Posts by allmydays4:
Hindsight and Foresight… Seeing The Same Thing
August 4th, 2008Reading through a lot of the stories on this website made me feel in solidarity with more people than I would have imagined. I haven’t told a single person, hold an online friend, that I’m nearly positive that I’m gay. I say nearly because I’ve never had a “lesbian experience.” I’ve kissed a girl once, but it was some drunken hook-up for male attention; attention I didn’t really even want.
I’m 19 years old and heading into my second year of college. For a few years now I’ve considered my sexual orientation to be debatable. But this past year has forced my repressed feelings into my face in such a manner as to render me unable to ignore them. I had a boyfriend from high school that I continued dating into my freshman year of college. I’ve always had boyfriends, but never have I felt any real connection to them. I thought I was just dating the wrong guys. My friends would obsess over their boyfriends, cry over them, fawn over them, and profess their passionate love for them. I kind of just raised my eyebrows at all of them. I thought maybe I was too logical for such blinding infatuation. Now I know that’s not true.
Anyway, a few months into college my boyfriend and I went to dinner and were going back to his place. His parents were gone and I was going to stay over. In the car ride back to his house, I found myself pleading that we’d hit traffic or that a friend would call me with some little emergency that I’d have to talk her through. I had a truly foreboding feeling of sexual anticipation. And then when I was lying in bed next to this amazing guy I fully realized that I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I wasn’t in love with him, I wasn’t attracted to him, and there was no other guy that I could imagine feeling anything more for. A few more months passed before I found it in me to break up with him for fabricated reasons.
At that point I really started taking my attractions toward women seriously. Like they say hindsight is 20/20. I recalled having a crush on my best friend in second grade and always wanting to hold her hand, and again on another friend a few years down the road. I idolized her. She was on a sport team of mine and was a huge tomboy, so I started to dress like her and wear boy’s shorts and baggy t shirts. I like girly things, always have, but I wanted her to like me. And through the years I’ve definitely had other ones, but naturally I learned to ignore them and downplay them and “rationalize” them.
It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone in spending my idle time fantasizing about scenarios in which I’m with a girl. I hate it that I’m living the moments I want to experience only in my head. It is extremely depressing. Even in college this year I developed feelings for a friend that I hid, I think, pretty well but I thought about her all the time. And I too have to hide the fact that I watch all of the movies with lesbian plots/subplots I can and of course The L Word. It’s so annoying when you’re trapping yourself from… well being yourself.
Although I’m not out yet to anyone, in the past week or so I’ve finally fully accepted that I’m probably gay… all I need is a real experience with a woman to erase the probably. But having accepting what I have, I’m already feeling more comfortable with myself as a whole, as a person.
I can’t wait till I can garner the courage to come out. My family isn’t conservative, but I think they would be confused about my feelings when they haven’t been actualized and I can’t blame them. Also, I play a sport in college and I know people from the local level to all around the country in this sport and the majority of my friends are in this world as is my family. It’s such a small world with so many connections that I don’t know who to confide it.
Who should you tell first a family member or a friend? Any other advice is welcome.
