To all the closeted guys who have not come out to their families....

[G-Lexington]

>>>Lex, I did. I did go out and meet new people. At bar, at party. But I don't belong there at all. I came in as an zero, a sober zero. And people don't find a zero interesting at all. So I keep being a zero, even I have tried to start up the conversation. I am completely out to these people, and they still don't want to talk with me. Remember those miserable losers sit at the conner of the gay bar that no one bothers to come up to? Yeah, that's me.

Dude, "zero" and "loser" are high school terms. You're past that now. So you tried some conversation with a couple people, and it didn't lead anywhere. Try again. And your absolute best bet? Try talking to those other "losers" at the corner of the gay bar that no one bothers to come up to. If somebody's already in a group and chatting, they're less inclined to be totally open to other people joining in. Not because they hate you, but because it can be a bit weird to have the dynamic shift like that. Imagine eating at home with your family...and now drop a stranger into that midst, when nobody knew he was coming over. You probably could handle it, but it'd be a bit odd. Same deal.

With the other loners, these guys are desperate for conversation. They're hoping against hope that somebody will have the balls to do what they can't do. So be that guy and go talk to them already.

>>>I have some other people to hang out with, but I wouldn't call them friend. I still have to watch my manner while talking to them, since they are not close enough. Some I can be more relaxed with. But it always about me trying to catch up with their speed.

I may have spotted the problem here. Lemme know if I'm out of line here.

You seem like you're interested in joining...well, let's call them a "gang". Not in the Bloods and Crips sort of way, but the 50s-style "Archie and the Gang" thing. As if they'll draw you between Reggie and Moose, and away you go.

Thing is - it rarely works like that. You CAN end up joining a gang like that, but it's rarely done in toto. You don't form a relationship with the gang - you form a friendship with individual people. You meet Jughead, you start talking to Jughead, you find your common ground with Jughead. And eventually you and Jughead become friends. And then Jughead says, "Hey, I'm meeting the gang for burgers - you wanna come along?" And THEN, maybe, you join the gang.

There is no "speed" to worry about. Yeah, they'll be more likely to hang out with their old friends than with you - that's human nature. But all you need to work on is your relationship with each individual. Keep working that common ground, keep asking questions, maintain a friendly positive vibe. And you don't have to mind your manner all that much. No, I wouldn't immediately jump to "Yeah, just before I came here, I masturbated to some gay porn. I barely had time to clean the Dildo and wash my hands." But be yourself. If you're spending too much time "minding your manner", you may be coming off as rather personality-less. And most people would rather hang out with a human being than a mannequin.

Lex

 

[andy12]

i don't live my life defined by sex..or sexuality.

Yes, you do. You life is defined by acting like what you're not and suppressing what you are, ie. "not showing this other side." That's defining it by sex and sexuality, albeit a suppressed one.

So just cause I don't let this other side show doesn't mean im unhappy....ASSumptions

Yet you live by the definition that you should be "straight-acting."

SO BITTER lol....and its immoral to act on the desire of having sex with the same sex...you can be bi or gay but you cannot act on that....thats the sin....not the desire...and if i was in a relationship with a man thats a sin too.

Why can't you act on that? Tell me, what does an all-powerful god lose if you kiss another guy? Tell me, why would the creator of the universe (100's of billions of galaxies each with 100's of billions of stars) care about who you like? Is he that petty? Does he get a subscription to all the tabloids too? Are you serious? And are you Catholic?

If there's a god, making him out to be a petty dictator involved in every aspect of your life must be the only sin.

Look at all the laws in the Old Testament. They make sense in the context of a primitive people who don't know the real causes for "bad" things. They saw that people who ate pigs got sick more often. So they invented that their tribal deity must be punishing people for eating unclean pigs. Anyone who does so goes to the naughty place called Hell. As it turns out, pork must be cooked properly and then you'll be fine.

