Am I gay?

will.i.am

Well to start of with I will be turning 20 later this year and this problem has being eating be up with years. When I was around 13 I noticed I was attracted to guys and I sort of brushed it off and I said I wold like girls eventually. This never happened anyway and I got bullied in secondary school due to various different reasons.
When I was around 16 I said to myself that I was gay and that wasn't going to change but it did. My older brother came out to our family when I was 17 and my parents pretended that they accepted him to his face but behind his back they were really disappointed and they still are. They have put a lot of pressure on me to have kids and marry a woman and I feel like I have to keep them happy.
Another reasons I would hate to be gay is because I see how gay people are treated and it's not good. In school I was often called a ****** and a puff but when I went to college I really re-branded myself and made loads of new friends and now I am a really poplar group of people. Even people from my old school have said it to me how are you friends with them? However I would not be accepted in this group of they knew I was gay.
The reasons I think I am gay is because I find guys sexy and I have never ever had this feeling with a woman. I have shifted guys before but in private and I have regretted I did it because I felt it was wrong. The guys I shifted were just for the laugh but all my friends are straight guys and I get on really well with them. I find it really hard to get on with gay guys I have never really clicked with anyone that was gay not even my brother.
Do ye think I am gay? I would love to have a family some day with a woman and have kids and keep the friends I have.

Mr. Loverman

Most of what you have written is about the difficulties of being gay, but to break it down to two simple quotes:

will.i.am wrote: »

Am I gay?

will.i.am wrote: »

I find guys sexy and I have never ever had this feeling with a woman.

That is generally how a gay person feels.

cgcsb

yes

coolperson05

will.i.am wrote: »

However I would not be accepted in this group of they knew I was gay.

I would love to have a family some day with a woman and have kids and keep the friends I have.

You'd be surprised how different friends react. But in the long run, you're denying yourself happiness for the sake of your friends (and you don't even know how they'll react). If they're real friends, they'll stick by you. You'll save yourself years of hardship and unhappiness if you can accept what you feel.

Just my opinion on it...

MrShine

will.i.am wrote: »

I would love to have a family some day with a woman and have kids

What's stopping you from having children one day? As far as I know it's possible for homosexual couples to adopt children in Ireland. Of course, the adoption process is lengthy and difficult, but that shouldn't stop you if you really want kids.

(I'm not 100% if it's ok of homosexuals to adopt in Ireland, I've never checked but I've never heard it's not either, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

MagicMarker

MrShine wrote: »

What's stopping you from having children one day? As far as I know it's possible for homosexual couples to adopt children in Ireland. Of course, the adoption process is lengthy and difficult, but that shouldn't stop you if you really want kids.

(I'm not 100% if it's ok of homosexuals to adopt in Ireland, I've never checked but I've never heard it's not either, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

You're wrong.

Homosexuals can adopt, but homosexual couples cannot.

MrShine

MagicMarker wrote: »

You're wrong.

Homosexuals can adopt, but homosexual couples cannot.

Well that's pretty f*cking ridiculous! What if someone adopts a child, then starts a relationship with someone?

I'm guessing it's along the lines of parent no. 2 has zero rights as opposed to the child gets taken off parent no. 1, but that's still ridiculous.

Silvics

Don't worry about the kids yet-you're not even 20!!! You could adopt of get a surrogate but right now I'd say you need to be comfortable with your sexuality.
Then there's getting sorted in college or work and having some fun and sowing wild oats and should you decide finding the right guy.You may even decide you don't want children and believe me that's alot of free time and cash in the bank. If you want to pass on your genes think about becoming become a sperm donor. But get out there and live-there's a party going on and you should be part of it. Best of luck.

will.i.am

Thanks for the advice.
I don't think my friends would stick by me at all to be honest we are all very homophobic. I simple don't want to be gay and I hate it. I did go to a belong to thing when I was younger and I hated it I fond it really uncomfortable and I felt very awkward. I am not into loud mouth campness and I have found this is what I have mainly found in the community.
My life lately has gone really down hill because I am just so depressed over this. I have being drink a lot and eating lots and lots of food.

PeteK*

I think you know you're gay and finding it very difficult to accept it.
I would have though starting college and being in with a new crowd would encourage most people to be who they are and not what they're expected to be.

Dwn Wth Vwls

will.i.am wrote: »

I find guys sexy and I have never ever had this feeling with a woman.

This is pretty much as gay as it gets. You've known for seven years now, you're not a teenager anymore. Sorry, but it's time to start accepting it, cause I'm sure you know yourself it's true. It's still possible to have a family some day.

