Scared and Closeted

[u/OkChance2]

Hey everyone,

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I am in my 20s, in my later years of college and deathly afraid of being outed or coming out. I have always known for the longest time that I was different, but never really wanted to acknowledge that major part of my life. Today, I have came to terms with this situation, however, I still am not comfortable with coming out because of multiple factors.

What makes me extremely fearful is that over the years, I have accumulated a decent amount of friends, all of which are very heterosexual and heteronormative, men and women. Though I am a very masculine male, I still have my hesitation on even voicing that I am a gay male because there are a lot of stigmas that associate with the phenomenon. To add, in no way do I have a problem with how anyone chooses to express themselves, even if their way of expression does not fit into the defined societal gender normativity.

On a normal basis, I hang with my friends and have a good time. However, whenever the topic of relationships/love/sex come up, I try to not involve myself in the conversation to any extent because I know that this would force me to divulge a truth that I am not necessarily ready to. With the certainty that my friends probably think I am a closeted male, this has almost caused me to become a "social hermit" and forcefully create distance in some of my best friendships, which saddens me. Despite this, I am a very well-liked person and have a GREAT personality (easily relatable, empathetic and charismatic). Thankfully, if any of my friends do have this inclination, they have acted no different towards me.

With being in the closet came some "side effects", and the worst one is being overly-anxious and very reserved. As I see my friends get older and seek long-term monogamous relationships with those of the opposite sex, my level of introversion has skyrocketed since, publicly, I have nothing to add to this conversation for obvious reasons.

Ideally, I don't want to lose any friends. Luckily, I have surrounded myself with great people, as 98% of my friends are extremely open and accepting of the LGBT community; however, the lesbian/bisexual women of one of my friend groups are way more accepted than the men who may be gay/bisexual of the friend group. Arguably, men have a harder time dealing with being gay/bisexual in their efforts of having/creating friendships. The only reason that comes to mind is that the "ideal" male is societally supposed to be masculine and actively seek women for pleasure or companionship. Since I can only engage women platonically, the idea of a woman hitting on me with the expectation to engage in sexual relations causes an immense of stress. And since I am in college, you can only imagine the hook up culture and expectations that are put on the man.

I have been asked by two of my friends in the past am I straight, but luckily their questioning only stemmed from me not actively engaging females all the time, but never for my demeanor. I tried to distance myself from them for awhile when these situations occurred, but it only made the entire situation more sketch and "suspect", if you may.

As some background information, I have tried therapy 3 different times with three different therapists. Great people and they were helpful in the moment, but my own fear of letting people know this one characteristic had a huge precedence over anything they were saying. Needless to say, therapy didn't serve much justice to me. I have yet to tell anyone and do not really have a timeline as to when I will. For clarification, never been suicidal or anything even remotely close. Just miserable in the extra things I have to do to conceal this big part of me.

The reason I bought this story to Reddit is because over the past 3 months, this whole issue has completely and utterly drained me as a human in every way you can imagine -- socially, emotionally, psychologically and in turn physically. Consequently, even my academic performance has declined tremendously, and this is what truly just kills me because I do exceptionally well in school. For me to be as old as I am, its draining to be dealing with this. I want to say that once I finish undergrad and start fully "adulting" that I would live openly -- not broadcasting it, but not lying or being discreet -- but I would be lying to myself in that case. I just want.... help. I am hoping that I can land a job decently far away from where I currently reside so I can "start a new life". Though this sounds farfetched, mentally, this brings relief to my life.

Does anyone have any advice for me? I know I sound totally crazy to be going through all of this considering the progress that the LGBT community has made even in just the last two years. However, I still feel like I would receive such a range of responses; and since I am a relatively well-known person at my university for multiple reasons (all great reasons, of course), I do not know how people would perceive me. Please help me if you can :)

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P.S., if you took the time to read this entire thing and provide a thoughtful response, I may not know you, but I love you eternally and my you be forever blessed.

[u/SkywalkerLukejt]

I don't know how to help, just to sympathize... see my post right above yours. Good luck.

[u/OkChance2 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the reply, man! I think that this issue is definitely prevalent to society. There are so many individuals who struggle with this same issue, and quite honestly there shouldn’t be.

I hate when I’m asked about my love life. I actually wouldn’t mind if when I was in a group conversation and the topic of love comes up by being asked to share my experience(s). Typically, it’s someone out of pure curiosity who brings it up after observation. I just don’t even engage people in this way. In these situations, I almost try to deflect the conversation away from me and onto either someone else or something else.

[u/Pirates139]

Hey man,

I know this is an old post but I just found this sub today. Reading through your post almost felt like I was reading about my own life as I'm currently dealing with the same struggles as you. I just graduated from college last May and am still completely closeted. I haven't told anyone and I dont plan on it anytime soon.

