Dan

Hi, my name is Dan (as you can see above) and my story isn't very exciting but I felt like telling it here where I can be completely open and honest.

I am bi-sexual. I feel that I can have sexual relations with a girl but I wouldn't be able to have a stable relationship with one, that position, I believe, can only be filled by another guy. I am 16 and I have only ever been in one relationship and that was with a girl but it was QUICKLY clear I couldn't ever develope real feelings for her, as she had done for me...

I'm still "in the closet" but I have told a few of my close friends (who are girls). I do desperately wish I could come out to everyone in my school and just get it off my chest. But, you see, I live in a small town (mostly Roman Catholic and my family is heavily involved with the church), and my family practically knows everyone. So my dilemma is that I can not fully come out until I am ready to tell my parents and that may still be far down the road...

See I am very confused about my parents' levels of homophobia. My mom seems to be ok with the idea at times but there are others when she can act and/or say things that are extremely homophobic. My dad is even more confusing. One minute he is ready to sign a petition in support of gay marriage and another he openly speaks out against it. I really wish they weren't so flip-floppy.

I have never really been particularly comfortable socializing openly with other guys, am not very outgoing, and my ego is almost non-existent. I also have never been interested in sports. These traits of mine seem to have led me to be labeled as a "closet flamer" at school behind my back, but I don't really get harassed or abused for it, so I'm not worried about coming out to everyone in school. Again it is all because of my parents...

I am still trying to become completely comfortable in my sexuality, but feel I won't be able to get to that point until my parents know. For now I can only look to the future and try to hope for the best...

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Matthew

  Eight months ago, the most ironic things happened to me. For years, I have been one of the most homophobic person among my peer, and I will remember that night for the rest of my life. The day that I solve the mystery of why I never feel any attraction to girls.

  That night I saw gay porn in a sexuality class in my college. While I watched the two men kissing, hugging and eventually having sex, I have the bodily reaction of sexual arousal, which never happens when I look at females. I was overwhelmed by guilt and self-loathing for several weeks, and attempt all sort of methods like aversion to "fix" myself. After all those effort, my conclusion is that this "techniques" would do nothing apart from driving me mad.

   I attempted to discuss with my father about the issue, since I don't live  with my mother and I was not close to her anyway. The first reaction he gives is that this is impossible since his son played with toy cars and toy guns rather than barbies in childhood. I told him that, yes, gay men are more likely to be "sissy" when they were small, but this is not universal for all gay men. But after some time, he overcame it and told me that his only concern is discrimination.

   Until now, only three people know about my sexual orientaion: my dad, my counsellor (I went to him for advices) and myself. I am not intending to coming out to anyone, since I don't see the need to do so, plus some of them seems to be kind of homophobic. After reading the story on this website, I really wonder why most of the gay young men desire to come out. What is the point in doing so?

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Tony

Hey, my name is Tony. I'm seventeen years old and I am bisexual. I've known that I've like boys since the third grade. That's when I started messing around with my neighbor. I know that that sounds too young but trust me, I'm telling the truth. All of my friends and the people at school knew, but not my family (Well, my sister knew).

I never intended to tell my parents the truth about me. I thought that I was already a disappointment to my family, because I didn't play sports, and I didn't want them to have a better reason to look down on me. I was content to let them die of old age thinking that I was completely straight.

However, things didn't really go as I had planned. One night I stayed up really late to watch gay porn online. I did this once in a while and since it was so late, no one ever caught me. Afterwards I would clear out the browsing history and go to bed. This night I had forgotten that I had accidentally downloaded a video and I didn't remember to delete it. Since I was too tired to double check everything like I normally did, I just went to bed.

The next day when I came home from school my Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. When I sat down she explain how she and my Dad had found the video from the night before. She then asked me if I was gay or not. I figured that since I had slipped up I might as well tell the truth. I told her I was bisexual and she said, "What's that?" I explained it to her and she was fine with it.

I also learned that when my Dad found the video he got really angry. But only because my Mom had seen the video. Not because I likes guys. It was the strangest thing. Since I was in third grade I have been afraid to let my parents know about me because I thought they would disown me. But now, looking back, I'm glad they found that video. They still love me and accept me for who I am.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to tell my Grandparents.

