hi all i need help. i dont really have anywhere else i can turn where people understand me or can relate. i'm in my late 30s. im single. i started exploring my same sex attractions when i was 30. since then it's been heartache. i have met guys at clubs, at the gym, and other random places and it's been dismal at best. some guys are ok or nice but i can't help it if i am not attracted to them. the guys that i have been attracted to are either not gay, in the closet and avoiding dealing with their gayness, or just flat out not into me. it hurts. woman are constantly tell me i look great, have a lot to offer, etc. etc. and guys are constantly rejecting me or if they do like me, they dont seem to be able to offer me anything. i turn out to be their big score and yet, i'm not getting much in return. i am also not sexually active with is like a curse to most other gay guys. i want to meet someone and i'm pretty desperate. i have been holding onto my guns for years but i'm getting older and gay options seem dismal. i am very depressed. i am out to some family members and a few friends but mostly i am living a double life of hiding and hating myself and being the mysterious 'straight" guy to other people. whenever i go to a gay club i feel exposed and dirty even though i'm just there. im also black so it's a small gay world in the black community even though i live in a large city. a lot of the guys that are out and gay and black that go to clubs are also those that dont seem to run in similar professional environments i go to. i see professional black guys all the time that i am interested in, but of course they are not gay or if they are, i have no way of knowing. i try to put myself out there to hang out and stuff with guys that i am attracted to in those professional environments but it's like looking for a needle in a non-gay haystack. i'm very bitter and very down. i feel so bad about myself. so terribly bad. i am hurting in side so much that it hurts. it feels sooooo isolating and alone. the lbgt events in my local area that non-club related, well i'm a minority in those environments and it just hurts because i feel so alone. it's hard to build a positive image around me liking guys when everyone that i see that likes guys doesn't seem to match who i am. someitmes i feel like i meet a guy that is like me or i can relate to, that i will feel like "YES I"M NOT ALONE" and feel a bit better about myself. right now i feel horrible. i feel like just either randomly hooking up with somone and i have waited so long on the right person, but it just has never happened and i feel so alone and bad. i try to make friends with guys but they end up liking me and when i do not like them back they get mad or frustrated and lash out at me. so it's even hard to have gay male friends because when i do not return the sexual or romantic advances, they go off on me or try and cut me down. that hurts. so basically i'm alone. my lady friends dont relaly have gay friends and if they do, they are the over the top type of gay guys that i simply can't relate to. i'm trying to get a positive attitude but i have hit rock bottom and i know it. its hard to even get out of the bed some days even though i do. i have tried counseling to no avail. just still doesn't help the loneliness. all the other stuff i was trying to do like working out and stuff to occupy myself, well i've lost interest in them all. i feel so ugly becaue guys i like reject me, even though people tell me i am attractive. i want someone my own age or atleast 30+. younger guys seem to like me but we're just in different places our lives and i want to feel like i have a partner not a dependent. i dont know what i am doing wrong. i feel like i have a lot to offer but noone i seem to like is interested. is it wrong to hold to your guns or just settle and join the sex craze. i just feel so bad and cryign out for help now.
Het prettylonely. Many of us here are no stranger to loneliness. Hope it helps a little to know you have a lot of company. You might try on online dating site that's geared toward real relationships vs. hookups. Generally the ones that require a fee attract a more serious crowd.
thanks spaceman. i think me being in the closet limits me. i'm not out to friends yet really so i always fear about being outed on a dating site. i am very close to feeling the urge to come out to close friends though. being in hiding has drained all my life energy. im tired of lying and putting up walls to keep people out. liking guys in my head and behind closed doors and hoping and praying noone sees me in the gay district. its been too much to bear and has crushed me. i was once in a deep depression when i was younger and i feel those signs again and i know its not good. someone once said that when you get too big for the closet, you will eventulaly come out. well i think i am at that point. i'm ready to move forward in some ways. not out to everyone but definitely tired of hiding. maybe then and only then can dating be a real option for me.
What is keeping you from living openly? You need to live this life for yourself and not other people as at the end of the day, all we have is our self. You're always going to be gay, but you don't have to be gay and miserable. You can live as you were meant to be and have a happy and fulfilling life. Whatever you've been doing up until this point in your life has clearly not been working and only dragging you down. It's good that you're thinking about opening up to a few close people. That is a great first step.