Same thing with promiscuity or gay sex. Fucking lots of women or even less men (in a society without condoms or medication) is inherently less healthy than stable monogomy or polygamy. Those are the facts but what's the reason? It's not because God is punishing anyone for butt sex but because butt sex is more receptive to bacteria and viruses that act as parasites. Gay sex then is no more sinful than going to a swimming pool because you could pick up athele's foot there. Take precautions but let's not pretend any god cares where your cock is at any given moment.

Rid yourself of this poisonous brain disease called religion. Don't be bound by the false explanations invented by superstitious people from 3000 years ago.

 

[IllgetyouHackman]

Coming from won "Illini" (Is that what you call a person from Illinois or is that reserved for native americans? No matter ) to another, it will happen when it happens, just don't sweat it so much. I basically was sitting on my bed one afternoon and took upon myself to text my sister, then call her, then she convinced me to call my dad, who in turn told my sister. It was that spur of the moment, I just came to the realization that why am I doing this to myself and I don't care enough to play the game no more.

Add: Oh and lets keep the religious zealotry in the Religion forum, k thx.

 

[rareboy]

Justlove. Listen Up.

mmm not really lol i don't live my life defined by sex..or sexuality. theres A LOT more to life then this. So just cause I don't let this other side show doesn't mean im unhappy....ASSumptions

SO BITTER lol....and its immoral to act on the desire of having sex with the same sex...you can be bi or gay but you cannot act on that....thats the sin....not the desire...and if i was in a relationship with a man thats a sin too. So sweeten up stop being so bitter...and talk what you know.

Frankly, this has to stop.

If you are not a troll, and I'm not convinced you aren't, you have to ask yourself why you're the one hanging around a gay positive site offering negative and unacceptable advice to other young guys.

We get it. You're a self-hating closet homosexual, looking to get fucked by 'bears', broadcasting that what you're doing is a sin.

You're in desperate need of professional counselling.

Your reaction to any challenge is to label us bitter. We're not. We're the happy, out, homosexuals who are successful in our lives. We understand that we were made this way and have accepted ourselves. We have long term relationships with other men. We do not have to hide.

We're not the ones who are posting threads about our trainwreck lives chasing after other 'bi' married guys and spewing the contents of a diseased mind about feminine gay men.

I don't know what your backstory is. I'm not even sure I care, given what I know about you from all of your posts.

But seriously.

If your intention is to take a shit in every thread you post in, it has to stop.

And if I see 'ASSumption' one more time in your response, I'm reporting it as a violation of the code of conduct. Got it?

 

[creatus]

Ok to answer your question WHY God views it as wrong is because he created ADAM and EVE...Man and Woman.

Oh, dear Lord, save me from your followers.

This thread is dead now, isn't it? Just like the "Masculine gay guys" thread which was very insightful... until some point.

 

[goodbyemountainman]

WOW, just WOW. I am literally choking on my morning tea right now. I was gone for a day and you guy had this much of conversation to talk.

@rareboy: I know I'm not a zero or a loser (just using them as an emphasis). Believe me, it used to be worse. Once in a while I get flirted by some guys, some are not my types, some ran away immediately after only one conversation, literally. I answered all of your questions to myself. I guess two words "stiff" and "sucking up" are for me. I tried to be "cute" and all that, but maybe I was trying to hard then.

@Lex: Wow, I'm very shocked at what you just said, in a good way. Nobody ever told me that before, not even my therapist. I will try to engrave these advices into my brain and follow them thoroughly. Hopefully I can do so more than a month before my mood swing gets in.

@TX-Beau: Believe me, I am accepting myself more than ever. Luckily I have only been through a short process of self denial, but no self-hatred, even though it was very self-destructive. But there is something else that I cannot put my finger in it that make me frustrated. Hey, maybe I was desperate to come out as a way to grab people attention, who knows?

@SAdude: if you are exactly in the same spot as me, then welcome to the family. We closeted brotha have got to stay strong and stick together, alright? Don't feel hesitate to share with us your problems.

@IllgetyouHackman: well I'm not an "Illini" as you are. I'm not even an US citizen, and English is only my second language. But thanks for your help. And I agree, let's keep this religious zealotism on, it would be fun.

