Hello, everyone.

So, my name is Kyle, and I'm gay. Well, I'm pretty sure I am... I've been trying really hard to figure myself out for a long time, but a lot of other shit has just made it impossible. It's like every time I get close to understanding myself, some other thing gets thrown at me and everything else gets shoved to the back.

I guess I've known I was different since I was really young; and everyone else seems to have known for even longer. I was bullied since kindergarten. I still don't really know what I did or why it had to work out that way, but this one girl singled me out that early as not being good enough, and made my life hell.

I was fine with it though; even though I spent most of early life as the least popular person in the school, I had a group of seven friends. My best friend in the whole world was this girl (We'll call her K). I met K in first grade, and she was the first real friend I ever had. Her group of friends were the only people I knew who ever treated me well. They were like my island in a stormy sea, even though they had no social reason to let me in. They were all liked enough, and hanging out with me was purely because they liked me.

This all stayed true until the end of sixth grade. By this point, the bullying outside the group had become much worse. It reached a level where I tried to run away from home once. My parents were doing all they could to try to help me; they fought with the administration, tried to do anything they could to make things easier on me, but they were met with a uproar of people telling them that it was their fault, that if they had raised me better, to be more outgoing, I wouldn't be as stigmatized by my classmates. Meanwhile, every time I tried to express myself I was shoved back in my lonely corner by the other students and even teachers. My work record was atrocious, teachers constantly called home about how I was lazy and unwilling to engage. The public school system did everything it could to shove blame on me and my family.

And then the final straw broke. K, who was the person I trusted with everything (When I tried to run away, I ran several miles along an interstate to her house), was an early bloomer. Her parents told her about the dangers of other men, and it terrified her. So she shut me out (and of course, knowing what I do now, it's completely ridiculous). And there I was, going into seventh grade, having lost the only 7 people in the world I thought I could trust. I completely shattered me. I was crying myself to sleep every night, and I wouldn't talk to my family. My parents were worried about me, and when they eventually found out the true depth of everything that happened, they started sending me to a therapist.

Meanwhile, they were making plans to get me out of the school. My father works as a teacher at a private school, which starts at 6th grade. Originally, they had planned for me to start in 8th grade, but my therapist moved up the schedule because she was worried that I wouldn't make it to the end of the year without hurting myself or someone else.

So, after Christmas break of 7th grade, I moved to a private school on an almost complete discount because of my father, and things started to look better. No one knew me, and it was hard coming in the middle of the year. Everyone already had groups of friends, so even though I was no longer the butt of every joke thrown around the school, I was still alone. And that's where E came in.

My first day at the new school, they asked a kid (F) to show me around, but it turned out he didn't have a single class with me. E realized she was several of the same classes I was and helped me around. Even though we ended up not being particularly close friends, I can never thank E for how much she did for me.

Which brings me to christmas of 8th grade; 11 months after I met E for the first time, when she died in a house fire that killed her entire family. I had barely been out of therapy for three months before I was back again. It shoved me right back to where I was on my first day of school; unable to connect with anyone. I was lost again.

I made it to freshman year of high school. I was still at the same school, but more than half my class was new students. People I had known left, and a whole new group came in. It was another fresh start for me. My life was good; I made a ton of new friends, I was heavily entrenched in the theatre department of the school, and people knew who I was. See, immediately after coming to the school I volunteered as the sound technician on our school's annual rock concert (Since we were completely lacking one), a job that I kept every year since then, working on both middle school and upper school productions as an 8th grader. Freshman year, I started auditioning for the shows. I made a home for myself in the theatre, and when our school built a brand-new, top-of-the-line, modern theatre, I was one of the two tech people who made it work. I was both wanted and needed, and had a group of friends around me to help with that.

Meanwhile, in English, I found what I truly wanted to do with my life. After one assignment from our teacher, I realized that I wanted to write. A year later, I combined it with my activities in the theatre and started taking extra classes and reading self-help books on playwriting and screenwriting. I devoted hours of my free time to writing short scenes, spec scripts, and plays. I even started grouping together people in the the theatre to perform them.

