Unhappy...

bp1989

Hi, just wanted to vent I guess.

I don't really understand why, but I'm just not happy with being gay. I know I am, but I feel like I've really been dealt the short stick as far as sexuality is concerned.

I've told a few friends I am, been to a gay bar a few times, been on a few chat sites, etc. But it just doesn't feel right. I simply cannot find a girl sexually attractive no matter how hard I try, yet having a relationship with a guy just seems...I don't know...wrong for me?

I'm so sick of going onto gaydar or whatever and trying to simply talk with someone. In a matter of minutes the person is telling me they're in love with me, and once, a guy turned on his webcam and was masterbating right there in front of the camera. It's just annoying me. Is it too hard to want a bit of normality?! I don't just want sex, I want to be happy. I don't want to be alone. I want more than that. I'm only 19, so is that weird? Some gay guys creep me out with the stuff they're into. I find myself so paranoid about it that I don't want to meet anyone for fear I'll be forced into doing something I don't want to do.

I didn't really enjoy the gay bar. You kiss a guy on the dance floor, and thats it...you dont even get their name.

Okay, I don't know how I got here...so back to what I was originally trying to say. I feel really inadequate for being this way. I know my mother would be unhappy with me if I told her I was gay, even now she thinks I'm an oddball for the stupidest things. I don't want to have to be "accepted"...I just want to be equal with everyone else. It's really beginning to piss me off. I feel like I'm meant to go out with girls...my sister is constantly hinting at "my secret girlfriends" I have at college (I live away at college during the week), and it's getting annoying. They expect me to be something I'm not.

I don't know how to sum this up. I know it's all over the place. But I just needed to vent.

Boston

There's a few things going on here for you. Its a good idea to split them up and try to come up with individual solutions.

You're not comfortable with Gay sites or Gay bars, they seem seedy full of people only interested in sex and other stuff you don't care for. If this is the case, avoid them. There are other ways to meet gay people, you'll meet plenty in every day life if you're just open to it.

You say you don't want to be "accepted", I think the word you're looking for is tolerated. Everyone wants to be accepted, heterosexuals are automatically accepted, they don't need tolerance because they're normal. Tolerance is second rate. I wouldn't want to live my life surrounded by people who could only bring themselves to tolerate me, but never accept.

You feel being with another guy is wrong. This is common. I found it difficult to think of myself with another man. Every time I tried to imagine it, it was twisted and wrong. Then I fell in love and have continued to fall in love with other men. That changed everything. Having a real life relationship, full of emotion, will never be anything like you imagined.

I guess what I saying is don't despair, we've all been where you are now and things can get better for you.

Weidii

I think for you it's a matter of meeting the right guy. You will happen upon some people like yourself, who aren't on the scene or out for a shag eventually. Just be patient and don't force yourself into anything that feels unnatural

JupiterKid

@bp1989. You are only 19 and you have grown up in a pretty heterocentric and homophobic environment. When I was 19 I felt pretty much the same way as you but I finally accepted myself for whom I am and became very happy.

You need to accept YOURSELF for who you are before you can talk about others accepting you. You need to deal with your own internalised homophobia and that is the first big step to take in coming out - accepting yourself and acknowledging that you are gay. Best of luck!:)

Untense

Heya,

You're not alone. Recently I've been wondering about 'the point' of the gay scenes. But I wonder are your dislikes getting tangled up with some other things in your life...

I'll address the more 'minor' thing you've mentioned first of all, which is the gay social thing.
The websites catering to relationships are mostly very unappealing to myself also. I've tried most of the popular ones and some more peripheral ones, and they've all left me thinking, "Why bother?".

I've been to the pubs and clubs and for a time I really enjoyed the music and had a good laugh with my friends, as I did anywhere else I went out, but I could never imagine going there to actually meet somebody new.