@JustLove856: If you want to feel like everybody is ignoring what you've tried to say, then keep doing what you are doing right now. Believe me, it's very unhappy...

Is there anyone else want to give us closet homo some advice?

 

[Lube]

Getting back on topic...

To the OP:

I tried saying it in an uncharacteristically reserved way, but TX-Beau verbalized everything I was thinking. Listen to him. It's perfect advice for you.

I know, his “Christian Morals,” forbid him from letting anyone know, but they don’t forbid him the sleeping with men thing. Go figure.

Evidently it's not immoral to have a boyfriend and all that gay monkey sex - it's just immoral if someone else finds out.




To the OP:

I’m going to take somewhat of a harder line with you than some of the others. What you’re doing is escapism. You’re running away from your problem. Stop it. Grab your scrotum and face down your fear. Yes that’s hard, and yes that’s scary, but if you don’t you’ll let this thing rule you forever.

Sit in your house, say out loud:

“I’m a gay man, that’s a good thing, that’s me, and it’s my life, my terms, my decisions, I refuse to hide anymore, and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it.”

Keep repeating that to yourself until you can get through it without cringing in your head – until you can accept it.

Get angry if you have to, at all the things keeping you stagnant, all those things everyone else gets, but you can't have in your closet, all the deceptions, the loneliness, the distance the closet requires you keep between you and everyone else in order to preserve the lie.

If you want to be happy with yourself you need a clean break – drop the fucking “burden,” then go build an honest foundation for your life.

How? Start with yourself, repeat the above over and over and over. It all starts with you, and in the end, you will come out because of you. The only people who keep us in our closets are ourselves.



OK, depression – and yes a lot of closeted gay men are depressed. Why? You already know why, you outlined it pretty explicitly in your first post. Your depression is probably getting in the way of you making friends, people generally pick that up fast and avoid it.

No matter what some other closet cases in here might argue, lying and deceit will take a toll on your self esteem and self respect. How can you respect yourself if you aren’t honest about who you are? Not to mention living in fear like a scared child.

It’s your life, your happiness, your decision. No one can take that away from you, so you need to find a way to motivate yourself out of the paralysis and make a choice.

If that means counseling get it, if it means forcing yourself out of the house – do so. In the end, you simply decide that you’re not going to carry that burden anymore - and when you let it go, the relief you feel will feel like the world taken off your shoulders. Yes you’re scared - we were all scared, but ask yourself this, why on earth are you so attached to your “burden?” What has it done for you but break you down, perhaps you should try something else for a change.

How much of your youth do you want to waste on this? You don't get your years back, and the best argument ever for coming out and living your own life, on your own terms, are the guys who never did, who's regrets over a life lived in hiding are the only thing they ever had.

 

[TX-Beau]

@TX-Beau: Believe me, I am accepting myself more than ever. Luckily I have only been through a short process of self denial, but no self-hatred, even though it was very self-destructive. But there is something else that I cannot put my finger in it that make me frustrated. Hey, maybe I was desperate to come out as a way to grab people attention, who knows?

Look we’re all works in progress. There are stages to acceptance. There are guys around here who aren’t even where you are.

Coming out doesn’t immediately purge every negative thing we think about ourselves. The catharsis involved is the letting go of all the pressure and stress of maintaining a rather huge deception. But you’re going to still have a lot of trash and clutter in your head left over from all the negative things we were raised on about gay men.

It takes time to deal with all that - so expect it. Even if you can vocalize and intellectually understand that you’re a gay man, that doesn’t mean you’ve accepted yourself. In fact we know you haven’t, just from what you’ve posted in here. But the positive is that you are on your way.

The frustration you can’t put your finger on is completely tied to you not having a life. Maybe the reason you don’t have much of a social life has something to do with not wanting the added stress of playing the closet game with people. Maybe you’re frustrated that all those other people are pursing the lives they actually want, instead of marking time trying to convince everyone that they’re something other than what they are.

