Confronting my Sexuality

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a looooong time, and now that it’s been nearly a year since this story happened, I figured now is a better time than any to finally write it. There was one defining moment when I started to question my sexuality, and this is it.

Around this time last year, there was a lot going on, a lot of things that brought out a bunch of my insecurities and fears. Friends were graduating university, others were fully-employed and independent, even more were in healthy, long-term relationships and some were out partying, going on crazy trips overseas and enjoying their twenties. And then there was me, about to turn 22, still in school for a while yet, no real job and living at home, too afraid of people judging me to go out and enjoy myself, and definitely way too closeted to have a “girlfriend” or any sort of relationship. 

All the stress, insecurities and feeling like I was behind on life came to a bit of a boil one night after hanging out with Lindsay and Brian. Everything started out pretty standard, went out for dinner and back to Lindsay’s place for coffee, and like it often does when the three of us get together, the conversation got pretty intimate and even a little racy. We talked out relationships, hypothetical dating situations, physical preferences, sex. And since I still sort of believed that I would end up with a woman and the attraction to guys would eventually fade, I told half truths about what I wanted from a woman, etc. Ironic, but comfortable since I had had a few years worth of practice and being rehearsed in covering up the fact that I was attracted to guys. It was late when Brian had fallen asleep on the couch, since he had been up early to go to work, only to find out that day that he had been laid off. Being Brian he wanted to keep it on the down low, only before we left my place, he lied to my mom when she had asked him how his job was going (awkward.). So to avoid more situations like that, I decided to let Lindsay know what was going on while he was asleep.

“Hey, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Lindsay gasped a little, and asked “are you gay?”

I was a little shocked, but recovered, said something along the lines of no, don’t be ridiculous, and explained about Brian. “Oh, okay...I thought you were about to tell me you were gay or something like that. Got me worried for a second.”  I knew she wasn’t completely serious in asking if was gay, but I went home that night and I started to rack my brain about what Lindsay had saw in me that might have given her an any sort of indication that I might be attracted to guys, knowing how hard I tried to cover up my attraction to guys. That night was the first time I started to be honest with myself and realized that this attraction wasn’t going away. I started to wonder if I was bi after all, and if this whole facade was really worth it if everyone could tell. I wanted to get a move on with what I felt was my stagnant life and that maybe if I addressed this, maybe I could finally at least start to move toward a relationship. My emotions started to get the better of me, and so I wrote my own coming out letter that I wanted to give Lindsay and Brian at some point. I started to look into bisexuality, checking forums and other sites and that’s when I stumbled onto a link to some of the blogs I still read to this day. And sure enough, a little while after, I started to write my own. 

I went back and read nearly all my posts from the beginning and looking back, it’s really amazing how far I’ve come. If you told me that in a year, I’d accept that I’m gay and be out to my closest friends and family, I would have told you that was bullshit and that I was going to be in the same place as I was back then, too focused on school to find a girlfriend. Funny how times change.