As for your friends, the group homophobia may just be a pack mentality, and not how they really feel if they're confronted with it. Group homophobia is self-sustaining, because if someone doesn't join in or initiate it, then they're afraid of becoming the target of it instead.

You may think they're the greatest friends in the world right now because they're the popular crowd, but college is going to end, and popularity isn't going to mean much. If you can't be yourself with your friends, what use are they? They're just a group of people that you pretend with, and who won't support you when you need it.

As for not liking other gay people, or thinking kissing guys is wrong, it's just all the internalised homophobia you've built-up and started to believe. There is nothing wrong with being gay, there is nothing wrong with kissing another man. There are plenty of gay men who aren't camp.

Your depression is only going to get worse if you don't accept it and start making changes in your life. College is the perfect time to come out, don't waste the opportunity. Those who matter won't care, and those who care don't matter.

brokenice

yes

will.i.am

Thanks for the advice.
If I am being honest with you I know I am gay but I just don't want to admit to it. Mainly because I am ashamed of it. I don't want to disappoint my parents even more by having two gay sons. I really do feel the need to be straight but I am not sexually attracted to women at all. I know when a woman is good lucking all right and I am a brilliant at pretending to be interested.
At college my main friends are the popular kids and I am friends with guys who are on the hurling teams and rugby teams because of this I have met players of the county teams and we went for a few drinks and they were very homophobic I really do get on with the people I am friends with now but I suppose when I hate myself for being gay so much it's easy to be homophobic.
My life has changed a lot since secondary school. I did get bullied quite a bit and this is behind me now and I am in the popular gang at college. If I ever meet anyone out on a night out now from school they all say I have changed so much and if I acted the way I did in secondary school I would have being so less of a freak and I agree with them. The friends I had in secondary school I have left behind. I haven't seeing most of them since last June. I just send them the odd text here and there to make sure that there getting on well.

Doshea3

Hi will.i.am,

I apologise in advance that this post may be mildly incoherent: I'm deliriously tired but I need to answer your post because I can remember feeling a pain similar to what you must be feeling now, and I know that at the time I would have benefited had someone who had gone through the same experience as me and come out the other side offered me advice on the subject. (Which luckily for me eventually happened...though accepting is a long process, and so I don't expect what I say to have any immediate results.)

A lot of what you say reminds me of my slightly younger self, though our situations are different I suppose, because I was never in with the 'popular crowd' in school or college, and also I have very supportive parents.

I knew I was gay for certain from age 15 and had suspected it for at least two years before that. I went into college when I turned 18 and tried my best to be comfortable with being gay, but very soon I found myself exposed to what I suppose is the seedier, promiscuous side of gay life. I'm not judging anyone or their ways of life: I was just unfortunate enough to meet people who took advantage of my naivety and I ended up with a lot of issues around being gay because of what I experienced.

The biggest problem in my mind was that I knew I was gay, but I didn't want to be 'a gay'—that is, what I then saw as one of those loud obnoxious in-your-face people that I came into contact with and who at the time (because of my own insecurity) made me wince. I did my best to deny who I was and try to fit in with people: at the time I regretted being gay because I thought that people I was friendly with would judge me and dislike me if they knew the truth. Of course that didn't happen, and where it did those people were not real friends in the first place, because if they cared about me they wouldn't care whether I fancied men or women or dogs or cats or...(well, maybe they should care if it were dogs or cats).

I tried to hide the fact that I was gay for about a year after I started college, and I even tried to convince myself that I wasn't gay. That made me extremely unhappy. It affected my college work, my daily life, my friendships: it even made me start to drink a lot in order to try to deal with the conflicted feelings I had. My life came to the point where everything was becoming dysfunctional, and all because I was trying to cover up something about myself that I was ashamed of for no good reason.

I was lucky enough then to meet a man who was a few years older than me who was also gay. Now there was no romantic involvement between us, but he deduced that I was trying to hide the fact that I was gay by how uncomfortable I was around him. In truth, when I met him first, my internalized homophobia came out against him—I disliked him just because he was gay and confident. I eventually got to know him very well, and he talked to me a lot about his own experience of coming to terms with being gay and I suddenly realized that we had been in similar situations: he could never identify with camp stereotypes, with promiscuity, with all the apparent trappings of gay life that one would be led to believe by the media and the most visible gay people in society, and most of all he had been afraid of what people would think. I learned a very important lesson from him then—that is, how you feel is paramount, and what other people think is secondary, and in most cases, entirely irrelevant. I still have difficulty with this even now, several years later, but I am doing my best.

