Oh, hi! I didn't see you there. Welcome to the second post of my blog. Imagine that opening scene freeze-frame in movies when the main character is doing something mundane. You hear a voice-over of them saying, "I bet you're wondering how I got here. I didn't always know I was gay, and I bet you're also wondering how I didn't know. Well, this is my story.” So here I am, sitting on a bus after a road trip, about to tell you more about my story.
When people would come out later in life, I always used to wonder: how did they not know they were gay? It seemed like a pretty big thing to not know. But, then I think about how my prof's microphone will turn off 15 seconds into a lecture, and they won’t realize until it's over. Evidently, there are some things you don't know right away.
The culture I grew up in was to like boys, so I liked boys. It was as simple as that. I had no gay friends and was never encouraged to question sexuality or explore it at all. It wasn't until my first year of university that I began to realize that what I thought I knew may not be right anymore.
When I first transferred to York, I started dating a guy from school. Something always felt off between us, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Needless to say, he and I did not last long. I was beginning to accept that I was interested in girls as well and came out as bi that summer to some of my friends. It wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t public knowledge. It wasn’t something I was trying to hide, but again, I felt that it wasn’t something that everyone needed to know.
Fast forward three years. When I began school this year, someone came into my life who helped me realize the real me and helped me stop denying the thoughts I had been ignoring for years. During a flight home, I was listening to a podcast about a woman who married a man, but there was always something missing between the two of them. She said that she had grown up in a town where girls had to like boys, so she did. It wasn't until she started questioning everything and seeing women that she realized she was gay. I hope you're shocked at how similar this random podcast woman's life is to mine because I certainly was and had a real moment on that plane. The person who was beside me probably thinks I'm a psycho now.
Things were becoming harder to deny. My new friend and this random podcast woman were the only people I had met (or heard) that felt the same way as me about these things, and they both happened to be gay. Interesting. Interesting…
The truth is, being with a guy had never been appealing to me, and I thought that maybe when I got older, this feeling would change. Let me tell you, it did not (sorry guys I've been with…). It was, and still sometimes is, confusing because I do find men attractive. I mean, hello? Zac Efron? The guy from my regional anatomy class? Love their faces, but that’s about it (too bad the latter’s girlfriend has a boyfriend now). I had always imagined that I would marry a man and live the life everyone expected me to have. Letting this go and accepting what I truly wanted was not easy.
I told one of my friends that I did not expect that this would be my life. I didn't mean this negatively, but, if you were to tell the boy crazy (more like boy psycho if we're being real) 16-year-old me that at 21 I would be coming out as gay and writing a whole blog about it, I would've said you're out of your mind. But, in middle school, I promised myself that I would never wear skinny jeans, and here I am, so what did I know?
*Back to the freeze frame* Well that's my story, everyone. Whenever girls see a gay guy that they want, they always say, "the good ones are always gay," and I guess that's true, hey boys?
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