care. The only things that mattered were the beer in my fridge, the smokes in my pocket, and the book in my hand. I eventually lost my car, my apartment, most of my belongings and worst of all: myself.

Moving back in to my parents place was the ultimate form of defeat to me, and I wasnt about to sink that low, despite it all (and besides, they were sick of watching me destroy myself). I floated around for a while, at my absolute lowest, practically homeless, and then I got a call from my uncle in Las Vegas. He offered me a job at his subcontracting company, doing paperwork, answering phones, and being the office gopher. He said I could live with him and work for him on the condition that I followed strict rules and worked towards getting myself out from under the debt I had accrued.

Upon moving to Las Vegas, I met a man who eventually became one of my best friends. He was openly gay, incredibly attractive, and seemed well-adjusted and happy. I immediately latched onto him. Here was someone who was my age, and he not only had his life together far better than myself, but he did it while openly and unashamedly gay. 2 weeks after meeting him and I was ready to explode, ready to spill my guts and tell the whole world that I was gay. I thought it was gonna fix everything. I was gonna tell my parents that Thanksgiving. I told my friend, and after giving me a long look, he gave me some of the best advice Ive ever received on the matter:

Wait. Just...wait. Take your time. Feel it out. Theres no rush. Nobody needs to know. Figuring your sexuality is a personal quest, youre doing it for yourself. Telling the whole world wont fix your problems, only you can do that.

So thats what I did. I waited 4 years. I thought about it, I read about it. I swung from viciously denying it to tentatively accepting it and back again and everywhere in between. At one point I was in kind of a dark place and met a woman who was too. We started a relationship, each for different reasons and none of them right. She wanted someone to give her validation and "amazing" sex (imagine my surprise when she described our sex as "amazing". Id have used the word "tedious"), I wanted someone I could hold up in the face of my flagging sexuality and scream, "LOOK! Im normal! I date women!! I will marry this girl!".

Long story short, that didnt work out very well. We saw through each others veils easily enough until she thankfully ended it. I was devastated, but only because I saw her as my last ticket to normalcy. I spent the next year in intense introspection. It didnt take long to realize what my problem was. I had been struggling against this thing within me and fighting it just didnt seem worth it any more. So I started letting it out. Little by little. Piece by piece. I became obsessed with LGBT pop culture. I started reading a lot of gay/lesbian webcomics (YU+ME=dream, The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal). And of course, I started reading about other peoples experiences, on this site and a bunch of others. And suddenly the more I let it out, and the more I accepted it, the better I felt. My life started falling into place. All the pieces started fitting. I was happier, harder working, more outgoing. I quit smoking. I lost 60 lbs. Life was picking itself back up, or I was.

A month ago I read a novel called "Maurice" by EM Forster. It described the life of the titular character, dealing with same-sex attraction in Cambridge University in the 1910s. Maurice talks about a recurring dream he has, where he is visited by a faceless presence who calls him "friend". There are overwhelming feelings of warmth and safety and love brought about by this presence, and Maurice desperately seeks to decipher its meaning. Throughout this process Maurice grows and learns about himself in ways that were far too similar to my own life. I was fascinated. You see, EM Forster wrote "Maurice" in 1913 and was unable to publish until 60 years later. The reasoning behind this:

The book has a happy ending.

I wont go into specifics but Maurice fools the state and his family, and slips through the clutches of the church and finds happiness by being true to himself and his heart. He finds not only fulfillment and contentment but also trust and love. Upon finishing the book, I stayed up all night long to think about it. It felt as if my mind was on fire. Like my blood was electrified. It was then that I knew: I had to come out.

I told one of my best friends first, a girl whom I had briefly dated but we decided we worked better as friends. She was shocked. She never suspected a thing. She naturally had a lot of questions and I gladly answered them. Ive never been effeminate. Ive always got ###### on my face. I like tattoos and motorcycles and camping and fishing. I dress well enough, but was never really into fashion. Once all the stereotypes were addressed, we had an open and honest conversation and I had never felt more liberated.

From there on out, it was like Id pushed a snowball down a hill. I told more and more of my close friends. They were confused by it, but entirely accepting. My room mate and best friend is an Iraq combat veteran of 2 deployments, macho and manly and covered in tats. His reaction was, "Right on, dude. Be whatever makes you happy." and a shrug. It was incredible. Nobody thought any differently of me. Nobody loved me any less.

A week ago I went camping with my family and told them. I was expecting shock, I was expecting surprise and I expected at least one person to try to convince me I was wrong. I was so worried that people would disagree because it didnt make sense, and try to put me back in the closet. Well let me tell you:

My family had been waiting for this to happen for YEARS. They not only expected it, they were visibly relieved when I told them. My mom cried tears of joy. My sisters were beaming. My grandma told me to go live my life and be who I am. I am so SO lucky to be surrounded by such incredible people. I understand that not everyone has people like that who they can turn to. I havent told everyone in my life yet, and I imagine I may yet creep some people out, maybe even lose some people. But I didnt need them in the first place. The ones who matter are the ones who love you for you and thats that.

So here I am. Im still not perfect. I still have doubts and fears and I still have moments where clarity of thought completely eludes me; moments where Im confused. But Ive come too far to go back, even if I wanted to. Ive never been a fan of labels, whether its jock, nerd, gay or straight, so I avoid them entirely. I am me, and you are you, but we are both of us human. Who we love and who we care for has no bearing upon that.

I will wrap this up before it gets any more book-like, but I hope you gain something from my experiences. None of us are perfect, and some of us are probably a little crazy. :icon_wink But ALL OF US deserve to be loved for who we are, and to love others for who they are. No exceptions.

Cheers.

 

Thank you for all the kind replies! Reading and hearing other peoples stories played a HUGE part in coming out, and I had to share.

Dessa is awesome! The stuff she does with Doomtree is incredible.