Chatting up from the distance: A sweet interlude before the final screwed up…

One lucky Friday night, I chatted up a dreadlocks goddess in the queue for the toilets. But of course, I ended up making a fool of myself by sending her a very misunderstanding message due to my natural ability to mix up names of newly introduced attractive girls (read the previous post). This is how the story followed:

I ended up grabbing a friendly drink that week with a young photography girl, the unintended receiver of a suggestive text meant for dreadlocks-girl. We mainly exchanged stories of common high school teachers and compared the time gap and different struggles of growing up in the same small (and slightly conservative) community as lesbians.

“There weren’t any openly gay people back home when I was a teenager,” I said from my born in the 80´s generational perspective. 

I was from the last cohort of students that went through high school without any social media. The only Internet-based social interactions at the time were done through Microsoft Messenger and, emojis were only being discovered as a new form of communication. However, photography-girl belonged to the iPod and Facebook generation that already grew up with openly gay Hollywood celebrities.

“In my year of graduation in that high school, there was a lesbian couple, a few openly gay guys and a transgender girl… I never really had to come out” She firmly said narrating her experience.

I was amazed at how much society had changed in a very short period of time. I, on the contrary, had to fight tooth and nail my way out of the closet. I had some internalized homophobia that I carried with me for a while due to the less gay-friendly society that I happened to be landed on. Nevertheless, she told me it was not all “rainbows and fairy lights” for her either, as she mentioned that she experienced some underlying stigma and subtle discrimination from some of her peers. However, at least there were people to look up to that were standing out for themselves as members of the LGBT community… and that was already a step forward from my own teenage experience.

Photography-girl and I became friends that day. I even acted briefly as her career mentor before I finally moved away from the marketing world. Looking back, I am glad that my message mixed up led me to gain a younger ally in the community.

BORN AND BRED Street Graffiti in Brighton. Picture taken in August 2016.

 But coming back to dreadlocks-girl and the other side of the story… Well, she never replied back to my apologetic message… But, somehow, I knew that in the small pool of lesbians, we were going to bump into each other sooner or later… And so we did…

On Thursday night, I was having my first awkward date in a gay-friendly bar with a not very “good match” from the online world, when I saw a dreadlocks-girl entering through the door. She was also with a female companion and, judging from the way they were interacting, I would have guessed that they were on a first online date as well.

I got excited when I saw her entering the bar. I wanted to run towards her, apologize for the “message screwed up” and explained that I was a long way from being a Casanova (I would say that I am more of a nerdy-socially-award lesbian with zero games). The image that she formed of me was completely mistaken and I desperately wanted to amend that. But I thought that she probably had already forgotten about me and so, I contained my impulse of jumping into her to win back her favour… However, I could not contain myself from checking on her discretely over the shoulder of my boring date every now and then during the course of the night. 

She was looking stunning all dressed in white and, moved and interacted with such great confidence. I was feeling quite jealous of her date… “That could have been me if I would have paid more attention before pressing sent...” I kept on thinking.

At some point, as I was sighing on my chair looking at her while my date was in the ladies, our gaze crossed… And of course, I panicked!

Is it possible that she might remember me? What do I do now?

I innocently waved and waited for her to reply. She waved back. Her date had gone to the bar and so we were both sitting alone looking at each other across the room.

I move my head and raised my eyebrows in a clumsy attempt to say “Hey! How do you do?” from a distance. She smiled and repeated my gesture reciprocating my greetings but she moved her head to the direction of the bar pointing at her date as a way of communicating that she wasn’t alone. I made a resignation gesture and pointed at the empty chair in front of me with my date’s jacket to inform her that I also had company.

I wanted to ask her if they were “a thing” or not, so I pointed at the girl in the bar and then to her a few times back and forth. I’m not sure if my incomprehensible battery of gestures attempting to ask her about their “relationship status” was understood. But she shocked her head with determination. Then, she mimicked my air signs pointing at the empty chair in front of me and then at me several times.

Does she really want to know if I’m available? I’m I dreaming right now…?

I frenetically shocked my head trying to make it as clear as possible that my tame date and I were not “a thing”. 

