so-i-creep-yeah posted:

Not sure what possessed me, but I decided to open a thread and see if we can get a discussion going about my and others' experience of being in the closet.

I'm a 30 year old man, living in the southwestern United States, come from a working class, multiracial background, single, and a homosexual. I've been in the closet (for the most part) nearly my entire life.

I'd say there are two general ways of going about a life in the closet, and I've done both:

The first is to create an act, to actively pretend that you're straight. I've pretended to be interested in women, to find them sexually attractive (this is harder than it might sound, and not necessarily for the reasons you might think. I eventually had to concoct a profile of what my 'type' of woman was in order to keep my story straight (no pun intended)). I've had relationships with women (they were frequent and shallow, for reasons you can probably extrapolate). I've attended social gatherings and maintained friendships I wasn't really interested in in order to not come off suspicious. This was pretty much me through my high school and college years.

The second is omission. You don't put on an act, necessarily, you just go about your life and you just never bring up your sex/love life (or in my case, my current sex life; I could at least talk about some of my past relationships). This more or less describes how I've been handling things for the last 6-7 years or so. It's a lot easier (especially as an adult as more people you meet are prone to mind their business) and while a little bit lonelier, having a 'fake' social life really wasn't much better. I actually like being alone quite often; I like other people but keeping up a social life feels like a burden to me, sometimes even a chore. I just got really, really tired of doing things I didn't want to do. At least now I feel like I can relax a bit. The downside to this one is that, even as an adult, I get the feeling that I come off aloof or asocial, and generally just a little... weird. Though that could just be paranoia.

I'll get what I think might be some of the more obvious questions out of the way:

Have you ever told anyone?
I've told my three closest family members: an older brother, a younger brother about two years my junior, and a cousin who was like a younger brother to me. I've also told a select few friends and by extension some of our mutual acquaintances. I'm generally more comfortable telling this with newer friends or even random new people I meet: I guess my subconscious rule of thumb is that I'm mostly keeping it from the people who knew me from college and prior who had gotten to know me during my 'act the part' phase, and I generally don't want it to get too far out there to the point where it would reach these friends/family. Sometimes I'm more comfortable confiding in strangers than I am with people that I'm "close" with.

Do you plan on ever coming out completely?
I do anticipate a future where people I know generally know which way I swing, but I don't have any concrete plans to actively come out.

People probably already know
That's not a question, but OK. I'm actually fine with the idea that people might know without me telling them. I'd actually prefer if people sort of just 'figured it out'.

So why not just come out? Especially since being gay is becoming more and more accepted?
Honestly, it's not even about being gay anymore. It's more about... not being able to admit to people that I've known forever that I've been lying to them the entire time we've 'known' each other. I used to fantasize about faking my death, flying to a place where no one would recognize me and start a new life fresh. I don't think about this anymore, and as the years go on things get easier: just turning 30 has given me a new perspective - I mean, I was just a kid, really. I did what I felt like I had to do. At this point I'm more in the closet about being in the closet.

I'll leave it there for now, hopefully someone finds this an interesting topic. Being in the closet is something that sounds simple but winds up effecting almost every part of your life and messes with your head. Questions/comments, feel free.