Wish I could turn back time to come out while young.

[OGB]

I am in my late twenties and I am in the process of coming out to friends and family. Its hard , very hard , I have to admit to a lot of people including long time friends that I was always gay and I acted straight to fit in. The thing is , I feel bad for the time I wasted covering that I was gay , my wasted teens. I knew I was gay early on , the big sign for me was when I was 13 when I had swimming at school and I realised that I was more interested in looking at my half naked guy friends then girls, I was really creeped out by it at the time and just wanted to fit in but those feelings kept creeping up on me all through my teens.My wet dreams were all about guys , I would catch myself thinking that guy is so handsome and the likes , the thing is I could have face the fact then and admitted to myself , yes I am gay! But instead I believed that it was something I could change , that I could turn straight if I tried hard enough , so here I am now in my late twenties working up the courage to tell people what I knew since I was a young kid! The hardship of it all is thinking of how easier it would have been if I was honnest with myself from the get go. For the guys and gals on here , when did you know you were gay and what stopped you from coming out early on?

[davearoo]

Understand that your late twenties is still young. Plenty of people don't come out until their forties or fifties.

[southbiochem]

I've been avoiding myself almost as much time as you coming out..

same fears, same problems, almost the same thinking.

I barely told 2 people in my life..one I regret and other that went way better.

I was 13 when I first liked someone and that someone was a guy.

I didn't thought I could change it and I knew exactly what was the word for it.

I just refused to let people know out of fear.

what I can say to you: It's never too late.

It will be difficult, sure. But you still have plenty of time afterwards to be free.

No point in pondering the "what ifs"

Pick someone you know won't have a problem with is and do it. Don't think it just do it.

After the first it should get easier

[Woollyhats]

Aww... I imagine a lot of us wish we had come out earlier in life... or wish we could have.

To answer the question you have asked: I didn't 'know' I was gay until early highschool. I knew I was 'different' in the last few years of elementry school, but didn't exactly know what it was that was different --- But I knew that it was very very bad. Even when I first learned I was gay, I tried to convince myself I was bisexual for a few years, tried to pray it away (was Catholic), and worried immensely about what I was going to do. I definitely hated myself. Eventually, when I could not take it any more and had luckily made some friends with the crazy viewpoint that it was okay to be gay, I waited until my father was at work, snuck onto the laptop and looked what homosexuality was, and went to a site of a gay page I followed on Facebook. I remember changing my philosophy, realizing that perhaps it was an invented concept that I had somehow been born evil, and that it was in fact okay to be gay.

Still, I never came out because doing so would have prompted homelessness. Ironically, abuse unrelated to my sexuality resulted in my brother and I leaving my home and actually briefly being homeless anyway. Luckily we did get a stable place to live after some time.

But I often wonder -- had I been honest in the first place, undoubtedly I would have experienced the family rejection, brief state of homelessness, and consequences I am dealing with now, but I would have been so young, that I wonder if I would have a better life today. My mother's side has always been there for me too; my mistake was always in thinking that I was alone....although I realize that this illusion was deliberately implanted in my head, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I would have seen through and done something about it as an early teen. This is because I reason that what I have experienced in the process to coming out was always inevitable, and that I should have faced my fears sooner.

But thinking about what I could have done many years ago in regret is pointless; I have today to work with, that's what I have...

Everyone comes out on their own time. To do so at all, I think, is maybe what we should be proud of.

[Bravo]

Homophobes around me, some that despite of their ignorant thoughts I enjoy the company. They're still fun to be around with as long as I'm still 100% straight in their heads. I guess that's because they weren't raised around people who accepted gays... Well, at least that's the thought I have when I see videos of kids these days who don't understand what being gay means or that haven't spent enough time on earth to see how people like us get treated. Those hateful words and behaviour is how most people make them understand. It's really sad.

[findingmyway]

Everyone comes out on their own time. To do so at all, I think, is maybe what we should be proud of.

