This is a two part question, let’s start with the logical high school. I was in high school in the late 90s and early 2000s in a very suburban conservative community. During my entire 4 years in high school I only knew of 2 other gay guys, and I did not learn of these guys until my Junior and Senior years.
I remember distinctly when I learned there were other gay guys in the school that when I learned about them it was because people were making fun of them behind their backs. These same people would pretend to be great friends with them to their face, but as soon as they turned their back the snickering would start. I was never friends with either of these guys either, they were both very different than me. One was a troublemaker who hung with the bad gang of kids (2 of his friends are in jail for murder) and the other was smart, but he was a big pothead. I did not fall anywhere close to either of these categories.
I hung with the cross country guys. We were a big family and spent a lot of time together. During season we spent over 45 hours a week together and that number did not go down too much in the off season. A few of the more influential guys on the team were very homophobic. I talked to one years later who in college had a gay guy in his frat and at first he talked about how he went out of his way to avoid him. Eventually he came around and realized that the gay guy was not going to do anything to him, but it took him a while. I loved running and did not want to be shunned by the group of guys I spent all of my time with, so I avoided coming out.
In addition to the friends factor at school, I was afraid of what was going to happen at home. I felt there was a good chance that I would be cut off.
So I never came out in high school because of friends and parents. In college it was not so much friends I was concerned about as it was my parents. If it were not for my parents I would not have been able to afford college. I needed to ensure the money would keep flowing so I did not come out.
Some will say that I could have come out in college to everyone but my parents, and that is probably true. However, I had built myself such a comfort shell in the closet that I did not come out at college too. Yes, I did have some friends who were rather homophobic but they were not that great of friends. In general homophobia was not too big of a deal for me in college.
However, I was in an organization that had our club offices right next to the gay clubs and it was not uncommon for people to make fun of them in our office. I always wanted to yell at them when they did this, but never worked up the nerves.
Things have been too serious around here lately, and I feel the need to lighten the mood. I know this video is somewhat serious, but I could not help breaking out laughing when Lawrence O’Donnell rips into Rick Santorum.
Before I dive into this you may have noticed that the advertisements have disappeared from some pages on this site. Apparently Google has deemed some of these recent posts too mature to serve ads for. I guess this is good for you, but bad for me as the ads on this site do not even cover my costs to run this blog. I definitely am not making money off of them.
I was raised Catholic in an entirely Catholic family. I know many readers will go well you are gay so it is obvious why you are not Catholic. And although that is true in some respects there is a lot more to it than that. My dad was very strict when it came to church. You absolutely had to go to church every Sunday and CCD every Wednesday. There were no exceptions, if we were on vacation we would find a church to go to and go.
I went through the Catholic sacrament of Confirmation when I was in 8th grade even though I knew beyond a doubt at the time that I was not Catholic. I went through this because I felt I was forced to, not because I wanted to. Both of my brothers are Catholic, I am the odd duck in the family.
I think I started realizing I was not Catholic in probably the 4th or 5th grade before I even knew I was gay. My problem with Catholicism is it seemed to me that the church wanted to run my life and would not allow me to enjoy life. If you ate meat on Friday’s during Lent, or had an unclean thought, or said a word in anger you had to repent or you would not be saved. I think I realized at the time that despite this being what Catholics say, none of them actually live this way. I also have never believed there was another being out there, instead I have my own beliefs I will explain later.
Despite all of these feelings I felt I was forced to continue to go to church every Sunday I was home until I graduated from college and was self supporting. I have not been to a Catholic church for any service besides Christmas since.
My personal belief is that Heaven and Hell is how you are remembered. The more people’s lives you have touched and the better these people remember you after gone is Heaven. If people reflect badly on you after you are gone that is Hell. I know this is not clear cut as some people will remember good things about you and others will remember bad things no matter what. I believe Heaven and Hell is a continuum, not a particular place you can point to. I would place Mother Theresa at the top end of the continuum and Adolf Hitler at the bottom end of the continuum and most people fall somewhere in between.
Whenever I explain this belief to people I always get challenged so what about the 9/11 attackers. Many Muslims hold these attackers in high esteem, but most of the world sees poorly on them how can they be in both Heaven and Hell. I always try to explain that I believe these are a continuum and it is the combination of how you are recalled that determines where you fall on the spectrum.
Why do I hold this belief? I guess I just believe how you are remembered by others is the most important thing. As humans we are always trying to please others, always trying to help. We try to be remembered in a good note versus a bad note. Even those who commit atrocities frequently do it because they believe they will be praised for doing it. Adolf Hitler believed it was his duty to purge the world of the unclean and by doing so he believed he would be exalted. I could point out other examples but you get the point. So in my mind I know that people will remember me, so their memories are important. I do not know there is a physical place out there called Heaven and Hell, so what I know is more important than what may be.
Despite all of this, I still consider joining a church from time to time. Mainly because of the community that comes with a church, not for the actual religious beliefs.
That last post was very hard to write. I was actually crying as I wrote the last couple of paragraphs. This post is a nice break from the deep emotional posts and a much simpler topic for me.
So when did I accept myself as gay? Honestly, I am not sure I ever did not accept myself as gay. I knew in elementary school that I was different, I just did not know the word for it. I knew in Middle School that I was gay when I asked a girl out just to get my friends off my back. I knew I was gay when my parents forced me to go through Confirmation since I was raised a Catholic. As best as I can remember I accepted myself as being gay as soon as I realized what gay was.
