I feel like I'm the only one on the planet

Okay, well here goes. I am a 17 year old living in a rural city in Australia. It has taken a lot of courage for me to face my sexuality and to tell my friends about it. My friends accept me for who I am, which is good, but I'm also feeling really lost. I feel really upset and lonely a lot of the time and I don't really know why. I mean, my friends support me and are all there for me, yet I suppose I don't feel like it's enough. I feel like I'm all alone in this world. T
his is probably partially because I don't feel especially close to any of my friends. They're really supportive and great, but I honestly could walk away from them tomorrow and not really be upset. We just don't click. It's been like this for the last year and a half since I moved here and I just feel so lost. I tried to contact the local gay youth group, but they've recently shut down and now I truly feel horrible. What's worse is that my family are really religious so I can't come out to them. I feel like I just want to have good friends that I can connect with, but what can I do? Being so conservative and rural where I live it's also really hard for me to meet anyone who is gay. There are two people at school that are gay, but they're just idiots who flaunt it and push people around. I just feel so lonely and confused and angry all the time. It's just so hard to keep up the act of being straight and never being able to flirt or laugh or have a relationship with any guy. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do?

 

Well, no, there isn't much I can do. I mean, I have issues with my father and all we do is fight, which doesn't help, so I think moving out would be good, but I can't really. I want to go to uni next year but I want to move to Brisbane or Sydney, a capital city, so that I can kinda connect and try and fit in.
The problem is that I've already had arguments with my parents because they don't want me to move away. They just want me to go to the uni in the town I live in. It's only a tiny uni, but my parents just say that then I won't have to worry about uni debt. My parents think everything is fine, that I have great friends and are just a quiet guy, but in truth I feel so lonely and don't really have many close friends. Don't worry about being stereotypical btw, most of my friends are girls, but that's just because I don't really like football, a sport that is super popular here.
It just sucks that I can't do anything! My parents are driving me up the wall. If they knew I was gay I don't know what they'd do. I just feel like I'm so alone and yeah, like I'm being smothered by this small town mentality. Everyone expects me to go to uni, get a good job and get married and never leave. The problem is that I'm not that person at all. I went on holidays to Europe and now I dream of going to live there myself and exploring the world and most of all, escaping my parents. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like I'll even be able to leave :icon_sad:

---------- Post added 23rd Mar 2013 at 05:49 PM ----------

Thanks. I'm a bit of a mess at the moment. A random question, but I know they're in the process of allowing same sex marriage in the UK. Is there a lot of discrimination in the UK like there is in Australia?

---------- Post added 23rd Mar 2013 at 05:50 PM ----------

Thanks for the link. That does remind me of myself.