First-time poster here. Thanks in advance for reading. I'm a 30-year-old white man. I have had an inkling that I liked men from pretty early on in life, but I think those feelings were repressed from an early age due to the standard external influences. To summarize, those feelings remain repressed to this day. There are plenty of reasons that may take my whole life story to explain! The biggest reasons are probably this: I am fairly masculine and not stereotypically 'gay', I have never found gay guys attractive (more on this later), and I never felt comfortable with the gay scene/gay label, etc. And eventually you start living with this external version of yourself that you begin to believe is real. In college and later again in grad school, I silently fell in love with two straight male best friends (at different times, obviously). I remain close friends with each of them and the feelings have faded with multiple moves and the tincture of time. Those feelings, along with completing 12 years of intensive post-high school education, made me complacent with being largely single. I had a string of short-lived essentially empty relationships with girls along the way, but none of them really ever meant anything to me. I had sworn off dating girls because I felt that I only ended up hurting their feelings. I suppose I consider myself bisexual with a predominant preference for other men. About a year ago I finished all this educational training, moved to a new city (large university town in a rural area) where I knew nobody, and set forth with the endeavor of starting gay dating and starting to confront this suppressed demon. I made a solid effort to date, joined 5+ dating sites and opened my searches to men as far as 150-200 miles away. I was determined. I went on a lot of dates. Even met a few guys that I liked quite a bit (I began to find hope that I could find a gay man attractive). Unfortunately of the guys I was into, they strung me along for a while before dropping me. I refused to get discouraged and kept trying. About 6 months ago I was out in town with a few coworkers. We ran into a few grad students we knew and I got to talking to one of the girls. Let's call her Melissa. Melissa and I had a few drinks and really hit it off that night. We got brunch the next day and we have been dating ever since. It was the last thing I expected, but I promise you my feelings were sincere. Our relationship has been progressing quite well even though she graduated in the spring and moved a few hours away. She is beautiful, the sex is very good, and we get along pretty well. I never felt head over heels in love with her like I did my previous friends, but I wondered if it had something to do with her being attainable versus unattainable straight friends. Since we started dating, I have been quite happy and I thought I was falling in love with her. Everything started to make sense. It's too early to consider marriage but it's late enough to have entertained the possibility. The straight 'normal' life I always dreamed of. And now a few months ago I met a male friend through work. He has a girlfriend and I don't suspect he has even the slightest homosexual or bisexual tendencies. He, like me, is fairly new to town and doesn't have many friends. We really 'clicked' as soon as we started working together, like we had been best friends our whole lives. This bromance has progressed pretty rapidly and all of a sudden I realize I have developed pretty strong feelings for him. This is tearing me apart for a number of reasons. For one, I'm upset that this keeps happening to me. I'm not sure why I am seemingly exclusively attracted to straight men (as opposed to gay men). I do find women attractive but I seem to form much more intense emotional bonds to men. I've entertained that I may be a homophobe and I guess I'm not sure if I am. I don't hate gay people, I don't think that gay people should be treated any differently, and although I'm religious I certainly don't consider homosexuality a sin. I just can't see myself with the homosexual, or even bisexual, label publicly. Secondly, why can't I meet an attainable man? Believe me, I feel like I can't meet a 'masculine' seemingly-straight man without sizing up the potential that he could be even the slightest bit bicurious. I just have never met a man that was (probably becoming less common as I get older). Thirdly, i feel bad about Melissa. I have no intentions at breaking up with her at this point. Again, I wonder if i'm attracted to unattainable situations. I have another person who cares about me very much and i do care about her. Breaking up with her could be throwing away something very special. And then I'd be back to being alone. If this new friend ever came on to me, I'd be on cloud 9. I'd have some difficult decisions to make, but I'd be lucky if I had to make those decisions. I think. I don't want to do wrong by her though. I just worry that this will happen again (this is the first time I've been smitten with a guy in a while). I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm not sure that I want to come out. I'm not sure that it would benefit me. And last question, has anyone ever experienced the straight best friend that ended up having bisexual tendencies? Can I trick him!? Thanks for reading this long post. Hopefully I don't sound like too much of a jerk.