My friend at the time encouraged me to be open to finding a man, but I steadfastly refused to accept that I wanted or needed a man in my life. Fine, I was gay, but that was it: I would accept at least being gay, but I wasn't going to live a gay lifestyle. But of course if you are gay then you lifestyle IS a gay lifestyle. In fact, that's what 'gay life' is all about: it's not about living up to the stereotypes of what you thinking being gay is about or what being gay seems like on television or in films, but it's about living your own life and being happy and fulfilled and comfortable with your own individuality—and part of that individuality is that you are gay. More and more I realise that most people don't care: some people are straight, and some people are gay, and it's not a bit deal to most people. It's important to remind yourself that gay people are in a minority, but that does not mean that being straight is 'normal'—it's just more common. In fact, being gay is that little bit more 'alternative'—that's a reason to celebrate on its own, surely?

A couple of years ago, after spending a few years quietly coming to terms with being gay and letting people know that bit by bit, I began to make gay friends, something I'd never had before. And you know what? Most of my gay friends are just normal down-to-earth people who happen to be gay—you'd never even guess talking casually to them that they were gay, because they don't conform to any imagined stereotypes of what being gay should be like. Meeting a bunch of people like that confirmed to me that I never needed to worry about being 'a gay', since that was only something I invented in my mind through fear and prejudice. Some of my gay friends are camp and outrageous, but you come across loud people regardless of sexuality, and you learn to appreciate their quirks.

Finally, the end of my own story: over time I went on dates with a handful of men (I mean a handful: on average one a year!) and nothing ever transpired apart from the odd embarrassing experience. In fact for a long time my 'love life' (whatever that means) was pretty disastrous. And then I met my boyfriend, whom I'm very happy with. Most of the real coming to terms with being gay has only taken place for me since we've been together, but it was a process that started from the moment I accepted to myself that being gay was okay and that I would do my best to shape my life around being who I knew I was, not who I felt other people wanted me to be.

In order to be at peace with yourself you need to be true to yourself firstly and foremostly. That's the best advice I can give you. If there's anything else I can help with, please just ask me. All I have is the benefit of my own experience, and I hate to think that anyone would go through the uncertainty, fear and self-doubt that was part of my life for so long.

stephen_n

I understand the situation with your parents is hard but you have to ask yourself would your parents want you to live your life in pain? They may well have expectations about grand children or whatever else but as a parent myself I can assure you that none of my expectations for my children would ever override the paramount wish that they should be happy and as pain free as life will allow!

coolperson05

Following on from Doshea3's really helpful and inspiring reply, have you talked to anyone about this? Aside from Boards? Is there any friends, old or new, or even your brother, that you could discuss all this face to face (if you haven't done so already)?
It may make the issue(s) seem more manageable.

LegacyUser

will.i.am wrote: »

I have met players of the county teams and we went for a few drinks and they were very homophobic I really do get on with the people I am friends with now but I suppose when I hate myself for being gay so much it's easy to be homophobic.

Tell them do they know Dónal Óg? He isn't camp in any way is he?

People who seem homophobic are generally not. Mostly it is just banther, you will know who the really homophobic people are.

LegacyUser

It's pretty incredible reading your 3 comments because your story is so similar to mine and we are around the same age (with only a few differences).

What can you do? I don't know, Im stuck on that part too. I was unhappy in secondary school, made new friends in college, all of them casually homophobic. One of the deviations from my story to yours is that I came out to my parents, they've gradually accepted it but there is no ignoring that there is a bit of awkwardness still involved. Didn't come out to any friends because I'd actually like to stay friends with them and my mind constantly races from being disgusted by "gayness" and everything that means to this wild vision of freedom in which Im openly gay but Im happy and Im the person I want to be.

Anyway, I have no advice, I just picked the path of least resistance. Im relatively happy, I nearly came fully out of the closet but I went back in and shut the door, I have a pretty cool bunch of friends, Im a mildly respected member of the community, I've even thought about maybe trying to be with a girl, who knows, it might work or it might not.

Would I like to live out that wild vision of freedom in which Im openly gay, happy and the person I want to be? Absolutely, but that's just a daydream, that's not real life and it cant ever be real life so the question I ask myself is, is it worth chasing a fantasy when in doing so I would almost certainly end up friendless and a complete undesirable in my community? No, it's not, I'll accept being relatively happy.