***For the sake of ease, I will use the term "gay" in a general sense to mean non-heterosexual. Without getting too much into detail, I have developed a major crush on my openly gay friend. We were sort of hanging out casually over the course of a few weeks and one day, boom, I'm feeling butterflies in my stomach and wanting to be around her as much as possible. The irony is, I identified as straight at the time and it put me into a major tailspin. So the past two months have been me wrestling with the reality that I actually am attracted to other women. I guess I was a bit ignorant and thought it would be obvious to know whether or not I was gay; I just never seriously questioned my sexuality until I fell for this girl and then my brain is confused because that's not "supposed to happen." Looking back even to middle school I see points where I had really "admired" other girls or thought that they were "cool." I was totally crushing and was too dense to notice. After lots of research, I've come to really settle on the term pansexual. While I care about respecting people's sexual and gender identities, I'm more invested in personality and compatibility. If someone is awesome, I don't see the logic in saying..."but you're not a man, so this won't work." This discovery was rather surprising, but I'm finally getting comfortable with the idea in my head. Especially being in my mid-twenties, coming to this place has caused me to re-evaluate life in a sense. I know I want to get married in the future, but when you're 26 and just finding out you're gay it feels like the clock is ticking a bit faster than if I were a teenager. Going back to this crush...it's really messing with me. I care so deeply about her, but I'm pretty certain she doesn't see me in a romantic way. I know I should focus more on getting better acquainted with my newfound identity, but whenever I'm around her I'm just a puddle of goo. How does one go about dealing with a situation like this? I'm sad because even though I like this person, the chances of being with them are slim...and it's even more difficult because it just so happened to be my first serious crush on another girl. It seems like there's more at stake? I wish I could articulate my thoughts a bit better, but please feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to elaborate.
Hey there! Well...in regards to my being gay, it sort of came up in conversation so she knows. However, I have this horrible habit of being really awkward (stuttering, laughing for no reason, making strange "ummm, ehhh, errr..." noises, y'know all the good attractive stuff) and then answering vaguely or trying to change the topic as soon as possible whenever I'm talking about something important to me, or in this case someone important to me. I suppose I'm not so good at sharing personal information about myself, and when I do it's like pulling teeth for the other person. To be honest, rejection freaks me out so I panic when I'm actually sharing intimate details about myself or wanting to appear "stronger" than I actually am to others. So, yes I told her and she knows, but she has no idea about this two-three month journey and the fact that I'm attracted to her. I worry that if I go into this process she would be able to conclude that I like her, and then she can be like..."yeah...no, not interested." I suppose I'd rather be friends than risk a relationship, but at the same time if I had a chance with her, I wouldn't want to just stay friends in the long term. Why my chances are slim? Hmmm...she is more or less the opposite of me in terms of most things good. She is a hard worker, disciplined, has an idea of what she wants for the future, confident and so many other things. As for me...I come off as having no idea what I want in life, I do believe in hard work, but I think she sees me as a bit lazy because I'm really particular in when I'll put forth effort. Her communication style is a lot more straightforward, so I think I appear to not have an opinion on many things because I usually stick to the middle of the road in expressing myself unless it's something I feel like I understand enough to share my opinion. Also, I tend to be rather uninformed in regards to a lot of simple things like pop-culture or particular vocabulary and slang. I'm totally okay with not knowing things and I understand that I will learn as the need arises and everything won't be my specialty. However, I think she maybe interprets that as a willful ignorance and that I'm unwilling to learn. I just take a relaxed approach and don't take myself so seriously in regards to things I don't think matter in the long run. More or less, I think she sees me as a baby who doesn't have their life together. As friends, we've been able to manage with a few bumps here and there, but I don't see her wanting to be with a person she doesn't feel could keep up with her. All of that, and the fact that I like her makes me more awkward than I already am because I want to impress her, but it seems like all I do is friend zone myself and come off as totally incompetent.
