Today I'm posting about the downfall of my old lifestyle, the moments that caused it to occur, the times when I realised that that was truly not how I wanted to live my life, or who I wanted to be, those turning points in my life which have made me who I am today living in a new lifestyle.
Before I get to that, I'll talk a little about before I entered the gay lifestyle at around age 14.
-Before entering the lifestyle-
I hit puberty about the age of 10, in the fifth grade, and I was attracted to girls like most dudes are. I remember everytime we went to the grocery store I'd slink off to the magazine aisle and flip through the mags with hot girls on the cover like car mags or some model mags. I remember I'd also steal the little subscription cards inside because they often had a hot chick on them showing ample cleavage, haha do I need to emphasise what I used those for? I remember we had satellite back then too, and my parents left me and my brother home one summer I must have been 12 or so. Well my dad had got a card which allowed us to get every satellite channel for free (though it was illegal) well while they were gone my bro and I'd flip to the adult channels and watch them and well we'd do what boys did to that, masturbate, though separately, we never did it in the same room ,we took turns who could watch the tv. I remember I'd also draw my own hot girls, nude, though they weren't that good, but in my mind they were masterpieces.
I had crushed on girls in kindergarten, but in that sort of whimsical way a little boy who doesn't understand anything sexually does. My first real crush on a girl was in the sixth grade, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, her name was Ruth. I managed to talk to her somehow, never sure how, but she was alright with me I guess, I can at least say she knew I existed. In 7th grade I was influenced by my best friend at the time to try out witchcraft, which I admit was interesting. Ever since I was a kid I was into magic and mystic stuff, loved it in movies and tv shows. So I tried it out, went to a bookstore, bought a spellbook (the kind where a person has made spells and put them in a book already, not the kind where you make up and write in your own), and I brought my spellbook to school to read. Well my homeroom teacher saw it and said she didn't want to see that kind of material at school, I'll discuss that at a later time. Anyway, a little while before, maybe a month or so it got out to Ruth that I liked her, and then when the whole witchcraft thing got out, she avoided me thinking I was going to cast a love spell on her and make her my love slave. I know, that is funny in retrospect, but I wasn't happy she thought I was a bad person.
At the end of 7th grade, I made a new best friend as my old one had moved across town so I never got to see him. This new best friend of mine was a really feminine guy and we got along well. I think, though I don't blame him, that I was in the gay lifestyle a lot at his influence, because I entered the gay lifestyle a little after I befriended him and I exited it after we stopped being friends, yes we were friends for about 7 years. In eighth grade I liked a mutual friend of ours but she was seeing another friend of ours, but me and her did confess that we both liked each other and if she weren't dating our other friend we'd go out. Needless to say we never did. I also sort of liked another friend of ours and asked her to the 8th grade dance, but she turned me down, I remember my dad picking up from school that day, because he always did and I was upset about it. I entered the gay lifestyle a little later that year. So to be honest I don't know if girls rejecting me played a big part in my venture into an exclusively gay lifestyle, but I imagine it did play at least some small part in that. All I know is throughout almost all of my gay lifestyle I felt failed as a man, I told people that I never thought I could be attracted to women because I felt I could never be masculine. I remember telling my dad that when I told him I was gay and that was the reason I gave for why I didn't want to pursue women. Ironic how things change.
-The downfall-
I began to really want to change who I was when I was still participating in the lifestyle. It was right after my best friend and I split from being friends after some events where I lived with him and his family in another state and was abandoned up there by him so he could come live with his boyfriend he had back in Georgia, a good 300 miles away. My Dad and older brother came up there to get me and I moved back to Georgia and then is when I entered a strong isolatory phase. I didn't go to visit any of my old friends, I just stayed holed up in my room and avoided people except for my job and family. My best friend tried to keep contact with me like nothing happened at all and I tried to let him until my dad stepped in and said I needed to re-evaluate things and think about what he had done to me not just let him walk all over me. That really put a schism in our friendship, we fought over the internet which was my only way of communicating with him and we split. It was about 6 months after we split or so that I began to feel I wanted to change. I didn't want to change my lifestyle yet at that point, but I was tired of being feminine and I wanted to try my hand again at being masculine like I used to be before I entered the lifestyle. Here's some excerpts from a online journal I used to keep back then...
"These past few weeks or months maybe, I don't know, I may have been just so used to the feeling I didn't know if it was ongoing or not. But I've been downcast and entirely edgy. Feeling extremely cornered. Most of all misanthropic, loathing anything to do with people, any human contact at all, with family, anyone.
