When i got home i found myself totally bereft and trying to make sense of these unfamiliar feelings, cried my eyes out, in private of course, because something told me this wouldn't go down well with my parents. So out of an act of self-discovery also came guilt and confusion.
No Internet to hunt him down in those days, so i never saw him again...
3 comments:
Is this what you meant by "Gay before I knew what it meant"?...that's really young to fall in love.
I knew I wasn't "normal" at that age but I didn't know I was "queer" for sure until age 12. I'm not saying you knew that you were gay aged 10...as you say; you were confused about your depth of feeling for this boy.
I can't really comment about the guilt and confusion you felt, although I can totally understand why you felt like that. It's difficult for many people much older than you were then to come to terms with that kind of self-discovery...if they ever do.
As for the Internet, what can I say?...if it had been around when we were young(er) some of us probably wouldn't be writing our blogs today!
I'm looking forward to reading more.
Take care Skweeky,
Col
I remember the intensity of my feelings for the boy, and given i was not yet a truly sexual being, i can only assume my feelings were closer to being in love, than simply being in lust, but that is a quality i apply to those childhood feelings from the distance of maturity.
Even at that young age i somehow knew that my feelings were off the straight and narrow and it would be difficult to share them with anybody. I am not sure i came to terms with being gay or even recognised it as such at the age of 10. I recall at the time it was more a post-holiday dreadful realisation along the lines of 'I don't know how it happened but that was the best friend i have ever had and i'll never see him again'.
Look at Josh's blog, even though he shows an enormous amount of self awareness and certainty about his sexuality, he hasn't actually managed to share that with anyone beyond this community of bloggers - even his best (real?) friends don't know he is gay and many of his posts show a desire or necessity to actually keep this hidden. There's no such thing as 'just a little bit out' in the eyes of others. Yet despite the potential hazards of being gay the drive to be truthful to himself fuels his every waking thought.
Without the Internet it was very difficult to seek any reassurance that you weren't the 'only gay in the village'.
Thanks for your reply.
It will be interesting to see how the content on Josh's blog changes when, and if, he comes out...if he's still blogging by then lol!
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