11-16-12

So this is going to be a short post. I have to finish packing up and then I’m going home for a week. I won’t be able to post at home, and I think I’m actually just going to leave my computer at school. So last weekend was pretty bad. I spent most of it pretty depressed. I ended up going to bed rather than finishing my lab report since I couldn’t stand the thought of having hours more of suicidal thoughts while working on my report. My report ended up being turned in two days late and screwing up my sleep schedule for the week. The TA who’s grading this report is a complete bitch, so I’ll probably get ripped a new one on it. Oh, well. That’s a problem for future me. I had three appointments this week, and I was feeling pretty good about things. I’m actually looking forward to trying some of the things people suggested to help me. Basically it comes down to I need to learn to like myself. My counselor wasn’t nearly as focused on my sexuality thing week. It was nice. I haven’t seen Josh and didn’t have any more awkward encounters with Jorge. I ran the bell collecting donations for the Salvation Army outside a grocery store Wednesday night with Vee. I’m starting to get used to talking about guys and stuff with her. So, yeah, I’m almost done for the week and get to go home. I just have to finish tutoring a girl in an hour or so. It’s looking like break’s just going to be a bunch of sitting around and maybe seeing some old friends from high school. My mom’s mom has been having some really bad back problems lately so that side of the family is coming to our house for Thanksgiving. We usually go out to a restaurant for my dad’s side. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and eats entirely too much!

11-10-12

                This is kind of long. I’m sorry about that. But it also has more to do with gay issues than a lot of my dated “journal” style entries. So it might be interesting.

So this week has been insanely full of stuff and everything has happened so fast. Maybe it won’t seem like it when I write it down, but last Monday seriously feels more like 2-3 weeks ago instead of 5 days. So to start, I had an appointment with one of the school counselors on Monday morning. I’ve heard from both him and Dr. H I’m very hard to work with initially, lol. I know I’m stubborn in new situations, but I get past it as I grow more comfortable with stuff. This doctor was kind of at a loss for what to talk about with me until I finally brought up that I’m gay. He, of course, attributes all my problems with depression and no motivation and self-harm to my issues with my sexuality. I have no idea if that’s right or not. He did appreciate the fact that he’s one of the few people I’d ever told in real life. He was glad I brought it up, and I think he realizes how easy it would have been for me not to tell him. Our session would have been completely useless if I hadn’t told him. Of course I knew I’d have to tell any counselor I talked to, which may be part of the reason I avoided going to any in the past. Overall, I did like the doctor, and I have an appointment with him next Monday as well, but the University only offers “short term” counseling so both him and Dr. H are encouraging me to contact an outside practice so I can set up something longer term. We’ll see. I’m kinda sick of all the different doctors and stuff for all this stuff. Maybe my sexuality is the problem and I just need to embrace it. I also met up/fooled around with Josh again Monday night. He actually stayed the whole night, and left in the morning.

                Tuesday I had a test, was a little stressed out, and therefore depressed. Me and Vee hadn’t actually talked in a while since she had been in one of her “I’m sick with so-and-so” moods towards me. When I get down, I just get fed up with lies and subterfuge sometimes, and so I texted Vee asking if we could talk later. We met up after our classes for our drinks. She was going on about something in her life and not really giving me a chance to speak. I was being pretty quiet. After we ordered some stuff, I finally screwed up my courage and said something along the lines of “What if I said I hooked up with someone this weekend?” She was completely surprised and asked a bunch of questions one right after the other until she got to the one I’d been setting her up for. “Who?” “His name is Josh…” “Oh. Oh! You know, I first suspected you might be bi when…” I interrupt “Vee, I’m gay.” I did remember what she was referring to with the suspecting I was bi. It was a drunken conversation with this one guy the summer after my freshman year. She said she thought she was reading too far into my one comment (which was “no comment” in response to the guy’s question) and hadn’t really suspected anything. She asked me a couple questions about stuff, but I started replying with “I don’t know” to everything. I really didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t feel happy and free like most people say they do right after telling someone for the first time. That took a couple days to kick in.