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Ryan

I'm a fourteen year old boy and I came out to my parents as gay not too long ago. Before I did so, I came to sites like these to try and find tips and helps to make it easier, and I thought now that I have it all over with I would submit my own story. Anyway, it was right after Christmas, and I really couldn't handle holding the secret in anymore. I was literally just bursting to tell, to get it out. What I did first was tell a very few close friends of mine. I suggest doing this because it's sort of like practice. And telling your friends that you are gay or bisexual is actually a good thing to do, because it seperates the good friends from the bad ones.

After that, I planned out how I was going to tell my parents. One thing you should keep in mind is to never just drop in on them. You want to help them understand, because most parents grew up in environments that aren't really open to a homosexual community. Sitting down with them and talking calmly is the best choice, but since I'm a big chicken I couldn't do that. Instead, I did the next-best thing: I poured my heart out into a letter. I told them everything, including things like that it doesn't change anything about me, and that sexual orientation doesn't define who you are as a person.

I slipped the letter into my mother's coat pocket before she left for work. After work that night she texted me and told me she had gotten the letter and wanted to come and talk to me. But we agreed that that was too embarrassing for me, and I probably wouldn't say anything, so we agreed to communicate that conversation through emails. Emails isn't the BEST way to do it, but just keep in mind that TALKING and EXPLAINING is very important. You want your parents to understand what you went through and who you are. x

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Mr. N.

I don't want to tell you HOW I got HIV, instead, I'll tell you what I did with it.  The few weeks after my diagnosis, taking the train home from my crappy job, I would see people talking, laughing and living.  It felt so strange to see the potential in everyone else while knowing that there was now a limit to the rest of my life.  All these strangers seemed to have so much time to make something of themselves, and the time I would have had was now lost to HIV.  

This same time, one of my friends was diagnosed with breast cancer, so we talked a lot about life.  We reached a single conclusion: it doesn't matter how long you live, as long as you do something good with the time that you have.  So I stopped thinking about what I could have done with all the years I would have had if HIV hadn't found me, and started thinking about what I should be doing with the limited time I do have.  

So I took what was a directionless life, went back to school, and studied HIV.  Six years later, I'm a PhD candidate at an excellent university and have begun experimenting on HIV, finding new ways to inhibit and hopefully destroy the pandemic it has caused.  Don't get me wrong, I failed science in high school but now I know why: I had no motivation.  

HIV is not just a physical infection, it is a psychological barrier trying to bring you down.  Don't give in to this depression.  If you're HIV positive, let that change in your life create to a positive outcome.  HIV is the perfect excuse to move beyond the hum-drum of normal life and make your life something special, something worthwhile.

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John

I grew up and live in your average American town. There are more churches than stores in my town and everybody had an opinion about something. For the most part we are conservative people, and being homosexual is not an option.

I knew from an early age that I was "bi", but I never let it get to me. I always planned on marrying a woman, have children and raise my family and that being "bi" wasn't that important.

I found who I thought to be the "love of my life" in my girlfriend now, but who I really want to be with is her cousin. He is smart, athletic, funny, handsome and lovable. He is the kind of perfect I wish I could be..

My relationship with my girlfriend though is fading fast, but the truth is I don't really care.

I don't know if her cousin is "bi" or not but I hope I can find out. I truly feel that this is my one true shot at love, if I find out he's not "bi" I know I will never love again.

After realizing that I'm choosing a man who probably doesn't love me back over a woman who does, I really don't know if "love" exists...

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Anonymous

I am 16 and openly gay to my friends, and whoever bothers to ask me. I'm not one to parade or define myself by my sexuality, but I'm not secretive so as to speak. My parents are well aware, though hoping and wanting me to change, and possibly still in denial. The home policy is don't ask, don't tell through and through.

My entire time I have always had a closer affinity with girls than boys as friends. Boys have made me a little bit more awkward and nervous to talk to. When I was 10 years old I began to notice other boys played with mostly boys and girls with girls, I consciously adjusted my friendships to follow this. About this time I had the thought that I didn't like girls, I assumed this would come later.

A year passed and once slight attractions to boys became stronger and more sexual, I accidentally saw a nude male picture on the internet. I subsequently almost developed a pornography addiction for a while. This resulted in my peers (not really friends at the time) to find out I was gay, this was a less than pleasing event, I suffered black-mailing and intimidation. Also my parents found out this way.