Absolutely. Well said.
For me, I knew I was different at 5. I would watch live-action Disney movies and feel this searing connection to the males, but I couldn't understand what it meant. I remember wishing that they could come out from the TV and be my best friend forever, but I couldn't really understand why, or what that fully meant.
Like others have said, I knew this was really "bad", so I suppressed it as much as possible. I tried to "pray the gay away" like the religious magazines told me to do, and I tried forcing myself to think of dating girls. But it felt completely wrong. The most I would ever think of would be to hold their hand.
Then, at 15, I just finally realized that yes, my worst fear was true, and I was gay. And there was nothing I could do to change that.
So I came out. It was really hard, but also easy. I was just kind of exhausted from trying to hide it/change it. At first, I kind of went overboard. I would just kind of go up to people and be like, "Hi! I'm gay."
That settled down. I'm basically out to anyone who asks, but I don't really try to let people know, either. It's been five years and things have gotten better. Some family members didn't exactly respond to it that positively. There are a few relatives that I haven't told because my parents have explicitly asked me not to, but I don't have much contact with said relatives.
It does get better. I wish you well on your coming out journey.

[Pix]

I honestly didn't realize until I was 17. I was confused by different things, from the Bible Belt not letting kids know anything of substance about it (that perhaps save many teens who have no idea what horrible things their parents might do to them if they knew, some of them even legal) and so many girls eager to escape the slut label pretending to not be into sex which I then thought was normal (I have a pretty low sex drive unless revved up, so when the other girls lied about finding sex with guys a bit icky I believed them and thought what I felt was normal). I did "practice" with my best friend from a very young age, but I also experimented with guys, and also "dated" guys...in retrospect I should've known because with the guys it never meant anything (and never felt any heartache breaking up, the only thing might bother me was "now guys are going to be coming after me again"), but my best friend hurt my feelings when she said what we did "didn't count" while giving a pair of supposed lesbians a hard time.

When I was a runaway at 15 (I looked younger) I mixed with some lesbians and felt comfortable...but I just attributed that to them not paying me attention (many didn't want me around at all though they were usually content to ignore me) whereas men had a tendency to stare if not outright sexually harass me. I don't know if it was being left alone or if deep down I knew it was where I belonged that I felt so comfortable.

As a runaway I found someone to take me in who introduced me to a very good sex ed site on the net and between that and talking to others I realize I might be. The advice I was given was to "experiment carefully" and find out. And I did, finding I much preferred girls. I liked guys as friends but also uninhibited so I could maintain the "friends with benefits" thing and considered myself bi (only 2 guys have ever truly aroused me, and that was for a short while and after they worked really hard to) and finally just realized I was gay.

It didn't bother me, however. It just was. I was lucky to not have been indoctrinated with religion while in the Bible Belt so I felt no divine disapproval and I was also raised to be independent who by then had so many odd friends anyway who wouldn't reject me. I was actually more distressed when I realized I was also a geek the second after I (age 22, MAYBE 23) posted on YT when it was brand new on why Dark Willow of Buffy would easily defeat Darth Vader, and it took me nearly a full minute to come to terms with that.

[Evan88]

Well i knew i was gay since grade school cause i was crushing on some of my classmates...

I had female crushes, but it was a different feeling when it comes to my male crushes..

And...i dont want people to know im gay cause i came from a very religious and conservative family...

It would be really hard for me, and i dont think i would ever have the courage to come out.

However, we cant really tell the future. When i am able to support myself and have my own place, i might do it...and that could be the most logical thing to do for me, for you and for all gay men who are scared to come out. (Given they are in a country where there is no punishment for LGBT)

[elad12]

Well I was 60, though I did have a couple "secret boyfriends" before I turned 20. But then I spent the next 40 years living a straight life. You want to have some regrets wait until your 60. I'd give anything to be in your shoes now. I am really happy for you that you are coming out now. You still have a lifetime ahead of you. I know about the regrets because I still have them but I think we need to just leave the regrets in the past and just enjoy living gay for the rest of our lives.

[Evan88]

^aww, i thought those were just crushes...anyway