[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

no bye

[LemonJam]

Honestly... I've put myself into a really, really messed up situation.

Some of you know I've been in a relationship with a woman for about 4 years. The biggest problem is that I've never really been in love with her, but she's crazy about me. Of course, the sexual attachment was there but I've been waiting and waiting for the emotional attachment to come along, but nothing. Realistically, my feelings towards her aren't really like a relationship, but a friend with benefits, and that's when it hit me.

A few years back I fell in love with one of my best friends (cliche, I know, but yeah...) and it was horrible. Why? Because it was unrequited; he's a straight male. This wasn't just a sexual attachment, but a serious, agonizing emotional attachment. I eventually got over that (after about 4 years...) and since then I could only develop an emotional attraction to males. I hadn't actually realised this fully until recently. Yeah I find women aesthetically pleasing but I don't feel like I could ever love one.

And this realisation has kind of ****ed me up big time. I always thought "Hey, I'm bisexual, I'll just ignore men and focus on women." But I can't do that. I'd never truly be happy, but given my family, my upbringing and being uncontrollably neurotic I don't feel that I'd be happy accepting what is what and being with a man. My Christian parents would probably disown me, I'd lose a LOT of friends (the majority being lads lads... I don't really fit in with girls/feminine people surprisingly), I'd lose my current girlfriend as a best friend for ****ing her up so badly, I wouldn't be able to have kids which is something I've always wanted, I feel like it'd affect my career and as silly as it sounds I hate having that label like there's nothing else to discuss about me.

And there's nothing I can really do. I'm sat here being a coward every day of my life, like I always have been and I'm just repressing it every day and ignoring it, because I've already got so much **** to deal with, but the more I leave it, the more I'm hurting myself and more importantly, the more I'm hurting her. It's so ****ed up and I know that I'm a really awful, awful person for having things the way they are, but I don't want to break her heart, because she's the best friend I could ever have and she's already gone through so much ****.

So to answer the question in short: Yes. In fact I don't have a clue what I am any more. I guess sexually I'm both ways but emotionally I've only ever found myself leaning one way. But I guess I need to sort things out soon and admitting it (here of all ****ing places) is my first step.

[Ninastar]

wow James, it takes some serious balls to admit that. I think I feel the same as you but the opposite...

You do know you'll have to tell her eventually. It sucks and it's a bitch to do, but maybe gradually become less and less attached to her? let her down slowly, you know? If you ever wanna talk to someone, feel free to message me. I'll be here for you

[Stu]

You have to set yourself free James. You'll be setting her free too. Regardless of what she will think about you the fact is you've been living a lie for a very long time and that can't be healthy. There is no way I could have gone through with all of that. I respect that everyone is different though.

Chances are your parents will be fine with your sexuality. If they're not well then that's something you cannot control. Your friends I'm guessing will be fine with it too. Being a lads lad does not necessarily mean you have to be homophobic. If you do lose one or two friends ... well I wouldn't want to be friends with that person. Life is fucking long - that's what they don't tell you, everyone says it's short - and you'll have plenty of time to throw yourself out into the world to make better replacement friends. Career? Pfft. Labeling? That's a very interesting point but no. It's bollocks. You'll be more than just James-who-likes-the-boys.

I appreciate that you're in a very, very difficult set of circumstances but if you keep going the way you're going it'll never get better and it'll consume you the more you age. You need to take steps to change everything around. Show 'em where the power lies .

[LemonJam]

Thank you very much Caitlin and Stu as stupid as it sounds I feel like just posting that here is a massive step... damn...

[Shaun]

