I went to a dinner party tonight. It was at the house of a man I'd always thought was one of the hottest I'd ever met, when I met him last year...but tonight, at the dinner party, I felt nothing when I looked at him. Nothing. The pecs, the hairy arms and legs, the broad back, the strong jaw, short black hair, the back of the neck (always one of my favorite places!!!)...I felt nothing. And I can't just blame it on depression, because I have been getting better recently, the more I let go of my relationship with my ex boyfriend...and because my eyes were drawn to his roommate, a pretty woman. My attraction to men is GONE, completely...I think I'm 100% straight now. I can't ignore it anymore. This is the worst thing to ever happen to me. I thought my exboyfriend was The One...when I thought that he was the last boyfriend I'd ever have, it was because I thought he was going to be the one I marry...not because he'd be the last man I'd ever be with. Strange thing is, comments kept being made to my (now past) homosexuality...like, just little funny, friendly jibes that come with any friendship...I used to love those, and last night, I felt like they no longer applied... but I didn't say anything, so I just drank a whole bunch of wine, and I was able to act like "myself"...i.e., responding as if I really were still gay...and then I had a really good time, even though inside I know that I no longer am... I thought that by letting go of my exboyfriend, I'd get all my attraction back over time...but I've symbolically linked the end of that relationship to the end of my homosexuality (or not so symbolically!)...In the last two weeks, I've been hanging out with him, which included a little bit of sex, and even though it felt a bit different, I was still pretty turned on, and it felt good...but I'm not sure how much longer that will last, and it's really not fair to him for me to be hanging on to him so tightly, and not letting go because I'm so scared (terrified!!!) that I'm straight now... I'd written this originally as a post on someone's wall, but I'm posting it on the forum...and I don't know why. I think I'm still looking for someone to save me, to say something that will make it all makes sense and then I can get back to normal...even though I know that it never will again.. When I prayed to god over ten years ago as a frightened little teenager(I must have been 15 or so at the time), before I had come out of the closet, I had meant right away...that night was my first suicide attempt...I didn't mean ten years later after I'd accepted my homosexuality and established my identity as a gay man...I'm so upset. It's like all my struggles coming out "the first time" didn't mean anything...and that my last ten years have all been a lie... Everyone says nothing will change...but everything will change. I'm terrified.
First of all: (*hug*)(*hug*) While I only had the exact opposite (your bog-standard case of "I was so invested in being straight I didn't even notice I was gay"), I do feel like I can relate on how much it can suck to have an identity crisis. However, some thoughts that (I hope) can be soothing. First of all: whatever you are, whoever you are from now on, I don't think the past ten years were a lie. A new development doesn't retroactively rewrite history. You were truly happy doing what you did, you were living that dream, and all of that was true. Yeah, when I discovered I was gay when i was 25, for a moment it felt like it all was a lie too. But you know what? Those friends I made, the fun I had with them, hell, even the very few awkward tries I had at dating girls... that all was just as real as what was going to come after. I didn't waste my time, it was just a step on the fun and winding roads that life takes us. I'm a richer, better developed person because of it. So I don't think regrets are in order. Whatever is next, you made the best decisions you could at the time and your experiences make you unique! Secondly: do be careful with conclusions just yet. Now, it's not up to me to decide sexuality for you. But there is one thing about breakups: they burn out your heart. Metaphorically, and it does grow back, but in the end, the more passionate the relationship was, the worse the pain. Feeling like life is ruined and you'll never be able to love again are pretty common. A relationship is a living thing, and when it ends, your mind deals with it as if someone has died. I rarely talk about it, but I felt somewhat the same after I had to let go of my highschool crush. I had become so invested in him that he had become a pillar of my life for 5 years. When we moved to different sides of the country and never kept in touch, I felt like I would never love someone again. All I noticed in other guys was how they were not him, which made them instantly repulsive. All of the feelings I had for him proved wholly unable to be transferred to other guys. By contrast, girls suddenly seemed a whole lot more appealing. Not to the point that I actively dated any, but still, they had less baggage and I was fairly neutral on girls before, so it definitely registered as "Oh thank god, straight after all). Honestly, if I were to break up with my boyfriend right now, I think things would go likewise. I'd be patently unable to know what I was really feeling for at least a couple of months. So: if it has been a recent breakup, my advice would be not to dive into a new one too soon anyways. If you have been invested in someone, it takes time (and I don't mean weeks. I think it took me more than a year to get over my HS crush) to get emotionally centered. Maybe what you should do right now is really focusing more on other stuff. such as hanging out with friends or hobbies or work. Allow the stormy sea to calm before charting a course. If you turned straight, you'll still be straight in a couple of months. And it would be slightly awkward to tell friends and family, yes, but not much else has to change. I'm pretty sure they're not your friends purely because you're gay, so you won't lose them for turning straight!
I would add only that I have come to understand that bisexuality has, in my case, swung hard in one direction and then in another. In other words, there have been times when I'm absolutely positive that I'm straight, and others when I'm absolutely positive that I'm gay. It's like one of those optical illusions where you can see something one way and then another way, but you can't see both at once. It has taken me years to understand that both my heterosexual and homosexual desires are completely real and equally valid.
One thing you can be sure on in life: it never goes the way "it was supposed to go." I'm not just talking about sexual matters here. Life catches you off-guard in all sorts of ways. You have to adapt or go crazy.
Filip, Thank you for your hugs and advice. I really hope to god that it's just as you said, about breakups...that because of the breakup, and the fact that I feel guilty that I couldn't return all the love my exboyfriend had for me...I hope to god its not that I wasn't as ready for a serious relationship as I thought BECAUSE of some "respressed" bisexuality/heterosexuality, and I hope to god it really is because I just have intimacy issues or something...that way I can work at it with a therapist, and get back to looking for love with a man... But that's why I've been engaging in the "revisionist history" thing...I feel like if it really is, god forbid, that I'm straight/bi now, then my efforts in the past few years were fake, futile, and that I've disrespected the men I've fallen in love with, especially the last boyfriend...I don't want him to be the last boyfriend I've ever had. I bet that this is completely new on this forum, quite possible the world haha...a "repressed heterosexual"...christ in heaven, I hope that's not it.