At that moment, I saw her date coming back to her table, so I made a quick sign of a phone with my hand followed by a thumb up.

“Is it OK if I call you?” I meant to say.

She made a “later” sign while nodding and smiling before shifting her attention back to her date.

WHAT?!? Did gorgeous dreadlocks-girl just give me permission to contact her again…???!!!!???

I kept looking at her table with a stupid smile on my face until my date came back. I was already utterly not interested in my online date before dreadlocks-girl walked into the bar, but now, I was even more eager to wrap up with my uncomfortable unmatched date and go home.

On the night bus, I contacted dreadlocks-girl and this time I checked a few times the message before pressing sent... A few minutes later she replied back and we kept on texting for a while.

After that night, we chatted every now and then, but we never arranged a formal date until one night…

Graffiti of a girl found in Brighton (signed by Maleska). Picture taken August 2016.

 

To be continued…

My "save the closeted lesbians" project

I feel that since I came out, I've been wanting to help the gay community. I have this fantasy in my mind about me being some sort of counselor for 'coming out' lesbians and I go around telling people my coming out story to help closeted gays.

I tend to sympathize with people that are coming out since for me it was a long and painful process (see My coming our Story post), so through out the years I've been out of the dark closet, I've talked to other gays that were coming out that I had come across.

I helped Martita, a 22 years-old smart dentist with amazing eyes. We met for a beer before a concert few years ago, and we had a coming out chat and I introduced her to my lesbians friends in the scene. She was a fast learner and in no time she was riding the gay night without any supporting wheels. I was very proud of her and very happy when she finally found love.

I've also had an Argentinian project before Martita, but this time he was not ready to come out.

My last and most exciting project was my French handsome housemate, although he was partially out when I met him, I think that he still had some shame and shyness about his sexuality and needed a small push to fully live comfortable in his skin as a gay men. He is doing fantastic these days, he is more relax about revealing his homosexuality openly to strangers and he has also being expanding his network of gay friends, which always helps to feel more accepted and grow.

My last project was Naomi (of course not her real name). She contacted me through OkCupid around the same time that the website was on the news due to the block on Firefox.

She told me that she has never being with a woman but that she was going through a lot of changes in her life and she was ready to be open to new experiences. She was very pretty and I accepted to meet her for coffee at the White Rabbit.

 I wanted to help her with her coming out process and perhaps, I would made a new friend in the process. When we met, I had the same feeling that I had with the tall Polish-looking accountant, I could see that she was not in a good place in her life, she looked tired and she was not wearing any makeup to cover up for her deep purple rings, she did not made much effort on her appearance either and I could feel that she was a bit on edge.

I could also feel that she was extremely nervous and when I started to talk about homosexuality and coming out, I could see in her face that she was feeling uncomfortable and wanted to change the subject.
She also had the 'sad eyes', the sad gaze that closeted people have.

I could feel that she was drowning and in need for a rope to hold on too. So, I told her about my coming out story, about how you can be gay but still have a normal life with normal friends and how once you get to know people in the community you will grow as a person because they will provide the emotional support you need and you will ended up accepting yourself and seeing being gay as something completely normal.
The date was short, I finished my earl grey tea and went home.

After that date, it was clear for me that we were in different places in our lives and that we had had a very different backgrounds and way of seeing things, but I wanted to help her.

She looked so sad and lonely, she could be my 'rescue puppy' from the straight main stream society. So I invited her to a day trip to the Seven Sisters (see picture below) with my housemates and other friends.

We walk for hours and we had a nice lunch on the beach. She interacted with my friends and seem more happy and comfortable than in the previous date. I recommended her a few books to read in self-development and social psychology and I could see that she was taking notes.

At some point, she also told me that she was seeing a vegan guy from OkCupid and that since she met him she was also embracing new eating habits.

I guess that she was in need for a change, but starting with an easy step towards a different self was her way of starting her coming out process. I guess that she was just on the process of starting to question her life and the main stream social rules and baby steps were her way of start her journey.

I could see that from her background and type of personality she was not ready to come out as a lesbian yet and needed to start with something small like changing her diet.