Hello prettylonely, Nestled discreetly among your words is described a basic human need. You want to love and be loved in return. Unfortunately, love, has a hitch, as you describe, so well. You love and often get nothing in return or are loved and it is a gift you can't reciprocate. A serious design flaw. Being a minority among minorities, has in your case, an upside. In last year's Gallup survey it was estimated that 4.6% of African Americans identify as LGBTIQ. It is the highest rate of any group (i.e. over 2 million black gay people in the US). The needle is definitely there. Hope you find it, soon. psq
well party because im scared. i do not want to be hated. i have a deep seated need to be liked by others partly due to rejection and taunting i faced as a child. i am nearly 40 now and still have the same issues. another thing is that i do not like the gay sterotypes and how people lump and classify gay people into this negative box. as a ethnic minority, i already face a lot of assumptions about who i am and how i am supposed or not supposed to act. that in and of itself is hard and something you are faced with day in and day out. so adding the gay label to that, well its hard because that means facing more discrimination and likely even greater discrimination from my own race. so it's like signing up to be discriminated on two fronts instead of one. secondly, holding on to being bisexual or liking women, keeps me safe in case i dont like gay sex or dont like guys as much as i thought i would. then i can 'go back" but once out, it's like the label will stick with me forever and i'm scared. another thing is that i am sexually repressed and really scared to have sex with a guy. there's a fear that i may actually like it too much and that i will be some type of freak or something. i'm scared to see myself as a sexual being. ---------- Post added 3rd Dec 2013 at 02:53 PM ---------- thanks! i wasn't aware of the stat on african americans. i am nestled in a black professional straight life existence. its hard to consider rocking that boat. sure i see guys in that environment all the time that i think are awesome and would want to date, but sooner or later they start talking to me about women or dating girls and i feel alone and isolated. like a foreigner in my own land. then i go to the black gay clubs or bars and it's more of an urban club environment and i also feel like i do not fit in there. so it's like i'm trying to be me and identify with myself without having a role model to identify with. i know at my age, you shouldn't need a role model but i guess i desperately want one that i can talk to or go out with and feel like "ok, i'm not alone". but more and more and more and more, especially today, i see how i operate in fear. fear of people seeing me at gay clubs, fear of a friend asking me if i am gay, fear of a black straight guy friend finding out i am gay, fear of being seen on a date, fear of people gossiping about me, fear of even going to the gym because maybe someone knows that i am gay there and will tell others, fear of posting my pictures online dating sites because maybe some weirdo will steal them and use them in a bad way, fear of diseases, fear of approaching a guy because maybe he will be offended, fear of meeting people online because maybe they are crazy and will try and harm me, fear of this and fear of that and fear fear fear fear. so with all this fear, it's just so hard to really be in a place to even meet someone. a friend told me recently that i should live life unapologetically and own who i was. and that really resonated with me. i do not own who i am. and i live in a place of apologizing (maybe not verbally) for who i am. in fact, i try and hide aspects about who i am to throw people off about me possibly being gay. so often when i went to gay clubs, i felt like i had to act a certain way or be like everyone else or even dress like everyone else to fit in, blend in, not stand out, NOT be who i am. NOT get attention, so noone would see me or recognize me or tell other people i was there. and today i am realizing how much self hatred i have carried.its ok to be me. geez i like attractive guys. what's the big deal. i can't help it. but what i am starting to try and hold onto is that being gay doesn't mean being bad. it just means being gay. and that maybe just maybe, i can still be me, still dress the same way, still be conservative, still be myself and at the same time just like guys. gosh, i really hope so.
Sorry that you are suffering, prettylonely. This time of year is tough when you are feeling alone. I feel it too. One thing that stuck out to me was the comment that Lance made about how you're always going to be gay. One powerful way to feel less alone is to feel like you are seen by others. Truly seen. Maybe it would be helpful to give yourself a huge break and let yourself be seen by someone that you haven't come out of the closet to. Someone you care that would be supportive. If anything, it might be a temporary break from the doldrums to let a little light in. ---------- Post added 3rd Dec 2013 at 05:11 PM ---------- One other thought. Maybe when you meet another gay man you could mention in conversation that you are mostly looking for a friend relationship, and not something romantic. If you included this from the start, then maybe you could weed out some of the people that you don't align with? If a gay man told me this, I would be thrilled! It would also take off alot of the pressure to know that you could relate to someone with no expectations of anything else.
thanks StellarJ1, i think you are right. i am ready to let someone see me. its pretty much teh same me but this time i wont have to lie about why i am single and stuff. thanks for the advice. i am supposed to hang out with friends this weekend and there are a few girls that i know would be supportive. also i have tried the lets be friends thing but the guys i have met seem sexually interested me and they say friends are ok and then they later hint at something sexual or they start saying digs against me because i am not interested in them or they get jealous when i am commenting on other guys i like. its very hard to have gay male friends it seems.
Ill be the first to say it as I've posted before gay men or men in general are very shallow. Its sad I too though when I came out it'd be easy to find a bf not so. It truly is easier being straight.