This is the time where I also started to realize my sexuality. I had noticed flashes here and there as far back as my old school, but I'd never been in a place where I could even come close to exploring myself. Over the first year and a half of high school, I grew more and more curious about myself and got closer and closer to accepting who I was.

And then I met A. See, over the summer I'd started doing an online roleplay of a murder mystery. It was a fun game, and as the game went on those of us who stuck with it and became very close. More specifically, I became very close with the person playing my in-game girlfriend (It was a PG roleplay, so it never went beyond flirting). We would play games outside of the roleplay, such as when we both had to try to guess the other's real name. (I won. She became convinced I was lying to her and my name was Kirk.) Shortly after that I told her the same story I told you. She was the first person outside my family who I told, and the only one I felt comfortable with because she wasn't really around. Even if it turned out I couldn't trust her, that she was some creepy dude on the internet tricking kids, she couldn't have done anything with what I told her because she didn't know me in real life.

And thats when everything about my sexuality was shoved back in the closet. I really, really liked A. We grew closer and closer, eventually adding each other on facebook and skype. We still hadn't met in real life, but at this point we knew too much about each other and had talk to too many of each other's real life friends on facebook to doubt that the other was a real person. But we knew our relationship wasn't healthy. We both agreed that we would never avoid dating someone else just because of each other. But we also agreed that if we ever ended up living in the same place, we'd probably give it a shot.

Since then, she's dated 2 guys. I still haven't dated anyone. I think that I'm bisexual at this point, because I know I like guys but I also really, really like A. But it's senior year in high school, and I've started to figure out that it's not really true. More and more I started to realize that I just wasn't into women; and I've started to wonder if the lack of a physical connection with A has allowed me to tricking myself into thinking she's a guy (in the emotional part of my brain.)

But then we met. We both made plans, lied to our parents about who we were seeing, and brought friends just in case the other one had managed to trick us for 3 years about who they really were. And then we had an amazing day together, and I stopped doubting that I really did like her. If I were to date her, I would be able to devote myself wholly to that relationship and not feel like I was ignoring part of myself.

But, ever since then I've also become to realize that I really am gay. I have no interest in any other woman I've ever met. And I started to doubt myself again. Would I really ever be capable of dating A? Or was it some scared part of myself trying to force me back into the closet?

Which brings me to today. I identify to myself as Gay-with-an-exception. I came out to my close friends and anyone who asks me as bisexual about a year ago, and still haven't corrected myself. I guess I'm scared that if I come out as gay, I ruin any chance I will ever have with A (Despite the fact that we're going to college even further apart than we are now, and she's currently dating someone, I still can't bring myself to give up the possibility). And I'm also scared of my parents.

Now, being scared of coming out to my parents is probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever felt. My dad's best friend since 3rd grade is gay, and he and his partner are my brother's godparents. They visit all the time, and I even spent a month living with them while doing an internship in their area. My mom's side of the family has supported gay rights as far back as my Great Grandmother, long before it was even an issue that people approached as controversial. And yet I'm still scared of how they'll react to me. So scared, that I even drafted a mental escape plan if they kicked me out of the house. I guess, knowing all I do about them, I still can't get over the 1 in a trillion chance that they might not accept me.

What's funny is I'm pretty sure they already know. My facebook profile isn't protected, and I'm out on there, and I know my Dad has looked through all my information. A few months ago, my mom started adding the addendum 'or boyfriend' to the end of any relationship discussions she has with me (but they are rare enough that I can't be 100% sure she knows).

I've resolved to tell them before I leave for college in late August. But every time I start to tell them, I freak out and come up with some ridiculous, irrelevant story. I've even gotten as far as "There's something I want to tell you..." but then chickened out and made up some other half-baked story. I just can't bring myself to do it.

...........

Wow. I did not intend to sit down and write all that out. I was hoping for a quick intro post and a quick explanation of where I am... But since I've already written it...

Any help? I really just can't deal with a lot of thing right now, despite how lucky I am to have such an amazing family behind me. I just... I guess I need help. If anyone has any advice they can give me... Please. I really need it.

 

Thank you all. Honestly, I'm glad I found this site... just typing out the whole story helped a lot (I've never told anyone the whole thing...).

I'm just glad there's a community of so many supportive people! Still working on how to tell them, though...