                Wednesday, after my first lecture, I saw Jorge on the sidewalk. He was actually first on an intersecting sidewalk and I saw him from a ways back and just prepared to keep my eyes down and pleasantly ignore each other. I reached where our sidewalks intersected ahead of him and saw him abruptly stop and then awkwardly try and make it look natural out of the corner of my eye. Really? Grow up! We’re both adults, we can avoid acknowledging each other without having to be like Jr. High girls avoiding a boy about it. He walked a distance behind me for a block or two until I had to turn. It was so awkward when I had to turn back to check if there were any cars coming to cross the street. I pretended I didn’t notice him lurking back there, and I suppose he thinks I didn’t see him at all. That’s all you have to do, just let your eyes slide over the person when you look at them. You don’t have to make things super awkward by going out of your way to avoid someone who isn’t even going to try and talk to you. Like I said, I don’t think we would have been that good of friends even if we kept talking. We think differently. Though obviously I still have some mixed emotions about him since I’m devoting so much time describing such a short interaction. I really wish I could get into his mind. There’s a part of the story I can’t be sure about, which is why I don’t want to tell it. Was it all my fault? Is he being immature? Is there another reason that I don’t know? I’ll never know since we don’t talk any more. C’est la vie.

                I think it was Wednesday night Vee and I went to Applebees to eat and talk more. We talked a little more about me being gay, but not a whole lot. She was still adjusting to the idea I think, but I was already starting to enjoy having someone to talk to about stuff. It really is kinda freeing and all that. As I told her, “It’s so weird talking about guys with someone.” We ate out again together last night (Friday). This time we talked more about gay issues, my slight attraction to girls, and how I used to get teased a little for being gay in Jr. High, before I convinced everyone I was straight. I told Vee that part of the reason I was reluctant to come out to her was because she had so many gay friends already. She doesn’t go out and try and meet them, she just does and gets along with them. Of course, I’ve known her for a year or two before she met all her gay friends. But there was still that sense that it’d make me just another one. Vee also has this strange a thing where she’s friends with a ton of engineers. She compared it to that. She said if I suddenly switched to an engineering major, I wouldn’t just become another engineer friend to her. It wouldn’t change that we’re still good friends.

                After that, Vee and I met up with one of her gay friends and his friend. I’d never met him before, and I didn’t like him at first, but I grew to appreciate his sarcastic, blunt humor as the night went on once I realized he wasn’t just being a dick. You could sort of tell he was gay (and he was kind of a whore), but he wasn’t really feminine or flamboyant. Vee doesn’t like that type either, so most of her friends are pretty normal. Anyway, they started drinking. At first I wasn’t going to join, but I decided I couldn’t take them sober, so I joined too. It was fun. Anneh and one of her roommates (a guy, another friend of Vee and me) joined too. Anneh drank, her roommate didn’t. We decided to stop by this one girl’s birthday party. I was being a little flirty with the gay guy on the way down there, and Vee and I kept dropping back to talk. He’s really not my type (though I decided he wasn’t so hugely far off once I got used to his humor, but that was later), but I was still flirting with him because there’s this appeal just because you know a guy’s gay and therefore possibly interested in you. It’s kinda irritating. Most of the time I can ignore it, but not when I’m on alcohol apparently. Oh, well. I didn’t make a fool of myself. We didn’t stay long at the party. I recognized this one cute Asian guy there from my dorm. We always make awkward eye contact and half smile when we see each other. I kinda wanted to go talk to him, but I decided that was a bad idea since we were both drunk and he’s probably straight. It’s easy to read too far into the eye contact when you’re drunk. So I was good and didn’t talk to him. We left the party and Anneh and her roommate kind of abandoned us. The gay guy somehow ended up asking if I was gay. I can’t remember if he overheard one of me and Vee’s conversations when we dropped back or how he got suspicious. I just shushed him when he asked, and he’s like “Oh, you’re closeteded?” He was pretty drunk, way more than me. I was just slightly tipsy. He got a little flirty after that too, but not over the top. There’s a possibility he and I might have done something, but his friend really overdid it and was kind of scarily clingy to him. Which is a good thing, since I don’t need a drunk hookup with one of Vee’s friends. I did send him a friend request on facebook though, and I’ll probably ask him if he wants to hang out some night just to talk. I’m not going to be attracted to him really while sober I think, but he’s the first gay guy I’ve met who also knew I was gay. I want to talk to him, just to compare experiences and stuff like that. I could use a gay friend. We also ran into Lils while we were out walking around. Apparently Vee pulled her friend off to the side and explained Lils was my sister and I wasn’t out to her while I was walking up to her, so I wasn’t accidently outed by my drunk friends.  

