approx 13-19
important events:
- left middle school
- entered high school
- graduated high school
- came out as gay
well, these were the amazing years. the years i get my learners and learn how to drive. the years i graduate high school and say good riddance to the public school system. the years i turn a teenager.
enter the age of 13. i’m in middle school. i am in a new environment. more of my friends are getting girlfriends and i’m still just as not interested in them as before. still have no idea why. i still wonder why i am not one of them, but i have no words to describe these feelings.
age 15. im now in high school. i realize that i am very different than the other guys in school. i realize that guys are what peak my interest and start developing crushes on guys. as this is high school, and i know that bullying is a thing from my personal experiences with it, i refrain from admitting to myself that i like boys. i still don’t know what the proper term is for this. but i do know that there is a guy in the grade below me that is gay. i proceed to call him derogatory terms. not because i want to, but because it was the only way for me to not be bullied. you see, in 10th grade there was a rumor going around that i was gay. i got made fun of for it. but somehow i was able to beat the rumor and vowed it would never happen again.
enter 16. i’m very interested in this football jock. he’s straight. i can’t stop staring at him in gym class. he doesn’t notice me thankfully. i start watching youtube videos on sexuality. all in private so that my parents don’t find out. i realize that the term is gay. i swear to myself that i will never come out because fear of rejection is a thing, and my friends don’t accept gays. i also get in trouble for skipping class. get grounded. but the computer needed fixing so i got ungrounded for that.
enter 18. i am now a legal adult. still not out. but i realize that being gay doesn’t make sense since i clearly feel like i am in the wrong body. due to social pressure and the fact that my parents are seemingly super conservative people, i decide against coming out.
throughout all of this, i have had mostly sleepless nights where i scour the internet for resources related to potentially coming out to my family and friends. i found one place, emptyclosets, that really helped me realize that i am not the only person in the same situation, and that there were multitudes of them.
by now, i have a laptop and we have high speed internet, so i am not limited to the family computer and its restrictions. my social awakening continues to happen.
enter 19. it’s my senior year of high school. i continue to wrestle with these thoughts. i realize that my school isn’t the safest of places for lgbtq youth, and my friends circle isn’t supportive, with many of my friends telling me in no uncertain terms ‘if any of my friends are gay, i will disown them and not be their friend’. well damn, there goes everything i know. i go throughout my senior year of high school knowing that i am holding this secret. i decide to get a girlfriend because people are starting to wonder. she has her suspicions about me, because i am clearly not romantically invested like the others. we decide to break up and remain friends, because of my issues.
it is now the day of my graduation from high school. by this point, i am very much in the closet due to fear of rejection. i vow to myself that i will not start this next chapter of my life in the closet. i vow to come out of the closet to my friends the day after my graduation.
enter the day after graduation, june 12th 2010 i think. i come out to my friends by way of a text. to my surprise, most of them are supportive and seemingly accept me. they don’t treat me any differently. they have questions, and i answer them. for most of them, i was their first ‘gay friend’. i think to myself ‘well, this isn’t that bad’. what i haven’t done by this point is come out to any of my immediate family. they have absolutely no idea.
this is where we end this chapter. i’m now out to my closest friends, and they are supportive. this ends the childhood section of my life, and we move into adulthood.