But the strange thing about today was, I felt like I grew up, strangely in a small hour period of time, I felt like I aged many years in such a short amount of time. I felt older, like an adult. Am I really feeling 21 now? Is 21 really supposed to feel more mature, more responsible, more capable to handle what comes your way, and not break to pieces because of it, more able to stand firm to your ground and buck up and survive? I don't know, but if that's how the real 21, the real feeling of adulthood is supposed to be, then I felt it.
And evenmoreso, I like it. On top of that, I felt manly. Now let me tell you about that. For once in my life, I'm actually starting to feel like a man, and I like it, I want to embrace it. I want to be a man. Maybe I'm finally growing up. But, years ago, you'd have never heard me say such a thing. But I want to be a man, I want to be strong and stable, and masculine and dependable, and much more responsible. Most of all I don't want to be that somewhat flaming feminine person anymore, that kind of person I've noticed over my years of being one, often gets no respect. Now I'm not sure why that is, but I want respect, I want to be who I was born as, and let's face it, I have a penis, so I'm a guy. Of course there's nothing wrong with men that are a bit flaming and feminine, that's fine, whatever works for them, but as for me I want to embrace my manliness.
Most people I expect upon reading this will comment. 'But we love you the way you are' and 'but you're so feminine, and don't change', but if you really love me for who I am, not ranting or anything, just stating, then you'll come to love me as being a man too. Just because I'm becoming a man, does not mean I'm less caring or less nice, I'm just the same in niceness and caring as then, but in a more silent and reinforced, reserved way. A sort of manly geniality. If any of you have ever met a real man, you'll know what I'm talking about. That gentle kindliness you feel, when a guy smiles with a calming demeanor, like he understands, but he doesn't have to say it for you to know that he does. Also I need more guy friends. Guy friends who know what it's like to be a guy, who are manly, and do men's things somewhat, who won't judge me because I'm gay, because even in becoming a man, I'm afraid that's not going to change. That doesn't mean I'm dropping any friends, I'm just saying I need to hang out with more guys, so I can get more of the feel of it, more of being in my own element.
I also realised today, that changes take time. You can't force yourself to change, otherwise you start cracking, and forcing it too much you're going to break. Changes aren't easy, and changes do hurt, no lie in that, but changes are what help you grow and bring about more of a self-identity than ever before. And choosing what you want to change, is how you make your life or a least put it on the track of how you want to live."
So that's when things began to change for me, when I desired to change. And I've kept true to myself, I have, and I've done it at a comfortable pace as well. That was dated February 6th of 2009.
Now when I began to realise I hated the homosexual lifestyle was probably early on. I remember hated being called gay by classmates or the bully in my neighbourhood, it was such a disdainful word for me and I despised it. When people asked me I'd avoid answering or say I was straight, more or less because I didn't want them to judge me, but little did I realise they did that regardless. The moments where I really took note of how I hated the lifestyle though was after sexual encounters I felt so used and dirty, and the fact I also felt that I was a failure as a gay man at the age of 20 since I had yet to have sex, as all other gay men I knew had already had it. It was so bad in my mind, that I signed up for a gay site and put up a personal ad seeking just sexual encounters. In hindsight, after knowing myself and how I stand on sex, how I want it to be a special thing and see it as such, I was disgusted at myself for doing it. But I did it because I was ashamed to be a gay virgin, and because I thought I was at the age where I thought I should be having sex regularly. It seemed like everyone else was, so why wasn't I? What was wrong with me? I was expecting my ad to get me a lot of replies back, since the site seemed riddled with horndogs; however, after one month of not a single reply, it dawned on me that that wasn't the way I should be going after anything. So I gave up on trying to lose my virginity, and in hindsight I'm very glad I never got a reply at all.