                I also shared a thought I’d had a couple times before with Vee while we were drunk. Being gay is like being a really ugly/fat chick. You look at all these guys, you’re attracted to them, but you know most of them would never even consider dating/getting to know you, and they would be disgusted if you actually approached them. Ugly chicks are stuck to guys that can see past the outer appearances to inner beauty. Gay guys are stuck to guys that are attracted to other guys. I don’t know if that gives anyone insight into the struggles/thoughts of the other group, but it’s just a parallel I’ve thought of. The other thing I wanted to mention was again what I said about there being this extra interest in gay guys just because I know they might be interested too. I really do understand the urge to hookup, I really do. It’s just this desire to try everyone, to not leave any possibility unexplored. It’s instinct I think, but I fight it. It’s most noticeable when I go on gay dating sites. I know I’m a pretty introspective person, and I tend to analyze reasons behind my thoughts a lot, which helps me avoid doing stuff just because I want to. However, I can’t believe everyone is that oblivious to thinking about their motivations for at least some of their actions. I simply can’t be that much more thoughtful than everyone else. I’m really not that thoughtful of a guy. I guess most gay guys just don’t care. Not all do though, and I guess I shouldn’t necessarily use the word “most,” since the promiscuous ones are simply the most visible. But I still believe in self-control. Being out to Vee and being able to talk about it does bring a lot of this to my attention more too.

                So yeah that was my week. I have to meet with my counselor on Monday, Dr. H on Tuesday (hooray, she’s back from vacation!), and my residence hall coordinator at some point. I’m not in trouble, but news of one of my scarier spells of depression got back to him, and he’s familiar with my case from last spring, so he just wants to meet to make sure I’m doing alright. I’m pretty sure he’s gay and I might bring up that I’ve been going through the process of coming out lately. He might have some insight to offer, and no matter what I’m sure he’ll be supportive. I still haven’t told Dr. H I’m gay, so I’ll have to do that when I see her next. She might be irritated I left such a huge source of possible stress out of our earlier discussions. Oh, well, her tendency to get in my face and challenge me is half the reason I like her. I like a person that stands up to me just the right amount and can get a little testy with me. It makes me respect them. As I mentioned at the beginning, everything’s moved so fast this week. I came out to my counselor, I came out to Vee, Vee and I have gotten closer because of it (at least temporarily), and I had fun and met new people last night. It makes me wonder if things are still going to move so fast this next week as well. Thanksgiving break is almost here! I’m actually looking forward to this next week. It feels really good to be able to say that :)

11-4-12

So I think this is going to be a short post. I had a ton of tests this earlier in the week. Dr. H and I were kinda worried since stress is a huge trigger for me, but it went OK. I probably didn’t do super awesome on all of them since I had my weird can’t-force-myself-to-study-until-an-hour-before-the-test thing, but I guarantee I passed all of them. Dr. H called me last Sunday on her day off to make sure I had plans and stuff in place for how to make sure I was OK for the week. I really respect that lady. She definitely does care about her patients. My last test was on Wednesday night, Halloween. I drank after. I was texting that Jorge guy, and long story short, we aren’t talking anymore. I was kinda down after that, blaming myself  for the whole thing for a day or two, but now when I think about it, I can see where it was also partially his fault. I will say what happened wasn’t sexual or a huge argument. Oh, well. I apologized and I learned something about myself, and if he doesn’t want to talk, so be it. We wouldn’t have been that good of friends anyway. Our personalities and outlooks just don’t mix. Thursday I was too hung over to do anything so I missed all my classes. Oops. Friday I finally gave in and met up with this other guy online. Let’s call him Josh. He was actually really fun to talk to and insanely hot. We ended up doing some stuff. Kissing guys is way better than kissing girls. We’ve been texting a little, and I’m hoping it’ll turn into a friends with benefits thing. Josh was really fun to talk to. He’s a very outgoing person. I wouldn’t mind just hanging out with him without any other stuff going on ;) We’ll see. So, yeah, I wasted my Saturday, watched Paranorman (I liked it), and wasted most of my Sunday. I’m meeting my older sister for supper, and then I’m going to have to write a short paper after. Not terrible. I hope everyone else had a good week.