2015. április 24., péntek

Coming out seems impossible. Any insights?

I recently decided that I needed to come out, but I'm having difficulty doing it. I'm a very shy person and I rarely talk about my feelings with anyone, so it seems like a huge leap to actually approach a friend or family member and reveal something so personal. I feel like a lot of the anxiety I experience when I think about actually doing it is completely irrational, especially when I would be coming out initially to someone who wouldn't out me to anyone else, and I know they would be supportive. I've lurked here for a while now and I would just like to list some of the worries I have, no matter how irrational they may be, and see if anyone feels similarly or has experienced any of this in the past.This got long so here: TL;DR I'm really scared of coming out, but I don't know why it's so very scary to me. My main worry is that people will only see me as a gay man instead of a complex human being.I'm pretty sure that my parents and my family would be fine with it, but I feel like they would be afraid to ask me about it. To be honest I'm not sure that I would even want them to. I just worry that they would accept me because it's the right thing to do, even though internally they may struggle with the idea, and I'm pretty sure they will be secretly disappointed.I have never been in any kind of relationship. I always kind of thought I should at least try dating a girl before I could really know, but since I always knew in the back of my mind that I wasn't attracted to the potential partners who came along, I could never do it. This is the stupidest of all my reasons, but I just worry that 'coming out' without any real experience means there is more of a risk that I'm just wrong about myself. All of my crushes as a teenager were guys, so I should really be past this by now.I don't really know any other gay people either, which doesn't help. All of my immediate family are straight and for that reason a lot of my family believe that every gay man follows the stereotype portrayed by western culture. Although I think my coming out will help humanise homosexuality to a lot of genuinely nice people, I also feel that me not being entirely stereotypical will make this a big shock to them, since they are only used to viewing homosexuality from afar, as a sort of abstract concept that doesn't really affect them.My last worry is probably my biggest. I am worried that my friends and family will try to justify my past actions with some new homosexual identity, and that when I meet new people I won't just me the blank slate of 'me' anymore, but people will have all these preconceptions about me. I know that many of you have struggled with being seen as 'gay people' instead of just 'people' who are gay, and this is really sad to me. Will straight male friends become afraid to be close to me? Will Female friends suddenly get a lot more comfortable around me? I feel like meeting straight men will become difficult. I have a lot of really good friends who are male, but how can I bond with new male friends if they're constantly worrying that I'll develop feelings for them? I have a pretty large group of friends from school who I meet up with at least every few months and none of them are gay as far as I know. Nobody in my new group of friends is gay either.Thanks for reading this. It turned out pretty long, but if you took the time to read it, I am really grateful. Any feedback would be great. :)

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