Yes, there were times I wished I was not gay. I still have those days occasionally now. However, the simple fact of being gay never led to depression or suicide attempts for me. What led to depression was the fear of what others would think. I was fine with myself, but cared what others thought. Some might call this not accepting yourself for being gay, but I disagree.
I know this is not a deep insightful post, but for me there was nothing deep and insightful about accepting myself. Yet, this is a question or a story I hear all of the time is when did you accept yourself for being gay. I know where a lot of people are coming from here and they struggle with the self guilt just because they are gay. This just is not somewhere where I can share anything more of my experience in this area.
The above two questions at first do not seem related. But given a little thought, they are. This is not to say that my bad relationship with my dad is the reason I did not come out earlier, but it certainly contributed to things. There is certainly a lot more about why I did not come out that I cannot cover in this post.
When I was in the 6th grade I was left at home babysitting my younger brothers. I was always somewhat of a pyro and took this opportunity to play with some matches in the garage. Yes, I know this was a stupid thing to do, and knew it at the time. So in the mind of an 11 or 12 year old I made sure I was safe keeping a bucket of water and a fire extinguisher nearby. After playing with matches for a while I got bored cleaned everything up and put it away. However, as anyone who has lit a match knows they put off a very distinctive smell. This smell escaped my notice at that time.
My parents came home and immediately noticed the smell. After doing a quick check to make sure nothing was burning they searched for evidence and found a couple match sticks that I missed. This sent my dad over the edge. He picked me up and slammed me against the wall and held me there screaming at the top of his lungs for what felt like an eternity with my feet dangling off the ground. This is when our relationship permanently changed.
I am not saying that I should not have been yelled at and I am not saying that I necessarily blame my dad should be entirely blamed for his severe reaction, but he has a reputation for going to the extreme. For example at dinner one day he did not like how my brother was chopping his spaghetti. Therefore he exaggerated what he thought my brother was doing and flung spaghetti onto the ceiling in his anger. There have also been holes in walls and doors in every house we have lived in from when he has lost his temper. He never hit us, but he could spin up into a rage in seconds.
I also played soccer for a few years growing up. My dad played soccer in high school and college, therefore he decided to coach my team. He yelled from the sidelines the entire game every game to the extreme. We were not allowed to go out and play but were told exactly how to play every minute we were on the field, or at least that is how I felt. I quit soccer after three years because I could no longer handle him being the coach.
There are many more stories I could tell, but there is one final one that is the icing on the cake. Several years after the other stories being a horny teenager I found some pictures on the web. I also printed a couple of them to use at night. Unsurprisingly my parents found out, about me browsing the pictures on the web. After finding this out they sat me down and basically cut off my internet access. They asked me why I was looking at the pictures and not being ready to come out I explained that I was just curious. By this time I had forgotten about the printed ones. I understand how they handled this situation and it has nothing to do with my relationship with my dad.
About 6 months later my mom was flipping my mattress and found the printed pictures between my mattresses. As I said I had forgotten about them or I would have gotten rid of them. Well, that night my dad comes into my room, shows me the picture my mom found, and in a very condescending tone says “I am afraid to ask as I am afraid I am going to be disappointed. But based on these pictures I cannot think of any other reason you would not have gotten rid of them. I am afraid that you are gay. Are you?”
That conversation is one of the reasons I never came out. The way he asked the question to me sounded like if I said yes I was gay he would have thrown me out or sent me to therapy or something. I can and have forgiven him for most of the other stuff even if I have not told him. But that one question and how it was asked is something I have never forgiven him for. That one question led to bouts with depression, suicide attempts, and a lot of additional stress in my life. Can I forgive him someday? Maybe. Do I know when that may be? No.
I realized I liked boys around the 5th grade or when I was 10. However, I did not realize this was different at the time or that there was a word for this. It would be another several years and a lot of stories before I realized it was different and there was a word for it.
It probably really sunk in that I like boys shortly after my dad caught me watching TV naked when I was 12. I was home alone and not expecting him for a while and all of the sudden he showed up. I have always been somewhat of a nudist and I was just watching TV naked because I did not want to wear clothes. Well my dad thought I was up to something else and explained things to me. After he caught me he sat me down for a conversation and asked if I was masturbating. I had no idea what masturbating was at the time and he unwittingly filled me in on all of the details. It was then that I realized that what I was doing with my friend was masturbating, but by that time we had quit doing it.
So of course a little while after our conversation I started masturbating again, but only this time carrying it through to the finish. All of my fantasies while doing this were of my neighbors. They were all I had to go on. It was also around this time that I started noticing my friends at school talking about girls and dating them. I started looking at girls and just wondered why anyone would want to hang out with them and have never figured out the answer to that.
This is when I realized I was different than my friends, but I still did not know I was gay. I was still in elementary school and too sheltered to know this.
It was probably another two years before I realized I was gay. In Middle School I started running Cross Country and Track and met a bunch of new friends. My 8th grade year my friends convinced me to ask a girl out. I really did not want to, but I did it just to get my friends off my back. In the stumbling way all young kids ask people out I asked her out. She politely responded not right now, and that was the end of it. The one and only time I have asked a girl out on a date.
It was when my friends were harassing me to ask her out that I realized I was gay.