Welcome to EC, jnr183! I hope that you will find what you're looking for here...which may not necessarily be what you thought you were looking for... With regard to Melissa, you seem to parse your words quite carefully: "I never felt head over heels in love with her like I did my previous friends, but I wondered if it had something to do with her being attainable versus unattainable straight friends. Since we started dating, I have been quite happy and I thought I was falling in love with her. Everything started to make sense. It's too early to consider marriage but it's late enough to have entertained the possibility. The straight 'normal' life I always dreamed of." Words like "never felt head over heels" and "I thought I was falling in love with her" tell me that there is a great deal of ambiguity in your relationship with her. In all honesty, are you with her because you want to live the "straight 'normal' life" you always dreamed of? I did that...it didn't work. Now, you feel intense emotional bonds with unattainable men...well that's safe isn't it? You state that you don't feel this way with gay men, because you're not attracted to them, or maybe because they are attainable and would require that you confront these feelings head on...and perhaps you don't want to? The masculine straight-looking guys are more out there than you perhaps realize, not that there is anything wrong or unattractive about the more feminine types...I am in a gay choir and I would categorize about 85% of them as masculine straight-acting types...you actually can meet them, I question whether you really want to... You indeed do have some difficult decisions to make, but as someone who's been at that turning point, and took the wrong turn, you need to really explore what those feelings are, most importantly for the sake of Melissa's happiness.
LOL. Actually, this did happen to me (sort of), a couple of years ago. I had 'the coming out conversation' with my longtime best friend, who then admitted that she'd had flings with girls herself. Unfortunately, nothing substantial ever came of it. She was sweet on me for a couple of weeks, then went right back to dating the same (loser-type) men. Oh well. And no, you don't sound like a jerk at all. You sound like someone who is genuinely trying to sort out all of his feelings and cares very deeply about how it will affect the people he loves. Believe me, I get it; I'm going through a lot of the same feelings myself. Only difference is I've been married for nine years. I apologise if this sounds inappropriate or disjointed, but... a question to ask yourself: If, hypothetically, you told Melissa about your attraction to men and she was completely OK with it - or even allowed you to have a boyfriend on the side - would that be enough? Something I've been asking myself for quite awhile now. Anyway, all the best.
Hi jnr183, It seems that you and I have some things in common. You might get a kick out of reading my posts. There are not a lot of them, and they are a few months old, but you will see some similarities with your situation. Biggest difference is that I married my Melissa. I am still figuring things out, but I will most likely stay with her because I love her in all sorts of important ways. I don't post much here, but I check in frequently. I will follow the progression of your post with curiosity.
Thanks everyone for your posts so far. @GW: I hear you loud and clear! I guess that is what I am worried about and that is why I stopped dating women a few years ago. The development with her came after nearly a year of frustrating attempts to meet men, albeit online. The feelings were real and still are; my wording I think has something to do with the fact that we have been attempting this relationship long-distance for the last 3 months. I'm definitely not fully comfortable with my sexuality, but this does help. @Torrey: Wouldn't it be cool to find out that many of our friends had bisexual inclinations? Ha! I appreciate your kind words. Melissa does not know about my bisexuality and I do want to tell her. Before she moved away, our relationship progressed pretty rapidly and one night I nearly did tell her but chickened out. Now that we only get to see each other 1-2 times a month, I don't want to ruin a weekend with something that she probably would be accepting of but would certainly also be quite jarred by. And I don't even know that I would want a boyfriend on the side. I do like monogamy. I just think it would be easier if she understood I can get tempted and distracted by men and women.... but mostly men! @Link: I enjoyed reading your posts and I think we do have a lot in common. It's difficult! I would love to chat with your personally but EC isn't letting me send you a private message. Unclear if that is allowed or not! I do want to stay with Melissa. Currently I think I'm just upset because I have become so fixated on one guy and he's a guy I shouldn't really be after for plenty of reasons. Things will blow over with him before too long but right now I'm sad about it!
