Monday, August 08, 2005

How to know for sure that you are gay

The title of this post is search request that someone entered and brought them to my website.

So it made me wonder, who was the person that was searching the Internet looking for an answer to this question. Was it a teenager that is questioning how they're feeling; was it a parent who had concerns for a child or a loved one; was it a girlfriend questioning her boyfriend; a husband questioning his wife?

So I thought I would try and answer that question "How to know for sure that you are gay."

That is a hard question to answer, because I think it’s something that you always know, it’s always in the back of your head. You may not understand it, or know how to act on it, but you know. Perhaps you may not want to answer the question yourself, to be afraid of the answer you might give. But I think you always know, it’s sort of asking someone “So how long have you known you were straight?” It’s a question that you never think needs an answer but if you had to provide one, how would you word it?

I knew when I was probably 6 or 7 that I was gay, but I didn't know what it was at that time, all I knew was that I liked being around men and people older than me.

I grew up in rural PA and there weren't a lot of kids around, so I always hung out with the adults. My father had a farm machinery business growing up and it was not uncommon for a farmer to be getting a piece of equipment from my Dad and it was dinner time, and have him stay and have dinner with us. So we always had a lot of people around.

But I always gravitated towards people older than me (a few years to decades) but I can’t explain why, other than to say there were no kids to play with and the kids that were my age were mostly girls. I only had one male playmate growing up and that was only until the 4th grade when his family moved.

I never acted on being gay until I was 21. But up until that time, I knew that what I was feeling was NOT the way that I could act, not in a small town. To give you an idea of how small of a town I'm from, there were 48 kids in my graduating class. That was a public school that covered a lot of area, a lot of farm area to be exact.

All through school I had girlfriends, but they were more "girl" friends than girlfriends (if you know what I mean). I had two steady girl friends in school one for 2 years and one for 3 years. All that time though, I knew that I preferred looking at the boys...but I knew it was wrong.

I was the geek in school, I hated shop, I hated gym, but I liked Band and Chorus, I didn’t play sports, I actually played JV Basketball in 7 & 8 Grade. During one away game, I actually went the wrong way and scored a goal……I actually just remembered that so I hope you’re happy! But in 9th Grade I told my mother, I was not playing basketball this year.

My mother always joked that when I grew up that I would work with my head and not with my hands, and that’s true.

My last serious Girlfriend was to the point where she wanted to get married. She was a year older than me, she was finishing her first year of college, I was graduating high school and starting my first year of college….and she wanted to get married.

I remember that we never really had the conversation but I knew what was happening, I knew that we were getting to that point (together for 3 years time to settle down), but I got so freaked out. So freaked out that I broke up with her, to this day I could not tell you what “excuse” I used to break up with her. But I knew that if I married her, it would be the wrong thing to do.

But I knew that if we were married, I would cheat on her, I would go behind her back and act out on what I was feeling, and I knew that was wrong.

I’m very happy for her because she got married and currently has 4 children….oh how my life would have been different.

I’m getting away from my point…..so how do you really know if you’re gay?
If you’re gay, you know. You just need to gain the courage to act on what you’re feeling.

3 comments:

Robin said...

Bravo to you to being who you are, and not living a lie! Great post!

Rob7534 said...

Great POST!! Wonderful blog. It's hard for me to remember how I first knew I was gay also, but I always knew. I don't understand people who say they NEVER knew they were gay when they were growig up, and suddenly BECAME gay like when they were 30-40.

I don't know if I trust that, they MUST have known!! Because I knew all along, as well as you.

Your doing a GREAT service :)

Ms. NaughtyPanties said...

Hi, I need help finding answers to if my husband is surpressing that he is gay. Any direction you could point me in?