On coming out

Coming out has got to be one of the hardest things in any gay boy's life... I first told someone that I was gay when I was 18. I was filled with shame, keeping note that feeling shame is an understatement here, for having had an enduring but entirely sexual relationship with another boy. Specifically because we were quite young when we started, and for having continued our sexual exploration for over five years (if you know anything about math, this means we were very young!!!) even when we knew that the only thing that kept us together was our obsession for sexual contact. In fact, I hated this boy... It was such a damn deep source of confusion... I didn't know why I kept wanting to touch his naked body and he mine, why I didn't care whether we were indoors or outdoors, why I wanted to kiss him everywhere but his lips. I knew I was gay - that, I never really questioned - but I didn't know whether I just wanted to have sex with men or if I wanted to one day be in a loving relationship with a man. I would just look at men and see nothing in them other than the desire to have them fill my mouth with their manhood and have them force me to bend over. But at 18 years old, I started to think differently. I started to want to be in a relationship with a guy. So I had to get over the shame of being gay, because there is no shame in loving someone. I think I was right to have felt dirty and disgraced about our sexual relationship, but not for having been ashamed of being gay, instead for having subjected myself to a lengthy relationship with someone that I had no emotional attachment to whatsoever. So I explained all of this to a friend that trusted me with her own secrets, in a quite emotional letter, which also included the lamentable associations of my hatred toward that boy (the reasons why I hated him).

It took me a while to start telling her about the guys I was developing crushes for, but since she was really supportive, I eventually gave in to expressing the deeper feelings I had for men. Although I've come a really long way, I'm still not totally out (but I've gotten as far as telling some members of my family). I never deny my sexual orientation when asked, but that's just it, I wait until I'm asked. Whenever I meet new people, I'll say "I'm gay," if it's relevant to whatever we're discussing. But with older friends, even with friends that really matter, I haven't confirmed my homosexuality to them. There's actually one person in specific that I've been wanting to tell so bad, one of my dearest friends. But I just can't. It's really bad, God this is going to sound horrible, but I've actually asked all of my friends that do know that I'm gay not to tell her. And as time keeps adding up, it's getting harder and harder for me to tell her because I feel that she's going to call me out on not having let her know who I really am. And I know that she's not going to judge me or anything like that, but our friendship is meaningful, which makes me feel that she's going to think that I'm just a complete liar. I've been trying to hint at it, saying things like wow, that's a really handsome man... or last quarter for example, I told her how addicted I was to watching Queer as Folk on DVD. I'd talk about the characters as if they were real people!!! Yet she keeps asking me about what I think of when girls do this and that, which actresses do I think are pretty (uhh...a lot of them, which doesn't really help me tell her that I'm gay)...Maybe I should just ask her to read this blog!