Shortly after that post I just listed an excerpt from, about one month later, I had my final gay sexual encounter person-to-person. I met him on a website for foreskin restoration, which is something I'll go into more detail at a later date. However this man I met was my same age and we had interacted a little on webcam already so he thought it would be a good idea to meet up, to discuss restoring, though I knew he was wanting something sexual, this wasn't for restoring at all, no matter what label we attached to it. So we arranged it and I was set on going through with it though I was nervous as hell. This was the one and only time I had ever gone to meet someone I've never met before in person just for sexual purposes. We weren't in a relationship, this was going to be something purely sexual. I lied to my parents said I was staying the night with a college friend, and went to meet this guy. As soon as I met him I noted how very attractive he was, tall, thin, good looking, though I had known these things over seeing him on the net, it makes a different impression in person. Well we got back to his place and immediately started in on sexual things, he suggested we take a shower together so we did and in the midst of it began getting really sexual. In the middle of sexual things he said the water got cold so we'd continue in his bedroom, so we got out and when we got to the bedroom, nothing happened sexually after that shower. I sat around his apartment not able to go home and feeling awkward, wondering why he stopped wanting to do anything sexual with me. I deduced altogether that he just viewed me as below him in attraction so he wanted nothing to do to me, and his attitude did show that. Let me set it straight that I've been told by a lot of people I'm attractive, but I guess for this guy since I wasn't exactly model-like as he was I just wasn't good enough so he cast me aside. The rest of that night was awkward, he kept trying to get a hold of his friends to have us go smoke hookah, which I know isn't really hazardous to one's health but all forms of smoking to me make me uncomfortable. Luckily his friends were too busy to get together so we stayed at his place and smoked his hookah which I didn't like so I didn't really touch it, I tried it though, but mostly stalled so I wouldn't have to. Other than that he just played on his i-phone the whole time and ignored me while I was bored out of my mind watching tv wishing I could magically teleport myself back home. We went to bed around midnight, where we slept naked in the bed together, me on one side, him on the far other side. I tried to make sexual advances, even just contact advances like cuddling up together, he would have none of it and just moved away claiming he was too hot. It made me feel even more unwanted and stupid than before. The next morning we awoke went to eat together at IHOP where we struggled to find topics to talk about, it ended up mostly with him complaining about the service and the economy. Then he drove me home and said we should do it again sometime. I knew there'd never be another time and secretly I was glad, I'd had to say that was one of the worst experiences I've had in my life regarding meeting someone I had an interest in.
-The uprise-
Soon after that horrible experience I was talking with another friend who was part of the same site and we got to talking, this man is an older married man who also had some attraction to men, but he disavowed it and disliked those feelings. I felt really on the same level as this man as I hated most all my gay experiences, felt like I didn't belong after every single one, like they just weren't for me. I sort of realised then that I never really felt the gay lifestyle was for me at all, that maybe it was true that I was just confused and in a phase where I knew no way out and thought I was just stuck in this lifestyle I hated for the rest of my life. That is when he opened my eyes, he sent me what I consider to be my liberation manual, a book called "Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Approach" by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. You can see it here if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Reparative-Therapy-Male-Homosexuality-Clinical/dp/0765701421
As I read this book I couldn't help but just be shocked at how it seemed like every sentence and statement I read was echoing and reverberating how I felt, and how many of the situations in my life had unfolded. I was reading my biography basically, except I was entirely unaware someone had been reviewing my life, that is how to the point this book fit with my life and how I felt about the lifestyle I had been living. The book's psychological approach mused me because I have a strong interest in psychology and made absolute sense of all the confusion about my sexuality that I had experienced in my life into a nice understandable format. I had found my life and what had really happened to it, how I missed key moments in my life and how to repair those to become a new-found man I had never dreamt of becoming before, a heterosexual man. Normal! Average! Hearing, or rather reading such words was like a light upon my downtrodden heart of past failures, abuses, and misconceptions that my life had become, some parts knowingly and some unknowingly. Midway through the book I decided that the gay lifestyle indefinitely was no longer how I wanted to live, I was done with it in my heart and knew how I wanted to live. I embraced the possibility that I could indeed recoup my lost and thought to be entirely unattainable masculinity that I had once held onto so long ago. I could re-enter liking women once more as I had done when I first started puberty and had left behind 7 years prior, and most of all I could really have that family I've always dreamt of, children of my own, and the best part to me this wasn't all 'too good to be true' it was 'undeniably attainable' almost inevitable. I know I can't divine the future exactly, but I knew then without a doubt, I could make it happen if I tried, it wasn't me fooling myself, it wasn't an illusion or delusion like I used to create in my mind with straight men falling for me. This time I would enter myself into a natural world, where I was the straight guy I had so longed to have, now I could be, I could find no fault in falling in love with a woman, no judgement, and no guilt.
I think I might put this post into two parts, though it'll be a little while until I make the second part as I'm currently re-reading the book right now. As I re-read I'm making notes for points in my further update which really jumped out to me when I read it the first time, spoke to my heart and transformed me. But so far this has been part one of my turning point of change, and will update later. Next post won't be the part two of my transforming, but instead I think I'll discuss my struggles with body image, society, and my journey to become what I can of my masculine ideal and what parts I have to accept I cannot be in that ideal.
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