I'm not real sure if this thread belongs here, but I'll give it a shot-- Has anyone else experienced a difference (not necessarily positive) in friendships since coming out? I'm not talking about rejection by friends. I'm talking about feeling distant from old friends. Since I've come out to myself and a few other people, I feel like I don't connect with old friends the same way as before. But these are good people, people who I want to keep in my life. But it's different now. It's like there's a barrier or a significant difference in life experiences that wasn't there before. I'm concerned that those differences may end our friendships. Part of me understands that over time, friendships do, yes, change and sometimes even end. Can I bridge the gaps? Any advice?
Hey crazydog15, As a suburban dad, the focus of my friendships has been around topics other than sexual expression. As a result, I haven't experienced a difference in friendships since coming out. If anything, I'm now a more genuine person than before. Can you share more about how you are feeling?
I think you bring up an interesting perspective: friendships based around something other than sexual expression aren't necessarily changed by coming out. So I'm wondering what my "friendships" have been based on. Were they all just crushes, or me being flirtatious, something like that? I think that's a real possibility. If that's true, then I think it's really pretty sad. I think the main change that's happened recently is determining just where I sexually stand in relation to other people. Hopefully that doesn't sound too jumbled.
I'm also having to get used to thinking that being gay is just a part of me, not all of me. It's like I hit the pause button when I was much younger, when everybody was pretty much just focused on this newfangled "sex" thing, and I never quite worked through it. Well, I guess here's my chance!
I think possibly it's a phase we go through. I know I have to make a real effort to keep up with my oldest friends, all of whom are straight. It's me, not them — I've changed and they haven't, and I just don't find them all that interesting anymore. Instead, I want to spend all my time with my new friends, all of whom are gay. Being gay, in fact, has taken over my life — I follow gay news, I watch gay films, I read gay novels. My kids even joke about it. I'm pretty sure this behavior will eventually subside, but in the meantime, I try to make time for old friends because I suspect they sense my aloofness and I really don't want to lose them.
When I was in junior high school and high school, I admired guys who had girlfriends. In hindsight, I think I had crushes on them. Chalk it up to part of our journey.
I haven't "come out" in any kind of clear and public way, but I have noticed, since coming here, and paying close attention to my inner lesbian voice, that I have little interest in my mainstream contacts. I don't usually become close friends with people who don't have some serious colorfulness about them. But I seem to have totally lost any concern with being friends with people who don't share my adventurous approach to life. :icon_bigg
I would not want to change my friendships. I have someone I am feeling very close to but I do not want to tell her because I do not want to change everything about my life. I am going to try to stop thinking about her so much and concentrate on my husband and children. I am sorry about your friends. Good luck.
I do have a lot of straight friends, but I am finding that I don't have as much tolerance or patience for them anymore. And that's not them changing...that's me. I think it's because most of them are in "traditional" suburban hetero marriages with kids and the like, and that is a life I left behind. So I find that I am more interested in cultivating friendships with different kinds of people...more colorful, as SnowshoeGeek puts it. That's the space I'm in nowadays. :icon_bigg