Oh James ... let's move away to Portugal.

~~~
Spoilering this because length.

Spoiler:

I was very late to the whole sexual attraction side of life and I really hate how that worked out... all of my friends were getting freaky and messy around the ages of 14-16 and I never really felt anything until I was 18. I masturbated I guess but anyone can do that... and the annoying thing is I was a pretty teenager So now I'm a mess it's like... window shopping.

I come from a kinda low-class family, where everyone lives up to stereotypes and the men are builders and drink a lot and watch football and do the DIY... I was fine until I was about 12 really when I found other friends who did exotic things like shopping and going to the cinema rather than playing football and video games.

A lot of what I'm typing sounds like I'm blaming my friends and family for my awkwardness and I hope it doesn't sound like that. It is what it is, and I'm happy with who I am and everything.

So obviously the realisation I liked guys more than I liked girls hit me around the age of 16 (which, again, is ridiculously late :/) and for a while I just stayed in the closet to everyone... I don't know why, in retrospect, because like 80% of the guys in our friend group are gay or bisexual. I was just quiet I guess. The biggest problem with coming out is that my mum isn't... well she isn't homophobic, and she maintains she isn't bigoted to anyone. But she gets really worked up about race and sexuality and all your typical "oh this is new ugh let's judge it" stuff. So I never came out to her, until she asked me if I was gay. I just said "a bit" and went on to elaborate...

That's the main problem, really, and the fact it's so insignificant should really say that I don't have any problems with my sexuality: I hate having to define myself. Friends and classmates and so on will just refer to me as gay, and in a way, it's so much easier than having to say "oh Shaun you're bisexual with an inclination towards men above women what do you think of James Franco?" rather than "Shaun you big gay - would you blow Franco?"
And it's such a whiney complaint that I'm aware irritates people - that whole "I'M A PERSON I CAN'T BE LABELLED" rant that adolescents devote so much time to - but there are moments where I'm just referred to as an example of a demographic. You don't really get that with straight people. "Oh Dave, you're a straight guy, what do you think of this dress".

But then I request Beyonce 49 times on nights out so I probably deserve it.

Anyway the major problem was one touched upon by a couple of other members here - falling in love with a straight best friend. It sucked. He was kinda down and out after failing to get into our college and splitting up with his girlfriend and everything, and I just took this "shoulder to lean on" role... at this point I was still just a friend and didn't feel anything. But I grew feelings and came out to him, and my friends, when I was 19. He was cool about it and didn't reciprocate obviously so I was pretty happy with that, but I dunno... I think your first love is too crazy and new and obsessive... that or it's just me... and I just kept hoping something would change in his head LOL or something. Eventually it got to the stage where I would get really excited and angsty if he so much as posted on my Facebook. Anyway, around this year we were all taking a year off and just messing around and partying, really, and there was this night I ended up sharing a bed with him and I... ugh... this is just really cringey in retrospect because of how I'm ambivalent towards him now LOL... kept stroking his chest and everything and it was just, I don't know, I took it as some form of intimacy or something. I reasoned with myself that straight guys would find that weird and tell their gay friend to piss off and leave them alone.

2009 was a pretty awful year all around for me as most people know - I lost my dad and older brother, both suddenly, within 5 months of each other. And I don't want to blame them for what happened, but I was in a really messed up place and wasn't processing grief and so on... and another party arose and a similar situation as the one above, and I just went out of control and yeah... I don't like talking about it... and everyone who knows me most on here knows the *details* if you want to call them that, but I just ****ed everything up and he flipped out and... yeah. We didn't speak for months, and our friendship group was pretty awkward for a while because we've all known each other since 2004. I tried to extend olive branches and it was still really awkward but he agreed to come to some Christmas party I was hosting, and that was... odd.. but everything was civil for a while.

The next year (2010) he sodded off abroad for a year... and eh. I kept seeing all these comments and messages he'd exchange with his other friends about how I was a creep, a pervert, whatever. I can't remember exactly. It's just that I'd spent every day poring over what I did and feeling intense shame and it just felt like that was the first time I was validated to be ashamed of myself, and I got angry because I was under the impression we'd made up, so I deleted him from my phone and facebook and everything. Didn't speak for a year. I was still angry with myself for what I did (and still am) and really wanted to move on so I thought removing all trace of him would work LOL. Obviously he inevitably came back and sought to hang out with the same friends and I had to explain I was ignoring him... and he got ****ty again with me...

Around this point I lose clarity because, and this is the one piece of good news about this story , I've genuinely moved on. I've stopped over-analysing every interaction and stopped obsessing over him and caring about everything he does and watches and listens to. So since then it's been a really gradual reconciliation, and we're friends again. We don't really see each other more than 10 times a year now because of university and time constraints and work and so on, but things are good now.

In a way I do miss 2009 because it was such an emotional awakening after a teenage-hood of relative boredom, and it really is an amazing feeling falling in love and having all these outbursts of affection for a person... but it's just a shame that it was wasted on someone incompatable

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by LemonJam

Honestly... I've put myself into a really, really messed up situation.