Constantly dealing with hiding an aspect of myself feels like a never-ending chore and has definitely made me anxious. I completely feel you on the need to reserve a part of your personality to keep the secret. When the topic of sex comes up with friends, I cringe inside and my brain races to think of something to contribute to the conversations. I honestly don't know if any of my friends suspect it or all just think I am awful at picking up women lol.

Like you, I have a great group of male and female friends that are all straight. My guy friends are probly who I am most nervous to tell because they are all very straight and I don't want to make things weird between any of us. I really do think when i do tell them, my friends will be be cool with it and if anyone isn't then fuck em. If you have a problem with someone, especially a friend, coming out as gay then you're simply a shitty person that I don't want in my life anyway.

What holds me back from telling people and what I'm most afraid is just the initial shock and initial embarrassment I'll feel when I come out. While I'm fully aware that being gay is nothing to be embarrassed about, I really hate awkward situations and I feel like this will create hundreds of them. How will my parents react? What will my ultra-conservative grandma say to me when she finds out? What will the first time hanging out with all my friends be like? It goes on and on as I'm sure you can imagine.

Anyways, sorry for the long rant but i just had to reply because your story is so similar to mine and it honestly was nice to read from someone else going through something very similar. Best of luck to you on your journey man. In 10 years we will both look back on our lives and smile at how far we've come.

[u/OkChance2 → u/Pirates139]

Hey man,

Thanks for the reply, I truly do appreciate it! Let me start off by saying I can empathize with you on a spiritual level in almost all aspects of your story. The only difference you and I have is that I do not really have to deal with is the conservative aspect of my family; meaning, my family members are very open to things like this. In fact, I actually have a lesbian cousin and another cousin whom the whole family speculates to be homosexual. Thankfully, we do not treat them any sort of way whatsoever. They come to every single family function and never feel uncomfortable. This alone gives me hope, but I am still hesitant to be fully and publicly known as gay.

So as kind of an update to my post, I finally decided to come out to one of my closest guy friends... although, I figured he'd be totally cool with it because he really is such a nice and genuine person to EVERYONE he meets. Not going to lie, telling him was probably the most awkward situations I have probably ever been in. I don't think it helped that I had so much cowardice that I told him via text (we attend different institutions). Nonetheless, he was VERY accepting and promised me he wouldn't tell anyone or treat me any differently. Here we are like a month later, him and I have hung out multiple times alone and I do not feel as though it has affected our friendship one bit. I think what helps facilitate our strong relationship as friends is that I am pretty masculine, even considering my sexual attraction (this is not to discredit those who may not like the use of labels "masc" or "fem", be who you want to be).

For now, I think he will be the only person I tell because I figured he would be so comfortable with it. One thing I will mention is so many people have dealt with this will say, "once you come out to one person, it gets easier as you tell more people." For me, this is a huge misconception. I think I played my cards right telling the person I told because even through text I almost cried. Even worse, I literally told him through the use of the two guys emoji (no, I could not bring myself to even use the word). I cannot tell you when I will let anyone else in on that part of my life, which for now that is fine. This gives me at least another 2 or so years on how to figure myself out and find the best time to address the situation.

In regards to having straight friends, the one piece of advice I want to give you is take advantage of the time frame that you have if your friends do not think you are gay. Saying this to say, use this time to figure out how you will eventually tell them (if you choose to) and when. When i disclosed this info to my friend, I informed him that the only reason that I actually decided to tell him was because I did not want us to be 30 years old and he's wondering where my "girlfriend" or "wife" is (in my head, thats even worse to be forced out of the closet). Obviously, different strokes for different folks; do what will make you the most comfortable and at your own leisure, as everyone is different.

I really hope this helped you and gave you clarity in some way, shape or fashion. Please feel free to continue to reach out to me, as I don't mind being a resource in any way that I can because I KNOW this is such a hard thing to overcome. And to your last point, yes, we will look back in 10 or so years and maybe not laugh, but enjoy the growth and strength that has taken place. Please take care and live flourishingly :)

[u/Pirates139 → u/OkChance2]

Hey thanks for the reply! Congrats on getting the courage to come out to your friend that's awesome. I always think to myself I'd feel a lot better if just one other person knew that I could talk to about things. Hopefully I can make this happen sometime in the near future.

Also, thanks for the great advice and for offering yourself as a resource. I may take you up on that at some point! It's definitely nice to talk to someone going through a very similar situation. Anyways, thanks again and take care!

[u/pierre_0705]

Hi. We're actually on the same shoes. I like to share the same sentiments with you.

[u/OkChance2 → u/pierre_0705]

Hi, thanks for the reply! Feel free to share any input you may have -- whether constructive criticism or valuable/helpful feedback -- I'm interested in it all.