From then on I could tell my father was ashamed of the idea his son could be gay, and my mother was moreover upset and plain worried. She probed for answers everynow and again, ask if I had a girlfriend 10 times then slip in a boyfriend question 'jokingly'. I just yelled at her when she made such comments.

Several years of being miserably closeted in highschool, fighting the remnants of "the rumour" I was gay I came out over the internet to all the people at my school and my few friends last year. Hardly anyone believed me. I had to still individually convince people. My friends either couldn't care less, were a bit weird for a while but came around after a while or were wonderful and helped me through it all. The very act of telling the truth was so liberating and horrifying all in one, it was and is a great feeling.

Being gay or bisexual is not exactly dangerous at my school, compared to other schools it is the perfect place. Literally within a few months I struck up a conversation with a boy in the grade above me, this eventually turned into the first relationship I had ever been in. The feeling was wonderful, just touching hands was so amazing after being so repressive, trying to control things from how I spoke, sat or walked to not appear gay to being able to kiss a boy.

That ended, and I am now in a place where my friends know and don't care. Whilst I am chronically mad at my parents to which I hardly speak to, and snarl and say terrible things to now, simply because I am pissed off with having to lie. In my heart I don't blame them or I for anything, it's all just how things turned out, nothing could be altered, and I'm glad of that. I am proud, happy and so much freer then ever. Forget the consequences of that, I'm happy with who I am and want to be.

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James

I luckily live in Toronto. People here are really open-minded and compassionate. That however does not mean I haven't encountered homophobia.

Ever since I was in grade six I knew I was different. I came out two years later to a really good friend and continued on to everyone else I knew. I am open but have stopped telling family members that do not know; I don't see why I have to give them heads up for being me. That may be selfish but I shouldn't have to warn people about who I am.

Word travels fast though. By the first week of high school I was pretty much known as 'The Gay James' there are three other guys in my grade with the same name. Other than some Jamaican and Tamil students everyone was pretty accepting; some even applauded me. However I have had one incident that really hurt me. I was in drama class and we were doing this exercise where you write one word and pass it on to develop a script. We stopped and I was supposed to read first; the script I had received from the boy next to me that started at the other side of the room had gay slurs written about me. So did almost every other script thanks to two boys in the class. The only reason it hurt me was because I thought people in my drama class were cool. But some were; people made sure I was okay and others comforted me.

So remember not everyone is homophobic and not everyone will be so kind. Just find your rocks, anchor yourself, and weather the storm.

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James

My story may seem overly clichéd but it's true. I grew up in a small, rural, and primarily Catholic and Mormon town, and up until I was thirteen I was dead set on Identifying as straight.

I identified myself as bisexual, not that anyone at the time knew, I would sneak into football games, but rather than watch the cheerleaders like my friends, i stared twenty feet behind them, I was watching the football players. It was a year layer before I secretly started dating another boy for two years. We never got more intimate than kissing, petting, cuddling, and when we were absolutely positive we were alone, some shared stroking. When he came out to his parents, he was on a bus out of town that day. I never even said good bye to him.

I'd stay alone for a few more years, it wasn't until I meet my current boyfriend that I felt happy again, though we've never met in person, and we live on opposite sides of the nation, I can't help but love him dearly. But know at eighteen, I'm trying to gather the courage to out myself, it may take some time, but with my boyfriend's support, I know I can do it.

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Duncan

I am 16 years old and i am pretty sure i am gay. I am a sporty guy who loves sports and i have had a lot of interest from girls and had many relationships with them. I never truly enjoyed these, and this is when i first had gay thoughts.

My family and friends are relatively homophobic so i couldn't come out to them. I started acting gay as it were to try and get the message across to them that i was gay without having to say so. So i started wearing more feminine jewellery and got my ears pierced and started watching Glee and HSM. Sadly they failed to get the message, so i am still a closet homosexual.

Some friends at college seem to have got the message and are more accepting than i hoped. Also i found the most wonderful guy at college and we are having a brilliant relationship. I just wish i could take him home with me and let the truth about my sexuality be known.

