When Did You First Suspect You Were Gay



I'm a shameless thief, and I am piggybacking on Rob's entry here ....
When did you first suspect you were gay? When did you finally admit it to yourself? How did you react to this?
I first realized it the summer between fifth and sixth grade. My grandfather, who had a hell of a stroke before I was born stayed with us for several weeks, and we had to hire a nurse to come and help us with him in the morning. Believe it or not, we got "Bruce" the male rent-a-nurse. I would pull out my best new clothes every morning to get all dressed up and wait for him. I would invite him to sit and watch TV with me and talk to him. I was utterly smitten. He was athletic and hairy and had that great 70s "gay clone" look. I was smitten.
That summer was also the summer that this neighbor got a motorcycle and would ride by the house shirtless after work every day. When I heard a motorcycle I RAN to the window to see. Woofie.
I didn't understand that it was different from what other boys generally felt about these sorts of things, I just knew that I liked what I saw, and I wanted to impress Bruce the male rent-a-nurse.
I did have a few crushes in middle school. The biggest crush was on Carl. He was tall and athletic, girls liked him, and he played the guitar well. I did have a girlfriend through 8th grade (we barely kissed) and I had a love/hate relationship with Carl.
High school was a different matter. I did date some girls, but I started to realize that there was something going on here. While other boys were trying to get to various bases and brag about it, I had barely kissed a girl, and the only reason I wanted to was so I would have something to talk with the guys about. I had several big crushes, and ended with a painful, fatal attraction type of crush on Todd. He was very athletic, did track and pole-vaulting, and scored big with one specific girl. I think his dad knew I was getting all psycho on his son, and didn't like me.
Senior year of high school we read a book in English class, The Art of Loving, that had two sentences about homosexuality. Reading this, made me realize and admit to myself I was possibly gay. As a result, on that day after reading those words, I literally crawled into my closet and shut the door and cried. I couldn't believe that I would spend the rest of my life like "that."

College ,I figured, would be a fresh start. I thought I would take control of the gay thing and do my best to score with lots of girls and like it. I could force this whole thing to work, dammit.
I did have one girlfriend for a minute - serious making out/second base reached kinda thing. I also pursued someone else for a while, with no good outcome.

Finally I met Chuck - I was pledging his fraternity (I know, sounds like a porn movie). We become fast friends, and then one night, while drunkenly wrestling around, we started making out. For a year we convinced each other we weren't gay, we just "liked each other." The only out gay person we knew was a total jerk, and we couldn't stomach the idea of being "like him." So, we deluded ourselves.

Finally, at this point, as I approached age 21, and accepted the realization that things with Chuck were going nowhere, I came to a realization - I was at the very least bi, I really dug guys, and it was time to deal.

And, so, as Chuck and I split up, I decided to see what was going on "out there." I attempted one more time to date a woman, and finally attended my first gay student union meeting. I saw too many hot guys that I wanted to know more biblically, and accepted that yes, in fact, I was gay.

I've been at realization of liking guys for more than 25 years, and acceptance for 16. It's funny to think how people come out these days, in a world where it is more publicized, more positively, and there is so much more support. Things are far from perfect, and gay teens still get beat up, but I see things have changed dramatically from where they were 15-20 years ago.

Posted: Sun - October 14, 2007 at 08:06 AM          
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