I've addressed this aspect of your post as I do believe that these gay 'scenes' are very much apart from homosexuality. In the same way a swingers bar, an online dating website or a shopping centre for that matter, is apart from heterosexuality.

With these being the 'face' of same-sex attraction, it's easy to link the self-explanatory idea of same-sex attraction to these, much more complicated, often-times more stereotyped aspects of gay culture. The fact that you're a guy who happens to fancy other guys doesn't automatically mean you are part of the culture that surrounds it, or that you have to be a part of it, or that you even have to like it. Being gay means you are a guy who is attracted to other guys. That's all. Anything else around this simple fact is just a story that people, or societies as a whole have attached to it.

On a slight aside, I had a great (long-term) relationship with someone who I had met in an everyday work situation, we had a great time and lived abroad together for a while. It didn't work out in the end, in much the same way as other 'normal' relationships often don't, even though we're still friends.
I don't see the internet, or pub scene, as the be all and end all, I'd more likely say the very opposite. But then, I have met some great friends, and I know of others who by these means have met both great friends and partners online, or at bars.


Returning to your post, from what I've read, I think the big issue for you, as others have mentioned, is acceptance of who you are.

I don't really understand why, but I'm just not happy with being gay.

I wonder could you be associating being a guy who fancies other guys with all the things you dislike about the culture around same-sex attraction....

It is also a fact that we grow up in a society, which has it's own culture, it's own stories and it's own notions about how people are and how people 'ought to be'. We sometimes actually have feelings of revulsion at the thought of things that are outside society's expectations.
Some people, even some gay people, might find themselves feeling repulsed at the thought of two people of the same gender kissing, that makes sense if for hundreds of years it was always portrayed as being a man and a women who 'should' kiss, no other way.
Similarly, some people today may even feel repulsed at the thought of two people of different race kissing - for a long time anything else was considered taboo. Today, I'm sure you'll find plenty of people who will recoil at the thought of older people, or overweight people, kissing.
It's all entirely subjective, if you took every corner of the earth in to account, you'd find each with their own, often contradictory ideas of how a person ought to act. If everybody on this planet absolutely took everybody else's social norms as The Truth, nobody would be having sex and we would all have died out long ago.


Acceptance means simplying being okay with the fact that you are attracted to other guys... that might seem obvious, but again I wonder do you think that you have to be someone else, someone 'more gay', in order to be okay this aspect of yourself?
If you do, it's simply not the case. Just accept that for now at least, you will be a person who is attracted to your own gender.

That's all. Nothing changes.
Lastly, you are you no matter what other people may think you are - this is a big thing, because most of us seem to live under the illusion that we can control how other people see us. We can't, and as a matter of fact many people in your life probably have perceptions of you that you would not agree with.
My brother recently said something very nice about me that I disagreed with entirely. But it was his right to have his own perception. I don't have a right to control how he see's anything in this world, my self included. And that just as equally goes for the not so nice things he might believe about me.

my sister is constantly hinting at "my secret girlfriends" I have at college (I live away at college during the week), and it's getting annoying. They expect me to be something I'm not.

You said she expects you to be something you're not. Is it really her expecting something of you, or could she just be assuming you are attracted to girls instead of boys?

If your sister believes you're straight, what's wrong with that? You mentioned that you had already come-out to some close friends, but you haven't mentioned family. Have you ever even hinted to her that you might not be straight? I think considering the vast majority of our population are attracted to the opposite gender, it's generally assumed that you are too, unless you indicate otherwise.

I think the pressure to be 'normal' you're feeling is coming from your own thoughts, rather than anyone else.

pugwall

Excellent post Untense! +1

bp1989, I felt the same as you are feeling now when I was 19 and in college. I'm now 27 and out of the closet 6 years. Accepting that I was gay mself was step one of the process, then coming out to close friends and family step two. I haven't looked back since and am in a relationship with the love of my life for three and a half years. My only regret is that I didn't come to terms with my sexuality earlier - I put myself through alot of unnecessary grief/pain by brushing it under the carpet.

