Self-conscience in public with gay guys

The nice things about feelings is they are only real inside your head, not necessarily in anyone around you's heads. Nobody else can see them. SO, all you have to do is stop feeling that way. Guys go out together in pairs all the time, and nobody thinks anything about it unless they have some kind public display of affection, such as kissing or holding hands, and even that isn't super-unusual any more. Even an occasional public hug is not that exceptional any more if it doesn't linger a long time. Unless you are dating a very flamboyant dresser, or someone with rainbow-dyed hair, no one is going to think anything of it, so there is no reason for you to either.

It may be that you have shame issues about being gay that you need to address; internal homophobia may be what is manifesting itself with your feelings of awkwardness in front of other people. Please think about that for a while; maybe that is the underlying problem.

 

It is likely you are projecting your hyper sensitivity onto other people as well. Becoming comfortable in your own skin takes some people longer than others. It isn't silly so much as part of accepting who you are....

 

I frequently quote something Dr Phil says, "You wouldn't worry so much about what other people thought, if you realized how little they do." It's not so much about being proud, as it is about being indifferent to what you are imagining other people think about you. You feel awkward because you think other people will disapprove of your being gay. Some of them will; that will never change; opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. The question is, what will it take for you to not give a flip about what their opinion of you is? To realize at some fundamental level that is does not matter what people you walk by on the street think about you holding hands with your boyfriend, or eating dinner with him in a restaurant, or dancing with him at a party?

You are never going to change the opinions of other people; they have to do that. What you are in total control of is whether you care what they think or not. When you stop worrying about them, even if you imagine they are thinking critically of you, then, you are free.

 

I think this is it exactly. The happy and sad fact of life is that the vast majority of people we encounter in life don't think about us at all--certainly not enough to engender strong feelings. When I first was coming out I sometimes had similar feelings. What I always told myself was something along the lines of--really, all these people you don't even know are going to have strong feelings about you? who are you the Queen of Sheba?:lol:

Yeah, people are going to have opinions, and, yeah, they're going to have opinions about gay people and sometimes those opinions suck. But in my experience while those opinions are sometimes strong enough to prompt them to answer opinion polls or talk behind people's backs, those feelings are very rarely strong enough to prompt them to be rude to total strangers or even to dislike someone they would otherwise like. Perhaps that is why in so many instances those feelings are overcome by simply knowing a real person who openly identifies as gay.

The sad fact is that there is much less of a chance that you being comfortable with your gay male friends will offend a stranger in a manner strong enough to have real consequences than the likelihood that your discomfort has very real effects on the guys you hang out with, who after all know you, like you and have chosen to spend time with you.

 

What he just said. When I am with my friends, I want them to know that I support them 100% and do NOT give a s**t about what anyone else thinks about them, or me being with them. I will be with anyone I please, and if someone doesn't like it, they can lump it.