We can not all jump out into a new life, some people need baby steps and since she told me that for almost 10 years she had a boyfriend that he was his best friend and protector and she was living under his wings, it made sense that she was feeling very vulnerable on her own and that perhaps, the best thing for the time being was getting an open minded boyfriend, something safe, but at the same time that could help her to experience with little things such veganism and question the society rules little by little before moving on to experience with a bigger change in your life.

After that day, we met once for coffee on a Saturday morning at St. Anne's Well Gardens, they had a small neighborhood festival going on full of Salsa dancers, families with kids and retired pensioners playing petanque.

She suggested the place but I thought that we were a bit out of place, it was definitely a family straight oriented environment in where she probably felt safe but I, as a 'pretending-to-be-Gay-counselor-expert-on-coming-out' could see that she was hiding herself and wanted to blended in.

Once I saw that she was not ready to take on my lecture on 'coming-out', I realized that we had very little to talk about.

We had very different backgrounds and ways of see things, she was also not a big lover of intellectual conversations and for me pretending to get on with someone that seems nice but we don't have much in common is out of my scope.

Life is too short to waste your time with people that don't bring you anything, who don't teach you anything or inspire you in any way. I barely have time for my current friends, so my unconscious plan on adopting a gay puppy to make me feel better about myself and to feel that I was contributing to the gay community was perhaps not a good idea after all.

I went away for a couple of weeks after that coffee morning date in the park, so we lost touch. When I came back, I had already lots in my mind to keep it up with my "save the gays" project and I failed to keep in touch with her.

I am sure that she has being meeting other people from the site and I am sure that she is doing fine, after all she seem to be a very kind-hearted person and she will find her way in this jungle. Although she might need some supporting wheels for the time being. Also, she is living in the most open minded city in the UK so I'm sure that she will be able to come out or just experience with girls if that is what she wants.

PS: I've asked her to complete my survey for the research project that I was doing at that time and she did, I am crossing the line by asking online strangers to participate on my research if they qualify for it?

Others people's online dates that connect to my offline dating lesbian stories

I decided to write this story as this week was the 4th year anniversary of it...  I don't usually remember dates or years but on this occasion, I will never forget... It all begins at a bus stop with someone else online date...

As I wrote in the previous post, in September of 2008 I was very close to a very handsome Spanish gay man named Pedro. He was THE MASTER of online dating, he had met most of his long-term boyfriends in the cyberspace...

At the time, he had a long-distance boyfriend but kept his profile active as he was also 'new in town' and wanted to meet gay people to go out... He contacted this guy who slightly reminded me of a young Michael Jackson (before he turned white) due to his fantastic hair and face shape.

He and Pedro were supposed to meet that week for coffee but they recognized each other at the 25 bus stop at Sainsbury's on Lewes Road and introduced themselves on the spot. The situation was a bit uncomfortable for them, meeting a future online date sooner than expected, and for me as well, as I was there too...

Because Pedro had a boyfriend, Chris and him became friends and so we started to hang out... For about 2 years Chris was part of our lives...

The three of us used to go out to Revenge, went for long walks in the countryside, or just bumped into each other on campus and spend the evening together in Falmer bar playing Jenga.... we used to have long conversations about homosexuality, coming out, love and life in general...

Chris and I were both in the 'accepting our sexuality' phase and, in a way, we understood and supported each other... He told me a couple of times about a lesbian friend of his that I needed to meet because we would probably like each other.... but unfortunately, he never introduced me to her.....

One summery day on June 2010, he decided to terminate his life and hanged himself in the woods at the back of Sussex University Campus...

Two days before he did it, we bumped into each other on the 25 bus. It was Friday and I was going to Falmer Bar to work a long shift, so I told him that I will call him that Saturday or Sunday so we could hang out before leaving Brighton...

When we said goodbye I had a very strange and powerful feeling, and the words: "this is the last time I'm going to see him" crossed my mind... I thought that I was not going to see him again because I was moving out of Brighton in a few weeks' time and he was going to Swaziland for the summer the following week...

We both had uncertain futures so I thought that crossing paths again was going to be difficult... 