Yes that’s frustrating, seeing people date whomever they want, associate with whomever they damn well please, get the approval of society and friends, find partners for life, gain experience and growth – or hell just hook up a whole damn lot, while you go nowhere and get nothing. That frustration got me so mad it pushed me right out of the closet.

I wanted that for myself, I was tired of looking out at life from behind the glass wall of the closet.

The closet puts a distance between you and everyone else. It’s the nature of the beast. You aren’t yourself to anyone, you don’t say what you might say, you don’t do what you might do, you self censor, you back burner your emotional needs and desires, and you don’t associate with other gay men in any meaningful way; because if you slip, your secret is out. All of that takes it toll on your self esteem, and self respect.

Let it go. The biggest secret about coming out is that most people don’t really care about you being gay. It’s incidental to their lives.

 

[TX-Beau]

I wanted to pull this out separate.

...Hey, maybe I was desperate to come out as a way to grab people attention, who knows?

OK, well maybe that's what you're thinking, and maybe that's fine. Maybe you want to talk about this, with people who can understand. Maybe you need people to pay attention to you and your issues.

Maybe the closet door is stopping you from getting that.

It's fine to want people to pay attention to you, to know you're there. No one wants to go through life alone.

In the end it really is about choices. What do you want for your life, and what are you willing to do about that.

 

[Lube]

P.S. Abraham Lincoln was not happy, he suffered until his death from mental illness and massive bouts of depression.

But he was fucking awesome. And that's what matters.

That's pretty damn depressing. I would not use his personal life as a model to emulate.

In fact, that's a very closeted way of looking at the world: make other people happy at your expense.

That's no way to live, IMHO.

 

[thisisinteresting]

All I can say that would've helped me at your stage in the coming out process is if there's even anyone in your life you think you might lose over coming out, they are not worth having in your life anyway. It's nothing but positive. Change can be beautiful.

 

[DafyddGeraint]

I'm firmly stuck in the closet and I know that I cannot come out because it would destroy the two people who mean the most to me. My long term girlfriend and my gay best friend. My girlfriend would be destroyed by the fact that she had been living a false life for years and my best friend wouldn't be able to trust me ever again, given the number of closet cases that throw themselves on him.

It's a horrible situation to be in, but I have to get up each morning and prepare to live my double life, I focus on anything else I can to not think about my true feelings, it makes me sad and depressed, and I can understand exactly how you feel. Which is why I would say to you, if you are unlike me and have nobody weighing you down, when you feel ready, go for it. Live your life to the full, seize the moment and take the best decision you can for yourself and not live for other people. Sometimes you have to be selfish and put yourself before everyone else, even if you don't want to. Trust in those experienced members of this forum's community they can give you good advice.

 

[G-Lexington]

^ I don't want to derail the thread but...

1. Your girlfriend isn't living a false life - you are.
2. Your friend could still trust you so long as you don't throw yourself at him.

Lex

 

[rareboy]

^ I don't think you meant the OP; I think you meant JustLove.

And Daffyd.

You are already destroying 2 people's lives. Your girlfriend's by living out a lie and your own.

And as Lex noted. Your girlfriend isn't the one being dishonest.

I think you're using her and your gay friend as an excuse to hide.

 

[goodbyemountainman]

Staying in the closet out of fear of hurting someone is ridiculous. It isn't selfless like many convince themselves it is.

Shit, that false accusation really upset me. You know people from other countries like China, Japan, Korea, Thailand are not necessarily attached by religion. They have been assimilated culturally for thousands of years. You doing something considered "offensive", then not the government, but our own people around you will viciously attack both you and your family. So supposed I come out to my parents and they accept it, it doesn't guarantee that they will be completely immune from all of those cruel gossip and mocking for me being who I am. I maybe can take these ridicule, but what about your father who has been a respectable and admired by so many people, no suddenly being laughed at? I don't think his fragile heart can survive that. Yes, the thing that matters most is what you think, but don't tell me you never been influenced by what other people's has been telling you. If I don't give a fuck about what people think, then why the hell should I ask everybody some advices?


And if anyone agree with me that Mr. JustLove856's just here to sabotage this thread with his preaching, then raise your hand.

