38 year old male still avoiding the inevitable?

Hi. First (well second) post. I'm a 38 year old man living in London with his dad in a dead end job struggling with depression and debt. I've been experimenting with relationships over the last year or so and I'd like to share that but first I need to tell my life story.
I've tried to keep it brief. Hopefully some of you are willing to read it.


I was awkward around girls when I young and avoided them. I stuck to non threatening male friends. Never felt obvious sexual attraction to males though. Getting older I ended up in situations where girls came on to me and largely panicked. Tried kissing a girl and it felt very numb. The last thing I would get in situations with girls would be an erection.

In private however I found the female form attractive and masturbated regularly. This was before internet porn so just TV sex scenes and Loaded magazine type of things.

I eventually became very self conscious about not being able to do anything with girls and was terrified of the idea of sex and eventually it dawned on me that I was repressing my homosexuality. I couldn't deal with it and ended up dropping out of college, arguing with my mum and moving to my dads in London. I became a recluse and deeply depressed.

It's a bit of a mess exactly where my head was most of the years between then and now because I have spent the intervening years stuck, living with my dad who is in a similarly weird sexless, reclusive situation. I've been in this, bisexual, assexual rut waiting for something to happen and nothing really did. When I was about 24 I told my dad I was gay and he was fine with it but then we never really brought it up again. A little later I spoke to my gay uncle, my dad's brother. He was quite supportive. I also spent a bit of time with one of his gay friends and went to a gay bar a couple of times. I felt very safe and confident but not sexually excited. After some cocaine one night I tried sex with him and it wasn't amazing but quite pleasant. I enjoyed giving him oral but I didn't get anything in return. I did get an erection and actually started to penetrate him but he stopped me. I asked him to penetrate me but he couldn't. Anyway, after that I began to retreat into my seclusion again.

Work wise I'd started off in London working with my dad as a painter and decorator. Later we started to argue and fight badly. I can't remember the timeline relating to coming out to him. I spent a lot of time not working and took a couple of jobs that only lasted 6 months each. The first was a shock to the system and I realised how self conscious and lacking confidence and identity I was. Eventually I got depressed and couldn't hack it anymore so left and went back to the dole. Next job was a lot better and I was more confident but still sexually petrified and unable to answer questions about who I was in that respect. I worked with a lot of men and I did spend a lot of time wondering if any of them were secretly gay and if I fancied any of them. I wasn't feeling any attraction to women at this time except in private where I was using porn a lot. Almost exclusively hetero porn. I quit my job because it was too stressful due to other staff departures and unprofessionalism at management level.

I took maybe another year to get my current job, working in a hospital lab. I would've been 26 maybe? I started out being confidently sexually ambiguous and started to enjoy the company of females who outnumbered males in the department 8-1. I avoided the men as I wasn't sure how to act around them and when they asked about girls stuff I avoided answers but confidently that suggested I was gay but preferred not to talk about it.

So this is where it all starts to go backwards and why I'm 38 and still at that job and still with my dad and still sexually confused. I start to learn to talk to women with my new found confidence that I'm gay. Eventually I found a girl who I told I was gay to and we became closer. Then I started to fall for her which was my first taste of that. She played with me and eventually she left after leaving a trail of destruction involving several men as well as me. Anyway, i moved onto another girl who I got on on brilliantly with and flirted lightly with me. I started to fall for her and told her and she rejected me. I became very depressed and took almost a year off work. All this time I was aware that I was being stupid and the fact that she is a lesbian in a similar position living with her mother makes it interesting. Anyway, I needed to get help otherwise I would lose my job so I started on antidepressants and counselling. The counselling was good in a way but also they kept telling me my problems might just be a fear of relationships with women rather than lack of sexual attraction. This advice probably set me back years although they may still be right. When I get back to work I feel very comfortable and start to find all the women very attractive and I flirt a lot. I'm feeling quite confident in my own skin and start to get aroused when I get flirted back with. I'm very eager to try a sexual encounter with a woman but knowing it would probably be messy, decide to go to ******!

Hang on, something happened first. A girl started to talk to me at a bus stop. She was weird, foreign but attractive and made it very clear she liked me so I asked for her number and arranged a date. A few days later we met and within a few minutes she asked me to kiss her across the table for the bar we were in. I obliged although the kiss was still quite rubbish although getting better. She then asked if I wanted to have sex and I said ok. She insisted on going to mine even though I didn't want to given my dad was home. Anyway it was that or nothing so I took her. She was very mechanical and immediately took her bottoms off leaving the rest. I reciprocated and was relieved to have some erection. We put a condom on which sort of worked but as soon as she tried to straddle me I lost my erection. I became overwhelmed with a cold sweat and felt like shit. I was outwardly cool and requested if I could give her oral but she didn't want that. We got dressed and I walked her to the bus stop. A few days passed and I thought perhaps it was just nerves so I rang her up and asked if I could see her again. I hoped we could go to hers and there would be less pressure. I'm optimistic because I get erections when I'm with her. We met but she insisted on coming to mine again. We tried again and pretty much the same thing happened. We called it a day.