When he got off the bus, I took a "mental picture" of him while he was waving me goodbye..... he was at the same bus stop where we met 2 years ago, looking at me with his big sad eyes.... and I unconsciously perceived that there was something wrong...

That Sunday night, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought that I needed to call Chris... I was feeling bad because I said to him that I was going to call him to hang out, but I didn't in the end as I was very busy with my dissertation and work...

I was taking a lot of shifts at the bar at the time because I needed the money for the summer... so I forgot to call him... The morning after it was already too late to make that call...

When I got the news, I was shocked, in a way, I always thought that Chris and I were very much alike... we both were struggling with our sexuality and coming out but, we both believed in finding someone, probably as a consequence of watching too many Hollywood films. We were also both gay and single and didn't have that much luck in finding love in the past... So, in a way, I related to Chris's state of mind...

I didn't know what to think... He had given up in life... just like this... I didn't know how to react... In 2010, I have to confess that I was also having a tough time myself.... without noticing, I started to slowly isolate my self from the world and that's probably why I didn't notice Chris' depression at the time,

I was in an odd place, I was feeling very lonely and vulnerable... I wasn't happy with my life at the time, but I never considered giving up...  his defeat was a big hit for me.....

After his funeral, we went out to Revenge as it was what he would have liked us to do... His whole family was there, his mum, his brothers and sister, his friends and I finally met the 'lesbian' girl that he wanted me to meet... We didn't talk, she approached me on the dance floor... I was covered in tears... she grabbed me and we started kissing...., we didn't talk.... just kissed...

I was drunk as Chris' brother kept buying Tequila shots for everyone... We kept on kissing for a while and I ended up at her place... we talked for hours about life and death and the darkness that we all have inside while sharing a spliff and more booze.... we cuddle for a bit and then went upstairs to her bed and..... (you know I never give details....) Finally, I fell asleep in her bed after several days of insomnia due to Chris' death.......

The morning after, we exchanged phone numbers. We met up that week for an afternoon coffee that turned into a night out at Revenge.... but then she moved back home for the summer and I left Brighton a few weeks after.... so it faded away after that very intense connection that night, probably because of the circumstances...

Nothing good can ever start from a drunk night after a funeral... I know through Facebook that she is now engaged to a guy... I guess that she was one of those "college lesbians" who hung her lumberjack flannels shirts and Dr Martens boots after Uni and paired up with a guy from her hometown to live happily ever after...

I don't really know if this story has any moral... I guess some experiences in life are difficult to understand and I'm still trying to make sense of Chris' death..... But what is clear is that the pressure that society puts on minorities to become who they are hasn't had a big role in Chris' death...

He was a mix-race gay boy living in Swaziland where he was not white enough for the white upper-class parties but not black enough to hang out with the other half... He was also an extremely sensitive gay man trying to find love in the superficial gay men's world in which muscles and one-night stands are the currency...

I know that suicide among the young lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender community is higher than among the general population and Chris was just a victim. I myself briefly thought about ending my life when I realized I was gay, the thought of not following the rules of society, not living up to society's standards and the idea of living isolated because I was following my heart, put that thought into my mind, but fortunately, I never considered it seriously as an option as after all, coming out was more challenging in my mind that what it actually was at the end.....

I can tell you for a fact that: "It gets better" and only with little changes we can aspire to create a society in which minorities of any kind will feel safe to express themselves and to love freely who they want without being judged...

I would like to dedicate this post and picture to Chris as he would have enjoyed crossing the street in this new rainbow that they have painted in Brighton :)!

My coming out story...

In my last post, I took a stroll down memory lane and recalled my first online date. In this post, I would like to share my very long coming out story... 

I usually like to hear other people's coming out stories. They tend to have the ingredients of self-empowerment and pride that make a good story. However, not everyone has one, some people grew up in an environment in where they didn't need to come out as gays or lesbians... Hopefully, in the future, coming out will be a curious anecdote mentioned in sociology and history books, but for now, the society has not fully accepted same-sex love. Some coming out stories are really painful, but they all found the happy ending that standing up with courage and willingness to live truthfully to yourself and being who you already are brings.

Picture taken in an Art Gallery in L.A. September 2014.