Some of you know I've been in a relationship with a woman for about 4 years. The biggest problem is that I've never really been in love with her, but she's crazy about me. Of course, the sexual attachment was there but I've been waiting and waiting for the emotional attachment to come along, but nothing. Realistically, my feelings towards her aren't really like a relationship, but a friend with benefits, and that's when it hit me.

A few years back I fell in love with one of my best friends (cliche, I know, but yeah...) and it was horrible. Why? Because it was unrequited; he's a straight male. This wasn't just a sexual attachment, but a serious, agonizing emotional attachment. I eventually got over that (after about 4 years...) and since then I could only develop an emotional attraction to males. I hadn't actually realised this fully until recently. Yeah I find women aesthetically pleasing but I don't feel like I could ever love one.

And this realisation has kind of ****ed me up big time. I always thought "Hey, I'm bisexual, I'll just ignore men and focus on women." But I can't do that. I'd never truly be happy, but given my family, my upbringing and being uncontrollably neurotic I don't feel that I'd be happy accepting what is what and being with a man. My Christian parents would probably disown me, I'd lose a LOT of friends (the majority being lads lads... I don't really fit in with girls/feminine people surprisingly), I'd lose my current girlfriend as a best friend for ****ing her up so badly, I wouldn't be able to have kids which is something I've always wanted, I feel like it'd affect my career and as silly as it sounds I hate having that label like there's nothing else to discuss about me.

And there's nothing I can really do. I'm sat here being a coward every day of my life, like I always have been and I'm just repressing it every day and ignoring it, because I've already got so much **** to deal with, but the more I leave it, the more I'm hurting myself and more importantly, the more I'm hurting her. It's so ****ed up and I know that I'm a really awful, awful person for having things the way they are, but I don't want to break her heart, because she's the best friend I could ever have and she's already gone through so much ****.

So to answer the question in short: Yes. In fact I don't have a clue what I am any more. I guess sexually I'm both ways but emotionally I've only ever found myself leaning one way. But I guess I need to sort things out soon and admitting it (here of all ****ing places) is my first step.

...you're admitting things to yourself James..and to friends on here as well..so maybe you feel it's time to set everyone free, including yourself..?..

...often the fear/worry of people's reactions are far worse than the reality...


....

[Mystic Mock]

Well up until I was 12 I thought I was asexual and it's took me until last year to get used to being hetrosexual, and even then I've still got alot to improve on like being more comfortable to say that I find a girl attractive, I bet my family might think I'm homosexual because I hardly ever talk about girls.

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by The Mockinator

Well up until I was 12 I thought I was asexual and it's took me until last year to get used to being hetrosexual, and even then I've still got alot to improve on like being more comfortable to say that I find a girl attractive, I bet my family might think I'm homosexual because I hardly ever talk about girls.

mock i will dress as a girl and you can turn on the magic

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

mock i will dress as a girl and you can turn on the magic

[Ninastar]

if anything, I'd say I was bisexual. At the end of the day, all it comes down to is who you'd have sex with, right?

[MeMyselfAndI]

Originally Posted by LemonJam

Honestly... I've put myself into a really, really messed up situation.

Some of you know I've been in a relationship with a woman for about 4 years. The biggest problem is that I've never really been in love with her, but she's crazy about me. Of course, the sexual attachment was there but I've been waiting and waiting for the emotional attachment to come along, but nothing. Realistically, my feelings towards her aren't really like a relationship, but a friend with benefits, and that's when it hit me.

A few years back I fell in love with one of my best friends (cliche, I know, but yeah...) and it was horrible. Why? Because it was unrequited; he's a straight male. This wasn't just a sexual attachment, but a serious, agonizing emotional attachment. I eventually got over that (after about 4 years...) and since then I could only develop an emotional attraction to males. I hadn't actually realised this fully until recently. Yeah I find women aesthetically pleasing but I don't feel like I could ever love one.

And this realisation has kind of ****ed me up big time. I always thought "Hey, I'm bisexual, I'll just ignore men and focus on women." But I can't do that. I'd never truly be happy, but given my family, my upbringing and being uncontrollably neurotic I don't feel that I'd be happy accepting what is what and being with a man. My Christian parents would probably disown me, I'd lose a LOT of friends (the majority being lads lads... I don't really fit in with girls/feminine people surprisingly), I'd lose my current girlfriend as a best friend for ****ing her up so badly, I wouldn't be able to have kids which is something I've always wanted, I feel like it'd affect my career and as silly as it sounds I hate having that label like there's nothing else to discuss about me.

And there's nothing I can really do. I'm sat here being a coward every day of my life, like I always have been and I'm just repressing it every day and ignoring it, because I've already got so much **** to deal with, but the more I leave it, the more I'm hurting myself and more importantly, the more I'm hurting her. It's so ****ed up and I know that I'm a really awful, awful person for having things the way they are, but I don't want to break her heart, because she's the best friend I could ever have and she's already gone through so much ****.

So to answer the question in short: Yes. In fact I don't have a clue what I am any more. I guess sexually I'm both ways but emotionally I've only ever found myself leaning one way. But I guess I need to sort things out soon and admitting it (here of all ****ing places) is my first step.

You're a real strong person
I hope things get better.