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Ryan

This story, I feel will not be very interesting, showing I am only a young teenager. I'm not really sure when I decide I was finally gay. Being only young I have not had much experience in life yet.

I have no intention (for now) of coming out to anyone. I live in a Great society, but I need more experience and more confidence to show everyone who I really am inside. I have a great family, my parents especially are really loving. Although it pains me to think about my brother. You see he is homophobic, and gay people, to him are fowl and horrible. It kills me inside when he makes jokes and insults gay people. I of course pretend to laugh with him, but it just kills me inside.

(I'm not sure I am writing the right things, but I feel I have to just 'let it out' in a way)

Although I actually love the thought of being 'gay'. I have, at stages, just wanted to be 'normal', like every one else. I won't go into details; all I will say is this. I read about gay men finding happiness, and I can't wait for the day when I find that guy out there for me.

Everyone wish me luck for the future. Love is real, and can't wait to experience it of myself.

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Quincy

Hey. My name is Quincy and I have no idea what else to do. Its like I have created a second person almost with hiding my true sexuality. I'm always going around saying how people need to be real and stop lying but I think I might need to start living up to my advice.

I don't like labels at all and at one point I thought about not having a sexuality at all. Like I really just think too much and over analyze things and be intellectually ignorant so I don't have to face the real problem here. I come from a family that values Christian morals, church going etc. very much. Homosexuality is out of the question. I hear people saying things like they should die and they are going to hell and all other horrid things. It makes me so mad and so sad that I cant even be true to my family. My own blood! Life sucks right now.

As a result of not accepting myself, I have become one of those people who need to always be cautious of how I act and how I come off. If somebody is playing around or "acting gay" I shove it off as if I am uncomfortable because I wouldn't wanna play along and get ideas going. If somebody asks me If I'm Gay? I will get angry.  

That's the thing. I'm irritated very easily and it does not take much to piss me off to be honest. I am very brutish in speech and in manner sometimes and its not a very attractive quality so I am sometimes very quiet and reserved because I am just tired of being mad. I know how to have a good time and laugh and talk but this is killing me inside and I cant tell my family or friends.

I'm already brutally honest about how I feel overall but I lie so much when it comes to sexuality, in words and action. The worse part is I don't want it to be true that I'm gay because life is so much easier it seems, but these days yeah right. You cant even tell when you're gonna take your last breath.

I usually appear as a confident, strong-headed, no nonsense individual with a laid back, humorous side but I deep down inside I am soooooooooooo scared and lonely and depressed. The worst part about this is I know my mom will probably disown me. :(

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Jason

 Hi, I have been gay and in denial most of my life. I had lied to myself and never have come out to my family or straight friends.  I have always known that I preferred boys to girls. I live in two worlds and keep them apart. I have am not judgmental but I know that the real world does not think the same way and I live in the real world. My gay sex life has been good but unsatisfying because I refuse to come out and leave my straight image in my other world.  I have not allowed my gay friends into my other world and visa versa with my straight friends. So sad, I know. I know there must be others out there with the same issues.  I have heard stories about how it was in the past and the progress gays have made in being accepted. But we still have "Don't ask, Don't tell."  I hope that the future will see us all as truly equal and we can rid ourselves of labels. Don't fret for me. I have enjoyed the good parts of both worlds. Too bad I can't or won't put it all together. But Maybe One Day !

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Carlos

My name is Carlos I am turning 21 in two months.

It's been hard for me in the last couple of years realizing who I am. I have always been ask if I am gay! I always say no and try to keep it that way. I don’t know what to do.

I come from a Hispanic family and it seems hard to come out cause u know mexicans are big machos.
I have never been with a guy. I have had several girlfrinds but it's hard to hide the sun with one finger! I dnt know wat to do. i think about guys when I having sex with girls.

Sometime I think evryone knows iam gay and I am the only one that dnt want to realize it. I dont want to be like this!!
How I wish I was normal!!!!

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Matt

Throughout high school I was picked on due to the way I talk. People would always say to me that I'm gay. It went on but my so called friends harassed me to no end. They would tease me about it. I said that as long as I'm happy with a guy or a girl, leave me the hell alone to live my life as i want it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being bi-sexual. I'm actually proud of who I am, and wont let anyone play with my mind in any way.

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