Cut to a few months later, Summer 2016. So, I find a girl on ******, meet with her and we get on well. She's a bit 'sad' but I find that attractive. I tell her I like her and she invites me to hers. I'm quite nervous despite the antidepressants and eventually we kiss but it's numb like way back but I power on. I get some of the same awkwardness I got with bus stop girl but I feel a lot more comfortable. We actually go to bed and she's not expecting anything. We cuddle and it feels great. I ask her if I can go down on her and she agrees. I enjoy myself doing it and love how she enjoys it and I get hard but when I try to penetrate it goes soft. Anyway I keep on with hands and mouth and she comes and I come using my hand and it feels good. Not amazing but good.

We see each other again soon and I start to really enjoy kissing. The next time we're in bed she mounts me and although I'm hard for a while it doesn't last long. We turn again to mutual masturbation. She is very patient with me. Another night we're messing around on the sofa and I have another go at penetration, this time her on her back ad me kneeling on the floor. Although I'm hardly rock solid I manage to keep hard enough to come inside her. The first time. I say out loud "Ta Da!". : /

At this point we become a couple and spend plenty of time together although our sex life doesn't really improve. She gave me a blowjob which was a similar experience to the sex where she made me come but only just. I'm mainly continuing using my hand on her so I can kiss her and she use her hand on me but struggle to make me come. I'd usually have to finish myself. This all started to affect the relationship and it started to get sour in general and we start to drift. The relationship only lasted about 6 months but I enjoyed many elements of it. It's hard to pinpoint all the reasons it didn't work but obviously the sexual dysfunction was a big part. I'd told most people I'd been seeing her. I probably could've asked my dad to keep it from the rest of my family who live up north but I felt quite optimistic at the time. Plus a big part of me was pleased I'd 'made it with a woman'. Backtrack a little actually - I became convinced that the anti depressants were a contributing factor to my erectile dysfunction so I cam of them about 3 months into the relationship. This may have actually accelerated the demise as I went into withdrawals. Annoyingly I would've liked to stay friends and dissect the relationship but she won't talk to me after a huge final row whilst on holiday. We'd already decided to break up and already had sort of but I didn't want to waste the flights and thought we could manage a week but we ended up spending the last 3 days apart and haven't spoken since.

Before Anti Depressant period I was very unconfrontational largely because nerves would flood my body and stop me from operating. The pills made me fearless. I'm tempted to go back on them soon.

Coming off Anti depressants and recovering from my first proper romantic relationship and managing to get up every morning for work was really tough but I managed it. I got some support from work colleagues and was pleased that despite coming off the pills I was still feeling attracted to women. I met a girl from ****** and the date was pleasant but there was no connection. Now this is something I'm starting to notice is that if the girl is attracted to me then I feel aroused and want to sex her up. If she isn't then I lose all confidence and sexual ardour. I'm suspecting my arousal is completely ego based. This date knocks me back for a few months.

Cut to 2 months or so ago. I start talking to a girl on ******. She makes the first move which I like because it makes me feel confident. We text and talk on phone for weeks without meeting partly because of logistics but also because that's the way she wants it and it feels different and I keep pushing to meet. We're quite different people but we get on well. I get aroused moderately while texting and talking. We meet eventually and it's obvious she's very attracted to me. She's pretty but quite overweight. I enjoy her very overpowering personality and she's very open sexually. We met again soon and I was quite nervous but eventually kissed her. OK. We go out a couple of times but I am reluctant to take her to my place mainly because it's a fucking dump and my dad is there so I'm waiting to see if we go to hers. I'm feeling good about our sexual chemistry. She lives with parents however but one weekend they are away so I go to her house.
It's a very odd day. We are flirting but she is very in control. She is sexually dominating and I'm nervous partly because of her and partly because this is first sexual encounter without pills. However I am getting hard on and off but i don't feel confident enough to initiate sex. We kiss and nuzzle and have a play with her breasts but nothing more. Eventually bedtime comes. She goes straight to sleep but I can't due to nerves and a bed full of small dogs licking me. It's very pleasant though and cuddles and semis galore. In the morning, I've had no sleep and she kicks the dogs out and then there is an immense pressure on me. No way I'm getting hard. I make a half arsed effort to finger her and suck her nipples but my heart's not in it. We just get up and I go home. I'm quite keen to have another encounter but it's obvious she's disappointed. She asks me a few qustions regarding my penis size, sexual preferences. I try to be honest about my answers but also a bit defensive and it ends up with her saying she'd rather just be friends for now. I'm not happy but agree because I could actually really do with a non work female friend right now. I've told her it'd be good to talk to her about my sexual history but I'm nervous and keep putting it off. That was 2 weeks ago.
Skip to now and I'm thinking it might help to get the whole thing written up. I'd be very grateful for feedback and especially questions. I'd like people to call me out on my bullshit -don't be scared to do that. It's daft that I've become trapped in a world of indecisiveness and retreat after retreat but I'm just doing what I have to do and acknowledge I probably have a way to go before I get some kind of... sense.