1. i have not experienced teh straight best friend that turned out to be gay or bicurious. i have experienced the masculine guy that acted straight and seemed straight but for some reason i thought was gay and that i befriended and yes, turned out to be gay. my general advice with all "i'm in love in my straight best friend" posts is to accept that he is straight even if you think he is gay. get it out of your head. do everything you can to put him in the friend zone becuase you're only going to hurt yourself if you dont. 2. i can totally relate to where you are. there is nothing wrong with gay guys but i suspect that when you try and date them the thing that doesn't make you fully into them is that they are fully comfortable with being gay and/or they may have adopted some of the sterotypical "gay culture" elements. you like straight guys because they are masculine (gay guys can be masculine too). but i suspect you like them because if they turned out to be "into guys too" it would make you feel more normal. likely when you think of dating a "gay guy" it makes you uncomfortable because it makes you face the fact that you are also in the same boat as the other "gay guy". however, if you have a mutual bond and attraction with a straight guy, in your mind, your identity can remain the same. if you get with a gay guy, in your mind, you will not be aligning yourself with that identity and that makes you uncomfortable. 3. melissa: you like melissa but it sounds like she is the second runner up to what you really desire. when in these situations, imagine that there are two doors. behind door 1, there is the perfect guy of your dreams, nobody would know that either of you were gay, he would be into you as much as you were into him. behind door 2 is melissa. if you had to pick one, which would it be. the answer to this will determine what your heart truly wants. if it is door #1, then melissa will never truly make you 100percent happy. #4. now that you know the melissa will never be what's behind door #1, you have to also ask yourself how realistic is door #1 and is it worth searching for. only you will know that. but from reading all these other posts from older married guys, you will see that they married their own "melissas" and they all want out or feel trapped. but also kknow that fantasy is rarely reality and you're perfect guy may likely end up being a "gay guy" because the fantasy of the straight friend that falls in love with you and you both turn your bromance into a hot sexy secret relationship.....well can that happen. YES. is that likely to happen...NO. if you want a guy that likes guys, you will have to fish in teh gay pond. if you do not, you will spend hours, days, weeks and ultimately years trying to turn a straight guy into the gay guy of your dreams. even if you meet a guy that is straight and happens to be "curious", he will likely be curious just that instance and go back to being straight. your life will be in despair if that happens. #5. there is no need to make any snappy decisions. the only thing you need to do is be true to you and that will lead you to the right answer.
Although 20 years older than you I can so clearly remember being in very similar place when I was your age. I met two "Melissa's" and dated each of them for two years. I convinced myself I was 'in love' with them and in fact 'emotionally' I know I was, but that was not enough. I was also sort of honest with them (told them I was 'bi'). In the end that in retrospect was what caused both relationships to end. The first time it literally broke my heart as I knew that (as I was actually gay) I might never have the "straight normal life I always dreamed of". I quickly lost touch with her - as it was all too painful - too many untruths. My second girlfriend did not disappear from my life and is now 15 years on my best friend. But even here I wasted so much of her time and my time by not being true to myself. What is worse, even after these two experiences, I still stayed pretty much in denial and in the closet until 2 years ago...and had no more relationships - straight or gay (guess it was just easier to avoid the confusion?). My advice to my 30 year old self - would be to bite the bullet and come out to everyone as soon as possible. All the weird internal homophobia (and again I so much get all the 'unattainable straight friends' and 'not finding gay guys attractive' stuff) can only pass if first we are true to ourselves. I have realised all I had to do was admit to myself, and let the world know, that I happen to find men sexually attractive rather than women. I needed to do nothing else. Everything else about me is still me. It is nothing to do with how masculine or feminine I might be - what i think of gay culture - etc.. Thats can all be ironed out and worked through in time. But I could not even start to do that until I was authentic with myself about this one thing. I wasted years and years - and when I read posts like yours I just pray others will not do the same. Good luck with your next steps