On a side note I met my partner in a 'straight' nightclub.

Good luck!

Sir Ophiuchus

*yawns at the troll*

And yes, I don't really have anything to add to what Untense said, that pretty much seems to cover everything.

Reflector

Eugster wrote: »

<Mod edit> Move along, nothing to see here </mod edit>

Come out of the closet Eugster, you know that all you want is some sweet man love to help you through your denials. Just because you're a social retard doesn't mean you can't get some.

hot2def

Eugster wrote: »

<Mod edit> Snippity snip snip </mod edit>

that and "I love wrestling"....

DubArk

Dear OP,

I got thinking about your post after I read it this morning and had to throw my mind back to when I was nineteen, which was exactly the age I was when I first started to struggle with my sexuality. Even thinking about it still makes me feel depressed at what I went through. It was one of the loneliest places in the world and no one, NO ONE can possibly know what you’re going through and how horribly paralysing it is to you and your life, it becomes all consuming.

When I was nineteen there was no internet, therefore no GayDar, so the only way I could meet people was in the bars. I think I was a very naïve teenager and really didn’t know anything about being gay, unlike these days, I never even heard about it on the telly and anything you did hear was sickening. I thought gay people (HOMOS) were supposed to hang around bushes with long trench coats, preying on other men!!

The first time I saw two blokes dancing and then kissing I nearly died, I physically felt sick to the point I ran out of the building and burst into tears. I couldn’t be like that; it was so wrong, so unnatural.

The other thing was I was young, in what was a very small gay scene and therefore the new boy on the block, I hated it! I met some amount of weirdo’s who were so fu*ked up, it scared the life out of me. Quite some time after I met a bloke in a bar and we arranged to meet a week later and go for a meal and well you can imagine what happened next. It was for me the most natural thing in the world and my first time. He was kind and a very understand man and no I didn’t fall in love with him but I have never forgotten that encounter or him. It was for me, the first time that this was right for me and it made me feel happy. But it would take me sometime to feel natural and not ashamed.

I chose to finish my education and get the fu*k out of Ireland as fast as I could and I moved to New York then from there to London before returning to Ireland many years later. I have lived with my partner since I was 21 and we are together now 24 years and I know many same sex couples living very normal lives in relationships or being single. I am 98% me; who just happens to be attracted to the same sex, but none the less im me. I now like myself and really don’t think about it anymore, I just get on with life, worry about my job, mortgage and all the things other people worry about in life.

I now am so happy that Im gay, as it has so far given me a very special relationship that may have never happened if I was straight. It is a case of glass half full or half empty!! You have two choices on life you can sit there and worry, moan and hate what life has dealt you or you can get on with it, putting your best foot forward and striving for a good happy life, that im sure you disserve. The latter is a much easier and fulfilling road.

I completely understand where you are but believe me, time never stands still and things will move on. There are many groups out there where young men like you want to meet others, not just for a quick shag but to meet like minded people and meet new friends away from the scene. I personally never go near the scene cause it just not for me. You can make the same choices to suit what you want out of life.

Kind regards

DubArk

astaro81

@ The OP

Please don't confuse being gay with the popular homosexual stereotypes that alot of gay people follow.

There are some really nice and very normal guys out there, for whom being gay isn't the biggest thing in their lives. We're not all gay men, some of us are men who just happen to be gay.

There are some great social groups run by Outhouse on Capell street that seem to be non scene, and cater for a variety of people. They have groups of people meeting up because they're interested in different kinds of sports, or they have a youth group, and a group for non national gay people. It may be worth a visit, and is a nice atmosphere to meet regular gay people in, without the seediness of bars or the internet.

Having said that, there are some really nice people on the internet as well. I've met a few of them, and I've learned to spot and steer clear of the weirdos. I'm with my boyfriend over a year now, and we met on gaydar.