 

[transvestitequeen]

How do you do it? How do you keep building up your life, emotionally, intellectually and socially without thinking too much about your coming out process? What makes you put that elephant aside and motivate you to be happy? I know being in the closeted means you will never be fully happy. But it's become too big of a problem for me that it prevents me from doing anything I should do right now: work, study, making friends or enjoy life...All I do is lock myself up and do all the vanity things to ignore the depression. I have said to myself that I will never know what will happen tomorrow, so don't think too much about it. But this fucking struggle is too strong and it's consuming almost every bits of my life. I spends hours and hours thinking about it and I cannot take shit anymore!!!!!! Just tell me how I can get up, keep walking even with a rock behind my back?????

That's also my problem. I don't know if i'll tell my family about it or just change and be straight all the way. Ugh!

 

[rareboy]

Raises hand. The worst part is that he may actually believe the nonsense he spews.

But I do think you might be surprised at how resilient your parents can be as well. Without knowing the exact cultural and community context, it is hard to say how the neighbours will react, but it is a rare family that doesn't have something that everyone else could criticize.

In closeted societies, it must be more difficult to come out, but as we've said many times here, you can do it without throwing a parade. You can come out just to your family, and not the entire neighbourhood. If your family choose to share the news, then that is their prerogative.

The fact is, an unhappy, depressed and unfulfilled child is worse than any outside opinion.

I suggest that if you haven't come out to anyone, seek out a friend for support. Tell them. Then tell other friends. Get their support for telling your family. Build a network of support so that by the time you sit down with your parents, you do it with the self-assurance that a lot of other people are standing by you.

 

[goodbyemountainman]

But I do think you might be surprised at how resilient your parents can be as well. Without knowing the exact cultural and community context, it is hard to say how the neighbours will react, but it is a rare family that doesn't have something that everyone else could criticize.

True. They are tough, strong, and educated people (although I don't know what their stand of gay people). But they are also very proud. They are successful people with a wide circle of friends, mostly are quite respectable. And they LOVE to compare me to their friends' children. "OH, why can't you be like XYZ." "Look at that kid, he has such beautiful wife and kid. Why can't you give me one." Yup, that's how Asian people rolls, the older you get, the more of those shit coming at ya. It likes you are a child of one of those rich Republican family. They maybe not religious, but they would not like the idea of having a gay kid in their house. But like you say, I will try my best to buid a system than can support me to come out to my parents. Maybe in the next 20 years they have a different view.


JustLove856 is just trying to explain his religious lunacy to us like a patient does to his doctor. Giving feedbacks to him is actually a good thing, but keep in mind that he's not so well.

 

[Lube]

^Coming out can be difficult, no doubt.

But it's the point at which you go from a boy to a man, or a girl to a woman.
It's a coming of age, where you stand up for yourself and say, Fuck You, World! I don't care what you think! I'm taking ownership of my life!

Sure, some shit hits the fan (or at least you have to prepare yourself for it), but you don't let anyone else run your life.

You take responsibility for your life, rather than let someone else define it for you.

 

[Blaze2010]

It is very hard to come out and it doesn't get any easier when you do it with other people after you have already done it before! I just came out to some of my best friends in the whole world and they were really supportive saying i can't help who i am or the way i was born so i was lucky there. But i do not have your burden cause i like girls too. I think it best not to let people at work know cause it's none of their business. I will probably never tell my family either oh how i wanted to yesterday when i told my friends but i didn't. My mom doesn't approve of gays or homosexuality but that doesn't bother me i just don't want her to disown me. I think some things are better left unspoken but if you must and it bothers you enough go ahead and tell the people you want to know about it. It may be pretty obvious to family as time goes on if you never get with a woman or have kids so i mean you will have to explain sometime. Just breathe and live life to the fullest don't listen to what others think about you. You don't have to impress anyone but yourself and if you do that, that's all that matters! Your a special person, everyone is in their own way just remember that. You have a whole community here on JUB backing you so when you get down just tell us we'll make you better i promise. ​