Dear crawford:

I would like to reply to this current thread. It will help me in this reply if you respond to my reply to you on your yesterday’s thread.

anita

Reading your post left me with great concern for your well being.  I registered with this site, just so that I can give you a reply and some advise.  First, a little about me; I am a 68 year old white male.  I work as a tugboat captain, a job I love.  I am married to a man, whom I love as well, tho he is not my first.  I am a happy man.  I often say that if I were to keel over dead right now I would die a happy man.  It seems to me a good measure of the quality of life.  However, from the time of puberty until I was 23 years old I was miserable.  Eventually, I became reclusive, negative, and morose.  Some of my friends, and even my mother, had made anti-gay statements that served to make my hate my feelings even more.  Furthermore, I lived in a small city and the only gay people I knew of were very flamboyant ‘queens’ and I knew I was not like that.  After my best friend expressed a fear that I was suicidal ( I wasn’t – yet ) I realized that I had a serious problem that I had to face up to.  Otherwise, the downward spiral would take me down.  So, I sat myself down and admitted to myself that I was gay.  I did not act on that knowledge for a year, but in that time I told my friends, thinking they would find out anyway and preferring to make a clean cut if that was to be the result.  You should know this: I never lost a single friend as a result of them finding out I was gay. In fact, that was 45 years ago and the people who were my best friends then are still my friends.  I was not ostracized by my family either, tho many people are.  Also, I am ‘out’ at work, which doesn’t cause my any problems or discomfort, even tho I work in what would undoubted by considered a ‘macho’ occupation.

You ask if homosexuality is a perversion and if gay people can love.  Of course, I am biased.  Furthermore, one might ask what ‘true love’ is, and how would one know if he is experiencing it?  I cannot answer that except to say that I have most definitely been ‘heartbroken’ as a result of being dumped by a man I loved.  I don’t recommend it, but it’s part of life, I guess.  Homosexuality exists in every culture ( I know, I travel a lot ), in every age, and in other animals as well.  I estimate that it occurs in 4-5% of the male population and I have read that it occurs in 8% of male sheep, for example.  Whatever it is, it is NOT a perversion.  The worst part of being gay is not what is in you, it’s the intolerance of others who are incapable of understanding the beautiful diversity of human experience.

So, here is my advise to you: stop fighting it.  Nobody has ever succeeded in doing so, although there a few screwed up people who make that claim, often being caught in their hypocrisies.  Don’t believe the criticisms people lay against the “gay lifestyle.”  There is no such thing.  You make your lifestyle, nobody else does.  But being gay is not the same as being strait, so you should also not fall into the trap of trying to live a “strait lifestyle.”  Be true to yourself; there is nobody else in the world whose acceptance of you is as important than your own.

Your decision regarding how to view your sexual orientation is going to be the prime determinant of your future happiness.  I urge you to choose happiness.

Scott

Hi Crawford,

I’m a straight married woman who was raised in a conservative religious home, and I don’t believe homosexuality is against God at all. I believe that being gay is something you cannot change. “Beachratt” (Scott) gave you very solid advice above. A lot of people don’t accept homosexuality for religious reasons, others because it scares them, and still others because they just can’t (or don’t want to) understand it. Some are afraid to associate with homosexuals because they fear that if they do, people will think they themselves are gay. Parents of a gay child may think it’s a reflection of their parenting, that they did something wrong that made their child gay. I understand your reluctance to tell your best friend, and also your mom. Just know that there are many, many people who don’t have these fears and beliefs. I am one of them.

You say that you are feeling inauthentic. Take a deep breath, relax, and be yourself starting now. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to immediately tell everyone in your life that you are gay. Take it one step at time. First step: get real comfortable being the real you. It’ll be easier sharing the news with others once you are comfortable with it yourself. As Beachratt put it so perfectly, “Be true to yourself; there is nobody else in the world whose acceptance of you is as important than your own.”

I loved the honesty in your posts. I think you are awesome.

Brandy

Dear crawford:

In your most recent post on this thread you wrote regarding coming out as a gay man: “The main concern for me is that my best friend will leave me.”

In your previous thread of two days ago, you wrote: “I have a friend (who) was in a mental hospital…being bipolar… Eventually he got out of the hospital… I started hanging with him constantly after that… He also tried psychedelics to open his mind and he likes it very much… But…I have started gradually starting feeling worse, I don’t know if it is because of him or because of myself. I feel like it is hard to keep any boundaries around him and that I constantly have to see him and do what he does… I feel worse every day… I just feel unauthentic and I don’t know who I am by myself”.

Is this the same friend you referred to as your main concern?

anita

Dear crawford:

Then your main concern with coming out is to lose a person with whom you “feel worse every day”, with whom it is difficult for you to “keep any boundaries”, with whom you “constantly have to see him and do what he does,” and with whom you “just feel unauthentic”?

Can you explain to me the nature of your perceived loss of this person in your life?

anita

Crawford,

People make comments about gay people ( and other groups ) in the belief that they are saying the acceptable thing.  In saying these things to you, they think they are making points by taking a stance with which they think you will agree.  Furthermore, most people’s prejudice against gay people come from a place of ignorance.  They don’t know any gay people ( or don’t know that they know some ), so they believe that the stereotypical portrayal of the limp-wristed effeminate man is an accurate description of all gay men.  My mother was also known to make disparaging remarks about gay men, which caused me great concern and led me to delay telling her longer than I should have.  When I finally came out to her, after the initial shock from the unexpected revelation, her reaction was anger than I had not told her sooner.  When you tell people, it forces them to re-evaluate their beliefs in the light of new information, i.e. that their pre-conceived notions of what gay people are were not correct.  You are proof of that.

With regard to your friend for whom you feel an attraction; if he – or anyone else – cannot accept you for who you are, they are not your true friends.  As I noted before, I have never had that happen.  My friends, co-workers, and most acquaintances have accepted it without fanfare, even when I expected otherwise.

I strongly advise you to come to terms with this aspect of your self.  You don’t have to act on it.  I took a year from the time I accepted myself until I began dating men, and it was a good thing.  I was mentally ready when I did, so I didn’t do as so many young people did, going forth with wild abandon.  Eventually, you will find that being gay is a really a minor aspect of your self, not the dominating thing that it is now.  I know well the hurt and fear you are experiencing, and I know that it will only get worse until you face up to it.

Good luck, Crawford.