sorry for the long post, but please read and help. i am grasping at straws and need advice.... Hi guys, I really need your help. Here's some backstory. i am in my late 30s. i have repressed my attraction to guys for years. i had girlfriends (a few) in my 20s. i am long term relationship oriented and generally had a goodie-two-shoes persona. not because i was trying to be a goodie-goodie, i just was kinda boring and nerdy and the guy next door type. i did like my girlfriends but i knew i liked guys too. i moved away from my city in my early 30s and moved to a major metropolitan city. there were more gays there. i was single. i felt like i wanted to explore and for about almost 10 years (believe it or not) i have been putting my foot in the gay water toe by toe.it's been a long process and i still have not gone "all the way with a guy" or had a boyfriend yet. but i have accepted to myself that i like guys. you would think it would not take almost ten years to do this but it has. anyway, i started going to the club scene about 6 years or so ago. at first it was a way to see other gay guys live in living color. then i accepted that was bored of going to straight clubs and really wanted to be where gay people were. i have actually come out to a few people and recently have been making strides in trying to accept myself. i have a lot of shame and bad thoughts about my same sex attraction. i have sought counseling support because it was becoming overwhelming and i was very depressed. over the past couple of years, whenever i would go to some of the gay clubs, it would be a cycle. i would go, i would get some drinks in me, and i would let loose and touch and grab guys rear-ends in public. they would let me of course, but it was a way for me to get some feels and i would never do anything more. then i would go home. worry the next day that someone saw me doing that sort of thing. feel shame. feel bad. feel more shame and guilt and then i would banish myself from the clubs and go into hiding. then i would resurface again at another club 3 months later and do it all again. i would not take these guys home where we could be alone in private, but i would act out in the clubs in public and worry about it later. seems stupid but not sure why i did/do that. lately my overall self image and self esteem is in the toilet. i'm old for gay clubs (late 30s) but surprisingly guys still like me there. not everyone does but i can still get my fair share of attention. but i'm so scared to physically do anything with guys in terms of going all the way. at the club i feel ok about my behavior and actually feel liberated and like i'm having fun. the next day i feel shameful about my behavior and hate myself for it. i wonder if i was doing the same thing in a straight club would i feel bad......Probably not. but the cycle of shame keeps going. i have made some positive strides. i came out to a guy i thought was cute but he said he was straight and still wanted to be my friend. i felt that was awesome. i also came out to a friend of mine as well and she was accepting. i recently saw two people that may not have known i was gay and they were at the gay clubs (one was gay, one was not). i felt embarrassed a little and wondered how they now perceive me. basically i'm just being flirty and social at these clubs and sometimes i dance....kinda what you are supposed to do at the clubs. however the groping is uncalled for and i feel like a slut for it. also i can dance suggestively and i also feel like a male-slut for that.again, when i am doing these things to women, i do not feel like a slut. i just feel like i'm dancing at a club. but when it is a guy involved, i feel like a whore. i am also christian so i'm dealing with that too. i guess i need help guys because i feel terrible about myself lately and feel like i'm going into one of my cycles of hiding again becuase my gay and straight worlds are now colliding. i wish i could be more comfortable with my sexuality. at the club and after a few drinks, what i want seems clear. it seems natural, and it seems like i really want to connect physically and emotionally with another guy. however, after the drinks wear off and i'm at my house wondering who say me and what they think about me as a result, i feel like crap. i want to get out my cycle. i want to be ok with being me. i just dont know how to do it. the good guy that had a good image, seems like he is no longer there. it feels like i can no longer try and make myself perfect and it's hard to just be a regular person. im drained and i can't keep trying to be this other perfect guy anymore that always does the right things and says the right things and acts the appropriate way. i feel like i'm reliving my 20s or college years but i'm too old for that now....any advice. helppppppp me. can anyone help or offer advice. i feel horrible.
First, you are definitely not too old! Second, it's very easy to fall into a trap of extreme self-consciousness, in order to let loose, it is important, in those social situations, to focus more on the people you are interacting with, or would like to be interacting with. It's a kind of desperate wish to be desirable, isn't it? In fact, you DO NOT need to make yourself perfect! There is a lot to be said for the use (and attitude) of self-deprecation, of just accepting you as the imperfect person that you are, and equally importantly, not taking anyone else too seriously either. Try it, it can be quite liberating to just see yourself as less than perfect, it makes things go more smoothly.
hi greatwhale. i know i am not perfect. i can never be. but when i do something that makes me feel like i look slutty or sexual, then i feel like a bad person. for the longest, i had a asexual image so when i seem or appear sexual i feel bad about it. i think because the object of the affection is the same sex.
Hi, prettylonely. I have also struggled for many years with denial of my orientation. It was only this last summer that I accepted myself as gay and not bisexual. I finally said God, you made me the way I am and that's gay. Something that helped me a lot is a video called Prayers For Bobby. I wish you peace.
thanks. i watched prayers for bobby. i kinda feel like him a bit because in the inside you want to do and be right but then you just feel like just being you and being who you are is so bad and wrong. i feel like the part when he went to the gay club in the movie. not really because he wanted to go but he just wanted to be around an environrment that wouldn't make him feel bad. then i think he kissed a guy in the club. i feel like when i have done that i feel so gross and bad about myself like i'm a whore. a lot of the things his mother in the movie said about him is how i feel about myself. i do not think my friends or family really know how bad it gets for me inside but i am making attempts to normalize myself. i think one of things i have to do is just allow myself to have some fun. its so hard to even date someone when you feel like everything is bad. sometimes i feel like i am standing in my own way all the time.
Hi prettylonely, I completely understand when you say that you feel you are no longer the "good guy;" I used almost those exact same words a few weeks ago as I was writing some random thoughts I was planning on sharing later on (I actually used the term "good boy"). I think this stems in part from the fact that, like you, I was also sort of a late bloomer; all those early years of not acting on my "impulses(?)" to finally end up doing it at a later age, makes me feel at times that I have lost that kind of innocence I won't be able to get back. I don't necessarily feel shame per se, it's more like guilt, but that's besides the point. The bottom line is that if you really think hard about it, you are not committing any condemnable acts; this may have more to do with all the years of restraint being turned into some unjustified shame. If you like frequenting the clubs, then that's fine; perhaps you shouldn't drink if you are going to lose control, and that has nothing to do with you being gay, it's just that in general, drunk people do stupid, embarrassing things. Just go and have fun without getting drunk, just walk around with the same beer all night LOL. Not sure if this helps at all, and I only address one of your many concerns, but at least I hope you realize you are not alone!
thanks aqua. i just have a lot of shame and self hate going on. i want to be teh 'good boy" and to me being gay still has not reached a level in my mind of being "good" or "ok". also i feel like i'm victorian in my belief systems. people kiss, make out, twerk, and do all sorts of things in clubs and if i dance or grind on a guy at a club i feel like a whore. i think its because even there, i want to hold up my image as being above it all and not being like "them" but that is internalized homophobia. i can tell myself this over and over again but it seems not to help. but thanks for the advice. i think i am very lonlely and want connection and acdtually want to have sex but so very afriad to do that.
