I'm honestly really envious of those of you who can live your lives freely and openly without being afraid of anything. I feel like being in a trap that I cannot escape. On the one hand I love Russia, it's my motherland, on the other I want nothing more than to get away from here. From the one side I want to finish my studies, from the other I just want to save some money and just go somewhere, it doesn't matter where, just away from here. And then I know I'm not that brave to move somewhere alone and be completely alone. Sometimes I wish to fall asleep and never wake up. I don't see how my life will work out, I've no idea what my future will look like.
I don't want to call my friends friends because if they knew the real me, we would never be friends. But today I was spending time with a guy I know and this girl came over. He became really flirty and everything, I was just thinking my own thoughts. When the girl left, he turned to me and was like "dude, there's something wrong with you", I asked "why?" and he said "well, that hot chick that was here a minute age, you didn't even look at her and you never look at girls, are you a fag?" My heart started to race like every time I have to lie and I denied being gay because what else could I do. I made up various excuses about being tired and not feeling well but it didn't seem like he believed me.
He was just like "you can always tell me what's going on with you, we're friends, aren't we?" and I know I can't tell him anything, I can't even hint anything about being gay cause I know him, I know his homophobic attitude and I'm not willing to take the risk that it would be different if his friend would be gay. If he was ok with it, I think he wouldn't use the term "fag". He always tells me about the girls he date and the girls he fuck and then he's like " why don't you tell me anything, don't tell me you don't do that?"
Now I'm just sitting in my room, feeling down and just need to let it all out.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
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Oh, because of the long moderation I had already forgotten I made this post  But it's still actual for me.
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Although I live in a much better place I felt the same way: friends weren't actually friends, even some of my relatives broke my heart and whenever I tried to think about my future I saw nothing but darkness. This, added to feeling sad for people like you (I used to read a lot of lgbt news from around the world and it killed me inside everyday) and other personal stuff, led me to unhealthy suicide thoughts. There's not much you can do, just find something to keep your mind busy until you finish your studies then get out of there and never look back. It's not gonna be easy but you can't be happy there and you know it. Another thing that really helps is coming out to someone you trust: venting your frustration with someone you love, feeling their support as they hug you, crying on their shoulder is a whole different thing...but don't take unnecessary risks, only do it if you're 100% sure.
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Some of us that are over 40 can relate as we grew up in a time where gay bashing was a hobby that went largely unpunished because most of the western world homosexuality was not only seen and listed as a disease, it was also illegal.
I know that Russia has taken a backward step and that is tough.
If you can and want to leave the country, go for it...but know that others have survived the same sort of oppression, fear, and general thoughts of apathy and helplessness....but we survived and some of us were responsible for change by being honest and brave.
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[MENTION=24218]cormeum[/MENTION], your friend, if he is your friend should find it in his heart to support you, come what may. But maybe he isn't really your friend, and maybe he's just an acquaintance that you like hanging out with, because it's better than feeling lonely.
I would be wary of telling him too, but maybe his question was just his blunt and blustery way of trying to make you feel comfortable about confiding in him. He just doesn't know that he's made you more uncomfortable, and even more scared of opening up to him.
Some people use offensive words not because they mean them, but because they've not learnt to be careful about what they say and how they say it. Some people can also change their minds when faced with a situation they didn't think would happen, so that's the part you can have hope in. I'm not saying your friend will ever be able to change his stance on homosexuality, but it is possible he may shift his opinion somewhat if he is sensitive and understands the hurt offensive words can cause.
People do change, sometimes, in surprising ways. Maybe just because they have to, or their lives would be unsustainable. My parents are such people. They have had to deal with two gay sons, not just one. And they have been supportive, after saying they hoped we weren't gay (which, at the time, hurt and felt unsupportive). So don't give up on him just yet, but remain careful of what you say and how you say it. Did he use the derogatory term of 'fag' when he asked you? Or did he do it in a subtler way?