So, this is what I'm thinking right now. Now that I've had a few sexual encounters with women, I should really try comparing with some encounters with men. I'm almost definately fooling myself into thinking I can have a strong sexual relationship with a female. Even if I do, I shouldn't ignore all the signs that I'd be a lot happier sexually with men. I struggle even to type that. I really am reluctant to enter this world just because of all the hatred towards the LGBT world. I'm ashamed that I've wasted 30 years of my life being scared and tricking myself yet simultaneously I think maybe I can be happy with a woman. I do believe I'm bisexual but until I unrepress my gay side I'll never know where on the scale I am. I've always thought in a world with no social pressure to be straight I'd probably be more inclined towards homosexuality but balancing that against the shit you have to put up in public is a decision whether to repress it and focus on your possibly weaker attraction to the opposite sex and find a way to make it work enough to get some satisfaction out of life. Then I sleep on it and wake up feeling like I just haven't met the right girls yet and I'm just sexually fucked and it's nothing to do with being gay.


Apologies for spelling, bad grammar and length.

I will be replying to comments. I want this to be interactive and productive thread.

 

I often steered the conversation that way with my psychotherapist and actually requested to be referred to a specialist sexual therapist but although she was keen for it to happen and tried to make it happen, our application was denied. I guess these things are oversubscribed. Maybe we should've made out I was suicidal or something. Skip the queue.

 

I find it very hard to masturbate without imagery. That's a big tick in the repression column...

 

Update

I'm feeling very low at the moment. I think I've snapped out of the delusion that I can sustain a healthy heterosexual relationship which is making me very depressed. The worst part is that it becomes so clear that I've been deluding myself my whole life and I feel like a fool pretended to me a big man. I'm ashamed and scared about how I act in the outside world now. I feel like everyone knows and they can see. I've suffered from this before, a huge sense of paranoia although I know that there is a lot of hatred out there and I don't deal with it well.

I know many would say just give it time but when I do that I tend to slip back into my world of make believe. I think a large part of my problem is living with my dad, stops me from being who I really am. Not in an aggressive way, but I'm not comfortable.

 

I do badly need some people in my life that I can be open with. I've never really had that. I have lots of female friends at work but because they're unsure of my sexuality it never gets anything more than a shallow relationship.

I think I need some female friends but outside of work. I suppose I should meet other gay men but make it clear that I only want to be friends. Just use dating apps. I'm very nervous about being in public with other gay men though. Very paranoid about what people think and might say.

 

It's hard to make friends outside of work. The girl I slept with recently is determined to be my friend and has guessed that I'm probably better off in a male relationship. I haven't admitted it completely but I'm hoping we'll be friends. She actually likes to go to gay clubs because she loves drag artists so hopefully she'll be able to take me out soon and I can immerse myself in an environment that should help me open up sexually and emotionally a bit more.

 

I think it's becoming clearer over the last few days. I've been keeping these thoughts in my head rather than letting the mist come in. Been watching gay porn more and I'm getting use to the imagery and no longer getting nervous feelings liek I'm makeing people angry. I am coming harder no doubt and getting stringer erections from this. I also find myself checking out men in public more than I did but this is making me act very subdued.

I wish I could enjoy changing my sexual side without it affecting the way I act in everyday life but I'm a very honest and up front person and don't like to hide my feelings.

---------- Post added 29th Apr 2017 at 05:43 AM ----------

That does sound exactly what I want on the surface but deep down I suspect it would go sour and develop into a sexless arrangement. I don't like leading people on and promising things I can't deliver. Thing is I do want to have sexual satisfaction as well as emotional happiness and long term I doubt that would work.