Selfish

Just wanted to make a quick post about something I’ve been feeling a lot lately. Many other, gay kids probably know this feeling too, but I have spent years not being able to express myself. Censoring was/is a constant thing. I could never gossip about who was cute or just proclaim “damn, she’s hot!” like many of my friends would do with guys. It got bottled up for years and years and made me just feel like screaming “MY FEELINGS MATTER TOO!”. Now that I have slowly come out to some of my friends and sister, I’ve started to become more comfortable with that. The problem is that when I do, I feel like I’m being selfish. I’m making it about me. Anti-gay people use the argument that gay people are all attention seekers. I know I shouldn’t listen to them, but an attention-seeker is not something I ever wish to be. I don’t want pity or special treatment. Even with my most supportive friends, who love and accept me unconditionally, they don’t understand how I feel. It’s not their fault, I just feel like I’m wasting my time when I want to talk about girls because they can’t relate. I can’t shake the feeling of being selfish. There has been one time where a friend of mine tried to reach out to me in this way. She is thoroughly straight, but she offered to be my “gay best friend”. She would send me pictures of hot girls and talk about it with me.  It made/makes me feel more at home with myself and that selfish feeling goes away a little. Thanks M, Love ya always for that!

How do ya know?

I am a avid and firm believer that there is no one way to be gay. Take me for example, I’m pretty girly. I very much so enjoy doing my hair, playing with makeup, and lord if I don’t go to the mall again soon I might lose it. I will never get a pixie cut! I also suck at sports, yes I played softball for nine years as a kid. But that was rec league and didn’t actually require much skill. If you throw a ball at me I will probably squeal and drop it. Also, I bruise like a baby peach. Where was I going with this? Oh ya, so there isn’t one way to be gay, or anything really, and stereotypes are almost never entirely true.

That being said, there are definitely indicators to look for (mostly emotional) that could tell you if you gay/bi/questioning/etc. (btw, I am a strong believer in the kinsey scale, placing myself at about a 5) check that shit out

*pic from google

I never really realized much of this until later on and homosexuality was always just a thought that I brushed away. Most of this stuff started in middle school:

• I didn’t get boy crazy, my friends would obsess over the guys in our grade but my reaction was like an “eh” even though I would pretend I liked them too. I chalked it up to being one of the youngest in my grade and a late bloomer. I would get boy crazy eventually.
• Movies like Magic Mike and other shirtless males did very little for me, if ya know what I mean.
• I would get supppperrr attached to some of my friends. Specifically when I was 12, there was a girl named S who, looking back, I had a massive crush on. I would get butterflies in my stomach and want to just make her so happy. My day was made if she hugged me or complemented me on my outfit. Not my proudest moment, but one time we were going hot-tubbing at a friends house I felt myself trying to sneak a peak when we changed into our bathing suits. I felt very ashamed and confused as to why I felt that urge. But once again I convinced myself I just really liked her a lot as a friend. Haha, I really should have seen the signs.
• When everyone started that phase of holding hands with boys or even (for the more bold) a peck on the lips, I didn’t get excited. My stomach felt weird, but it wasn’t butterflies, it was uneasiness.
• I did have a some far-and-few-between crushes on guys but much of the time it was if a guy was nice to me or flirted the teeniest bit, I would convince myself I had a crush on him. To be blunt, there was no sexual attraction whatsoever.
• As I got older and farther into high school I found that I had/have MASSIVE GIRL CRUSHES on celebrities, and a lot of times this is normal for straight girls too. (see Jenna Marbles video) However, I realized that I had an unusual amount that outnumbered guy crushes and that most of them were a level three (again see Jenna Marbles video) Ahem, Dianna Agron, Shay Mitchell, Mila Kunis, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris,  Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones. that blonde hair just does somethin’ to me) and the list goes on.

I often felt very confused and ashamed of all of this. More than once I wondered if maybe I was a lesbian. But I would always be like “Nah, your just not exactly like everyone else.” I didn’t want to be gay because I was having a hard enough time fitting in as is. But once I finally had my a-ha moment, all of my bullets started to make sense and I had an explanation behind them now.

Not everyone has the same experiences. Some gay people know all their life, others discover it in their forties. It’s different for everyone and everyone is going to have their own story behind it.

I Can Hear the Bells

Weddings. Something I’ve been obsessed with since I was a little girl. At ages four and five I wore a little taffeta wedding dress for Halloween, complete with little plastic, feathered high heels. I would beg my mom to let me try on her big puffy-sleeved 80’s wedding dress. We have pictures of me practically swimming in it. Do you guys remember watching the end of Little Mermaid and wanting to have her wedding? The big sparkling white dress and tiara? Waving at all your friends and family? That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. She got her guy and lived happily ever after. (rainbow included) Little girls are conditioned to want this through all the imagery we are given. This is what success in life looks like.

As I got older I used to watch Say Yes to the Dress religiously, tediously picking out what shape would flatter my figure, what I could move in as I danced. I wanted to have an early October wedding so that the leaves would just be starting to change but it would still be somewhat warm. I was going to have cranberry colored bridesmaids dresses and a killer reception that everyone talked about for years. Everyone would stare in admiration as I walked down the isle, dressed in white lace. My fiance would maybe shed a tear or two when he saw me and my dad would squeeze my hand as he gave me away.

For a while this wish confused me because if I always envisioned marrying a man, then how could I be a lesbian? Lesbians were all sorta manly girls who liked sports and cutting their hair short. They would never fantasize about a super girly wedding. But as I thought more, I realized that I had never envisioned what sort of emotional connection I would have with this “husband”. He was always nameless, faceless. Sure I thought about dancing with him and whatnot, but I realized he was more of prop to the wedding pomp than a soul mate I was vowing to love for life.