Hey lonely... A lot of us were denied positive role models growing up gay. I thought of one for you... CNN anchorman Don Lemon is black, has a great career, doesn't act stereotypically gay...but he is. Check this out: Joy Behar - CNN's Don Lemon On Coming Out - YouTube
so how come there are so many great guys that are straight and have girlfriends and wives and are committed and also are attractive. i mean most guys settled down in their mid to late 20s, marry a girl, have kids and live the american dream life. how come in the gay community the same guys are still single well into their 30s and 40s and still talkling about "i want something real" and then when you try and date them, they want anything but "something real". ---------- Post added 4th Dec 2013 at 01:01 AM ---------- thanks space. i'm pretty familar with don lemon. he is the empitomy of the brainy guy that seems asexual and all the way gay and not all the way straight. i'll check this out.
wow, i just found this link about a black wwe star that came out and he is GORGEOUS and masculine. this is very encouraging to me. Darren Young Comes Out. WWE Wrestler Darren Young 'I'm Happy' Today Show 8/16/2013 - YouTube
hi all, i came out to a friend of mine last night. it was a guy. he said he was surprised and shocked. we have been hanging for years and some of my friends even said he was gay but i always said no. anyways, we were out and i i told him i wanted to tell him something and then i blurted out i was bi. he seemed shocked. he asked me why i thought that and since i hadn't had sex with a guy then maybe i dont know. he seemed pretty cool with this. i told him i knew regardless of the sex but he still seemed to questioin my stance on my bi-ness. anyways, he asked me if my parents knew. i felt weird about telling him i told my family cuz i wanted to keep that a secret for some reason. but he just said it was cool. he's even stayed in contact aftewards. i think this was a big step for me beause i felt i would never be able to tell anohter straight guy friend and now i have. i told him because i really feel like i'm living a double life and its so hard to do that. also, i just wanted to be authenthic for a change. he asked me who i was dating, i told him nooone cuz i was trying to figure me out first. it was weird afterward for me becuase i felt even more straight than before. lol. i felt "ok, maybe he is right. this could just be a phase". maybe i ma making more of big deal over this than need be. but part of me felt awesome because i'm living on my terms and i was able to finally be honest without worrying who is going to know. i swore him to secrecy though. one thing that i feel is how much power i was giving to other people about my life. meaning, when you are in hiding, you are turning so much power and energy over to others and how they feel about it. also, i felt like being gay meant i had to be some kinda way other than who i was. but i am just me and i can still be "me" without living up to a sterotype. this is all new, but in a way, im glad i was able to do this. i'm scared a bit still but feeling a bit ok too. i'm just tired of running.
That's really good news that you decided to open up to someone about it! I'm glad it turned out positively for you.
When I saw this: "im tired of lying and putting up walls to keep people out. liking guys in my head and behind closed doors and hoping and praying noone sees me in the gay district. " I was going to write a response about how you must have internalised homophobia, and how good it would be to be in a support group, or therapy to find your way out of the trap.. I recognise this in myself. But it sounds like from your latest post that you already took the first step !! FANTASTIC !! This could be the beginning you want so badly !
yea i mean, what i have been doing hasn't been working and i feel horrible all the time. so maybe trying to be the real me is time now. nooone knows how bad it gets for me because i'm smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. but it felt ok to just be me for a change.
In a way, I wish that instead of swearing your friend to secrecy, you had told him to spread the word around, particularly to any nice men they knew who might be looking for a boyfriend. A bit of "networking" would do you more good than only opening the closet door a small crack. I think you will probably do that after you see that the world isn't caving in on you because someone knows you are gay. Little steps lead to eventual big changes, and you have taken the first step, which is the biggest one, for which you deserve congratulations.
thanks. i did jokingly ask him to fix me up with someone. but yes, i'm taking baby steps and this has been many years coming so i'm pretty happy about it. one thing that i'm starting to realize more and more is that when i was feeling like i was in hiding, i also felt that the club guys or guys i would met here and there were the best that i could get. it seemed with them, they always had some sexual component, which turned me off. meaning, there was always some sex sex sex sex sex talk from them instead of getting to truly know me or care who i was as a person. i started to think that was the best that i could get and that was just how being gay was. i kept hearing over and over again how "guys are sexual creatures" and "guys will be guys". but i am a guy and i have needs too but i'm not inappropriate for the most part and defintiely not interested in hooking up with random people. so i just have to believe there are others like me. in a way, i am redefining what it is to be me and what being bisexual or gay means for me and not how i should be based on what i see. what i see is not appealing to me but that does not have to be who i am.