A way to counter unwanted curiosity would be to establish the kind of things you like in a woman or girl, (even if you are not attracted to them physically or romantically), I'm sure you can find a list of some qualifiers that you like in a girl. Be prepared to use those qualifiers to give a description of what you like in a person, or maybe hint that the qualities you are attracted to (other than the physical attributes) are possible to find in any human being, boy or girl. That's an easy way not to be detected as a hater of the opposite sex or a potential gay man (one which might get you no sympathy from gay bashers and homophobes).
Sometimes it is easy to dismiss a 'hot girl' as just not having the qualities you find attractive in another person. But be ready to find the things that do attract you. For example, this girl is too pretty, too hot to be faithful. I like to be able to trust that she'd be faithful. I could be happy with someone less incandescent, less attractive, but someone I can trust. I can't remember how the Russian language distinguishes between masculine and feminine words and whether you can play on ambiguously gendered words not to attract attention to one sex or the other. But basically it's finding the words to describe what you find attractive in a person.
Eventually, though, with close friends, you will be found out, if they are really interested in you, and if they are genuine. And I'm thinking that maybe your friend was reaching out to you, but he was very clumsy. Maybe you can tell him that you're not attracted to girls and women, maybe he might understand, because maybe he's had that kind of same sex attraction too. Or maybe he was genuinely trying to understand the difference between you and him concerning this girl. Maybe HE was doing all the flirting to better hide HIS game, if you know what I mean. Maybe he was hinting at you that you are not covering up sufficiently about not being attracted to girls. Maybe he was telling you, not very subtly, to up your game concerning flirting, even if that's not what you enjoy doing. I sense there may be a little bit of that going on in that interaction you've described to us.
Can you explain to us why you are friends with this person, exactly?
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Well, I've known this guy my whole life, we went to the same kindergarten and the same school and our parents are friends so we kind of been around each other all the time.
Fag is the only word he ever addresses towards homosexuals. Sometimes he also use more disgusting phrases like "shit pushers", I've also heard him wishing death to gay people. It might seem horrible to Americans but actually most Russian guys are like that, he's not the only one who talks like that.
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cormeum Wrote:Well, I've known this guy my whole life, we went to the same kindergarten and the same school and our parents are friends so we kind of been around each other all the time.
Fag is the only word he ever addresses towards homosexuals. Sometimes he also use more disgusting phrases like "shit pushers", I've also heard him wishing death to gay people. It might seem horrible to Americans but actually most Russian guys are like that, he's not the only one who talks like that.
So is that him using the same derogatory terms as everyone else just to get by with the rest of society, or does he really believe the stuff these expressions imply? That's what you need to determine. If everyone in society accepts those words as 'ordinary' ways of addressing the issue, then it's not uncommon to hear others or anyone using it. It's like the N word (nigger) that used to be used commonly in times gone by. These days no one who isn't an African American would use it in common speech if they didn't want to pass for racist or maybe even if they were African American. It just wouldn't be right. You'd know what a person was thinking if they used that word. It sounds like it's difficult in today's Russia to know what people really think about homosexuals, unless they use less loaded words to address the issue, no?
What terms could you use in Russian that would not feel offensive?
Anyway, a life-long time of knowing someone does not necessarily equate with friendship. I'd call it more a 'habit'.
Maybe you'll need to 'kick the habit', [MENTION=24218]cormeum[/MENTION]. Drop him as an acquaintance and move on to another group of people. People YOU have chosen for your intimate circle. Is this a likely thing to happen?
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Just to address the "shit pushers" phrase which could also be "fudge packers", though gross, the expression is to some extent true if you are involved in anal sex, but then I've read that heterosexual encounters are often also anal sex, so that doesn't make gays the most number of people practising sex this way, quite on the contrary. Maybe you should let your 'friend' know that women and girls also have anuses? Or maybe it's just us in the 'decadent' west, but I don't think so.
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As I said, [MENTION=24218]cormeum[/MENTION], hone your divergence tactics by finding nice things to say about the womenfolk.
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Comeback, "oh, well you were flirting with her, didn't want to get in your way"
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