Ok, so maybe lesbians can like girly things. Were not all the same person. So… if I were to marry a girl, what would it look like? This is where I draw a blank. Yes I can see loving a girl and wanting to spend my life with her. That’s the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how a dream I’ve always had, marrying, could work for my situation. I’m a traditionalist (surprising, I know) and a traditional wedding is very very hard to shape to a same-sex relationship. Do we walk down the isle at the same time? Do our dads come with us (assuming they still support us). How does the whole bridesmaids/groomsmen thing work. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU EVEN CALL A GROOMSMAN WITH NO GROOM!!! There is soooo much that I don’t want to miss out on just because I didn’t fall in love traditionally.

But you know, weddings aren’t supposed to be about the dress and flowers and who’s there or how it’s done. Regardless of how little girls are programmed to think, weddings are ultimately about two people who madly love each other, vowing to stand by each other no matter what. That is what is beautiful about weddings. I won’t get everything I ever dreamed of but you know what, I would damn well rather not have everything I want materially and be extraordinarily happy than live a lie to be conventional.

This is what I think is beautiful about weddings, the pure bliss of getting to spend your life with the one you love dearly.

* pic from http://lesbian-weddings.tumblr.com/

 

Hannah Hart

Lemme just say that I want to be Hannah’s best friend.

Hannah Hart is a Youtuber who makes videos called My Drunk Kitchen. They are super hilarious and make me laugh like a hyena . It’s even better when she is joined by her friends and fellow Youtubers, Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart (no relation). I JUST WANNA BE THEIR FOURTH WHEEL SO BAD!!!!!!

She basically just gets tipsy then tries, usually disastrously, to cook.

But wait! There’s more! Add Mamrie and Grace to the mix…

But Hannah Hart has also touched me in a deeper way too. She has a second channel called Your Harto, which has a coming out series. She is very eloquent and relatable.

So when I have a day where I’m just feeling down, I like to watch Hannah. She makes my days a bit bright. And shes funny as fuck too.

XOXO

-E

P.S. pshhh I don’t have a problem with YouTube!

The a-ha moment

I really wish I had written down my feelings when all of this was happening but alas I did not. This post opens during the summer before Senior year of high school. For the past few years I had been shrugging off my feelings of “maybe I’m not completely straight” and just pushing them deep down. I chalked it up to not being very boy-crazy and a bit of late bloomer. (That could be another post in itself) But anyways I was doing what any normal American teenager does on a hot summer night at two in the morning, watching some Netflix.

I had recently become utterly OBSESSED with the show Glee. Like literally unhealthy amounts obsessed. I’m relatively sure I have watched every cast-made video and interview that ever existed. Ironically I’d written Glee off for years as a dumb teenage girl show and refused to watch it. But the Netflix suggestions bar beckoned me and I was on a roll.

I had gotten through the first season and was almost done with the second when I ran into the episode “Sexy”. That stupid little Glee episode changed a lot for me. It was the first episode that delved into the relationship between two best friends on the show. Santana and Brittany.

RECAP: Santana and Brittany have been the shows sorta-antagonists. They were cheerleaders under the evil Sue Sylvester and a big part of the Glee club. Santana is basically a snarky bitch (which is hilarious) and Brittany is a sweet simple-minded dancer. There had been small hints that they were “together” as more than friends throughout the seasons but this is the first episode that the characters addressed it themselves- through song.

Just watch the video:

In that moment, I realized I wanted that. Finn and Rachel, Kurt and Blaine, Quinn and Sam, Tina and Mike. None of their relationships made me feel the way Santana and Brittany did. It was also the first lesbian couple I’d ever seen on screen that wasn’t there for slapstick comedy or male fantasy. It was complex, heartfelt and confusing for them. They brought out the best in each other and believed in each other. It simply felt right to me.

I remember putting my computer at the end of my bed and just laying back, staring at the ceiling. A shed a few tears and felt “oh my god” run through my head over and over. If I was completely straight, I wouldn’t be feeling like this. “This isn’t normal!” I thought, my stomach sinking. I stayed up for another hour just thinking about how I knew I wouldn’t be able to push away the denial anymore. I may have subconsciously always knew it but now it was here, in my immediate thoughts. And I couldn’t go back anymore.

So that was a bit deep. I promise it won’t all be like this! I really am a fun person!!!

XOXO

-E

Anonymous

Hello! So this is blogging huh? Well I guess I’ll get right to it. The reason I want to keep this blog anonymous right now is because of two main reasons

1. I’m treating this like a diary, so I don’t always want people to know I wrote this. They are private thoughts.

2. I’m not completely out of the closet yet. I don’t want certain family members or friends googling my name, only to find this blog.

So that’s how it’s going to be. For now anyway.

What I want to get out of this is a safe space to work through my thoughts and feeling about my sexuality. And if you’re asking “well then why didn’t you just write in a journal then?” Well kind sir, it’s because even if only one person ever visits this blog, I want them to feel something. If they aren’t gay, I want them to see and feel the process and struggle gay people experience as they come out. More importantly, if the one person who visits this blog is gay or bi or questioning etc. I want them to find something I haven’t found yet. Most blogs or other forms of social media published by gay individuals are all about coming out to friends and family and being proud about it. I don’t question or deny that one little bit. However, not many people talk about the process of coming out to yourself. It isn’t always the light bulb realization that many people portray it as. And even once you do make that realization, accepting it takes time. For me personally, it has changed how I view myself and how I foresee my life. I often find myself wondering why I am this way (not that I don’t like being gay/questioning/bi/whatever , because I absolutely do!). As you can see I have a lot of self discovery to do haha!

Want I want out of this blog is to clear of my confusion, learn to love and accept myself, and maybe help someone else do the same.

(In the spirit of gossip girl and pretty little liars)

XOXO

-E