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My story, so far...

Discussion in 'Coming Out Stories' started by walker, Dec 31, 2012.

  1. walker

    Regular Member

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    Hey Everyone. As much as I'd like to keep this short, I don't think I'll be able to.. so here 'goes!

    I started to realize that I liked guys somewhere around my sophomore year in high school (I'm 22 now). I had always known something was different about me, but I could never really put my finger on it.

    One day I decided I'd try watching gay porn instead of straight porn and it was a revelation! I thought: "Wow, this means I'm gay" but at the time I could ignore that fact, It wasn't important enough to me yet to really matter in my life... So gay porn it was from that point on!

    About a year went by and life was grand; I had great close friends, I was getting high and drunk all the time and generally loving life, but I was barely getting by in school and all the while my friends (straight guy friends) were hooking up, finding girlfriends, and getting excited about getting laid. So I though: "Well I just haven't been trying hard enough" when the truth was I wasn't trying at all, because I had no real interest in having sex with girls.

    So in my senior year of high school I started hanging out with a girl, and we really liked each other. We got along great and started dating after a while, but when things started getting physical, and it felt like we should be having sex I just wasn't interested enough. I remember making out with her and thinking "well this has been going on for a while..." I knew she really wanted to have sex, but somehow, somewhere in the back of my mind I also knew it wasn't going to work out the way it should. So, I broke up with her and still hate myself for making her hold on for so long only to dissappoint...

    Now I'm in my first year of college, far away from everything back home, new people, new place, new beginning, but same ol' ignorance and denial. I start to realize that I may be liking guys, and maybe trying too hard to get close to some of the guy friends I had made my freshman year. I started to understand that this was going to happen, and I couldn't really do anything consciously to stop it. That realization scared the shit out of me, I'd be found out, so I got more and more introverted. I kept to myself, I was literally hiding from the world.

    Gradually some of the things I used to enjoy started turning on me. I started getting paranoid, antisocial, and hopelessly regretful when I smoked weed. I didn't go to parties because I felt like I was getting judged. It felt like I had hit a brick wall. So after my first year I decided I'd fill out my exit papers and go back home, thinking I'd be more comfortable with what I thought was familiar...

    What I came home to though, was not reassuring, it was not comfortable. Many of my friends had gone to college, some had stayed home, and I had a inkling that they suspected me of being gay. I had this suspicion because I spent a lot of time with a guy friend of mine, who I suppose I was crushing on, but was just too ignorant to realize it at the time... There was a girl I went to high school with who had told my best friend that she liked me. She got in touch with me that summer wanting to hang out, but I never did, I was too busy hanging out with my straight friend who i had a crush on... I think this circulated amongst my friends and thats how the suspicion that I was gay came to be. They were quiet about it, but I could just tell, they started to treat me differently and this really crushed my confidence.

    I fell into this spiral of doubt, regret, and self-loathing for how my life was playing out. I hated myself for not being brave enough to be honest. I hated myself for letting my selfish denial get in the way of my relationships with the ones I love. I became desperately lonely and depressed and suicide crossed my mind often, but I still thought that somehow I would be able to figure it all out...

    I guess in what I could call a move of desperation I decided to apply to a college across the country in the Pacific Northwest. I needed a change, I wanted to see if I could get through this, and since I wasn't sharing it with anyone anyway, why not test my timber and move to a new place alone? So I was accepted and moved out, where I am currently about to to graduate. I spent a lot of time alone, but not in depression, more in a kind of deliberation of how to deal with my life, my situation. I met some great people and spent two years in a kind of "limbo" meditating on my life while going to school. I haven't come out to my new friends, but I know that they won't care if they don't already suspect. All I wanted to do when I moved away from home was try and be my genuine self, and I think I have been able to do that, and I have started to feel confident enough to accept what I cannot change.

    And this past Holiday break I have been spending back home in the Northeast, and I came out to my Mom, so far the only person who I have ever told I was gay. She reacted as I expected she would, she still loves and supports me, and claims that it wont change a thing, and I believe her. I realize I am lucky to have such a great Mom :slight_smile: The whole experience was a little surreal, I couldn't believe that the words were actually coming out of my mouth, after having kept it all to myself for so long... It was a bit heavy, she cried a little, but the experience was overall liberating.

    I feel like I've finally taken a step in the right direction. I am anxious about what is to come, and I am optimistic about it :slight_smile:

    Thanks for listening..
     
    #1 walker, Dec 31, 2012
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2012
  2. zipitty

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    Nice man. You leaped across the country to where I'm at, and I leaped across the country (Boston) to go to school... although I didn't stay.

    Good luck to ya
     
  3. Draco

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    Dude I did the same thing on Christmas. Good for you! I'm really happy for you! After holding your secret in for so long it starts to turn to poison just cursing through your veins.
     
  4. walker

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    Thanks guys,

    My mom went to see her therapist the day after and she told her that "I was probably just going through something". :confused: and my mom doesn't want me to come out to my Dad, even though I am almost positive he will be supportive of it. I'm confused, I feel like she might be somehow rationalizing this or trying too hard figure it out in her own head... From what I can tell it hasn't changed out relationship, but I don't want her thinking that somehow it is temporary... I don't know, maybe I just shouldn't worry about it.