From the first time till now

So basically below is going to be a wall of text of just my three separate coming out occasions, but the more important one as to why I'm writing this is because of the last one. It's where I'm at right now, and it's what is really effecting me.

The first time I did it was easily the most dramatic and emotional because I was pretty weak and torn apart at the time over it. I was really depressed and ready to just give up. I was visiting all of my friends from school in North Florida. I was 18. I dunno, I didn't think to myself before I went that this would be it. I didn't have any plans to out myself. But somehow I knew something was going to happen. I was too miserable and too sad to continue on. So I just wanted the opportunity to say it to someone. I'm really awkward about it though, and terrible at initiating unnatural conversation. I can't just tell someone 'I need to talk'. I don't know why. So this was very difficult, but basically I had isolated one of my friends. Just the two of us (and alcohol). Anyways, long story short there... he has just as many problems as I do but on a different spectrum. So we used each other, and I took that leap. In fact, I made him slap me in the face to make sure I didn't run away from what I was about to do. He was cool with it I guess. I was a mess that night.

Anyways so I went home from that trip and apparently he, not in is right mind, told some people. He had a lot of problems so I wasn't mad. That was in July though, and nobody told me they knew until December. That was really disheartening. My best friend from my early childhood had known for half a year, and nobody told me. But he was accepting. He had told me that the initial friend that I'd told had told several other people. So I went to one of those other people that he named and confronted him and told him I knew that he knew. Turns out... he didn't know. That was humiliating but honestly it made it so easy. So again, I wasn't mad.

So that's instance one. Instance two was about two months ago. Two of my friends came to Orlando to visit me. Anyways, long story short again. They (two girls) were drunk and we were sitting by the pool. The three of us. They started pestering me about my love life and all this stuff. It started to get really uncomfortable because they were basically sitting on me. I wanted to cry right there, because it was around that time that I realized that I really liked this girl, but I'd be lying to myself if I was sexually attracted to her. So it was then that I just gave up on considering bisexuality as some form of identification, because I really did fall in love but in the wrong way. So I told them, and they were both cool with it.

Anyways, where I am now.

All summer long I was taking classes and there was this boy in my chemistry class. I never really got to talk to him, but I dunno. I feel like I can read people and the way that they behave. He seemed so nice. Just the kind of person that I wanted to know. Just the kind of person that I wanted to be friends with. So I tried, I did. But he never showed up to class. Apparently he'd already known the class because he took it at a CC a year before or something like that. Anyways, irrelevant. That hard to get idea... it'd really started to draw me in. Before I knew it, I was falling in love with a stranger. I'm the worst when it comes to attachment. I wanted just the chance to know him. Just the chance to try.

I was pretty convinced that he was gay. I still am to this day convinced that he is. I try to be very careful with who I'm approaching about this kind of stuff as you can imagine. So I kinda stalked him on Facebook a little bit. For a good reason though. Not to be a creep, but just to make sure that I'm not going to get hurt or have my life effected if I actually try to talk to this relative stranger. Turns out he was very progressive, liberal, gay rights, etc. I felt safe with no matter what I did.

As the semester came to an end, I'd still not been given the chance to just ask. However, there was a link that we shared. We had a mutual friend on Facebook that was and is very important to me. One of the girls that I'd just came out to mentioned earlier. So I sought her for help and insight on the situation. It had been one of the toughest things I'd ever done to that point. Harder than coming out. Speaking about my feelings with one of my friends. But I did it. I told her about him. She told me that she knew him from her hometown. Her old roommate grew up with him, as well. She said her old roommate often thought that he was gay. That made me happy. An outside source, close to him reaffirmed my beliefs. He might actually be gay. So maybe I wasn't just daydreaming about the life I wanted? Maybe I was actually on to something?

So I never got the option to talk to him in person. I was going to do it on the last day of the summer semester. I was ready, I was going to take another leap. Ask him if he was gay. Unfortunately, once again, the opportunity never presented itself. Didn't find him that day. Never saw him. But in my head, I'd already taken that leap. I wasn't going to give up just because I didn't get the opportunity to try. I had fallen for someone I didn't really even know.

I friended him on Facebook. No response. I guess he didn't really know who I was. Chances are he wasn't really thinking about me the way I was thinking about him. But I still wasn't giving up yet. I was determined. So I wrote him a long drawn out message on Facebook explaining quite a bit. I said I would understand if he didn't reply, but I just wanted to know. It was my leap and I had to take it. No reply. I feared that he didn't receive it. I wish I didn't go any further than this, but I did. I had our mutual friend contact him two weeks later because I became convinced that the message went un-received because we were not friends on Facebook. I had her be as oblivious as she could be so as not to scare him. Maybe he just wasn't ready? Maybe he thought I was teasing him because he appeared gay? Who knows. He never responded to her either though, but I was messing around on Facebook mobile and I learned that with Facebook mobile you can determine if and when your messages get received. So I checked the one I sent to him... he got it. I felt like an asshole, because I'd strictly said I would understand if he didn't reply.

I sent an apology and said my goodbye, to the stranger that I'd fallen for. I was talking to myself. Someone was seeing it, but not answering me. I felt so bad. But for some reason he never actually deleted the friend request. I want to let go but I can't. There's always that little bit of stupid hope in me that one day he'll write me back. Left me with a scarred lyric in my head, "I'll wait for you" ~ With or Without You.

If you never try, you'll never know. But even sometimes when you try your hardest, you still don't get to know. But there's always hope. Another time, another place. Okay, I'll stop with the song references. Thanks for reading.

 

I know, I know. It's so hard though. You know the dead hopeless feeling... well this time I actually had hope. And I still have hope, and it's all the hope I've ever had. I just need that one person. I know that sounds cliche and a bit wrong of me, but I really feel as though I go to all of these lengths to try and do best with my personality that I can... that one person would change my life.