My coming out story has two parts.... first I had to accept who I was and then, I had to lose the fear of what other people would think of me for being who I was. Both parts were a struggle with my own self and both parts of the story are closely connected.

The first part of my coming out story, discovering who I was, happened between age of 16 to about 21. When I look back, everything makes sense now, I was gay but I didn't know what gay was: "The dots only connect looking backwards, not looking forward..." (Steve Jobs, 'How to live before I die')... 

I was in denial of my sexuality because I thought that being gay was being a fat short-hair butchy woman. The society told me that gay was being an outlier runaway and I didn't see myself reflected in that stereotype.

I didn't know many gay people... the only lesbian that I knew was a walking stereotype. This is like the chicken and the egg.... Do lesbians create the stereotype or is the stereotype who creates them?. 

Slowly, I started to understand that a lesbian perhaps was not defined by her clothes and hair style, but by her love for another woman. Then, I started to allow myself to contemplate the possibility that I was maybe experiencing feelings for some women.... However, I tended to block those thoughts in my mind.... I was not supposed to be gay, I was supposed to be normal. 

Now looking back, I can see how I might have had some feelings for women in the past, but didn't really put them into context.... I blocked them and I didn't allow them to grow....

My final Aha-moment happened in my year abroad. I met a girl for whom I was starting to developed those feelings..... It was one of those strange connections that I was not able to label before, but this time it was more intense. Perhaps because I was far from home, or perhaps because I was also slightly older than before and ready to acknowledge my feelings... 

One day, after a trip to the supermarket, I saw her in an intimate situation with a guy, he was whispering in her ear in the corridor of our student accommodation and I was walking by....  Suddenly, I started to feel very bad and I rushed into my room, I closed the door and collapsed on the floor by the intensity of the emotion with all of the bags from the supermarket in my hands... that was my aha-moment. 

It was not just that I was jealous, that I was, it was more about the confirmation that I was gay and had romantic feelings for another woman... (by the way it tuned out that she was not interested in that guy at all....). This was a confirmation more than a revelation, I was in love and it was a girl.... I was gay!.... and now what?

The second part, telling other people, was actually harder. I was afraid of  being disconnected, of being rejected and being labelled as the media stereotype of a lesbian woman... 

I saw my sexuality as a weakness, as something to be a shame of and I was not ready to tell the world. When I saw Brené Brown TedTalk on 'the power of vulnerability', I identified myself with it. She defined shame as "the fear of disconnection... it is something about me, that if other people see I won't be worthy of connection." I could see how for me, being gay was something shameful, something to be afraid of... I was a shame of a part of myself and scared of being rejected.... 

Also, since I labelled myself as gay but I was still in the closet, I started to notice that my friendships were not growing and my connection with my family was getting weaker. This was because, as Brené explains, "In other for connection to happen, we need to allow ourselves to be seen". By not disclosing my sexuality to other people, I was not able to make real connections. By omitting myself, I was creating meaningless moments and that was hurting me and undermining my self-esteem. 

That feeling of isolation is reflected in what my friend calls the 'sad eyes' of closeted people. My friend said that if you look at pictures from before he came out, he was always looking small, fearful, shy and unsecured, he had 'sad eyes'. 

I needed to start slowly to come out to my friends, but it seemed that it was never the right time.... Facing death is how I finally overcame my fear of rejection and I stopped caring about what other people might think of me.

In my year abroad in Canada, I had a moment when all turned white, I was suddenly embracing a peaceful feeling and there was only one thought in my mind: 

"This is it...".

I was hit by a car in a rainy day in the corner of Nicholas Street and MacKenzie King Bridge in Ottawa... Luckily, it wasn't it.... but I had a head concussion and was taken in an ambulance to the nearest Hospital. 

When I was release from the emergency room, in where they kept me lying down with my full back and neck immobilised by the stretcher for hours, I was given a leaflet that it said something like: "You have had a severe head concussion, please don't fall sleep and be monitored as in the next 24h you can die.... "

I had a whole day to process that I could faint and die due to the head concussion or perhaps I might not wake up the next morning..... 

I thought about my life, how I was living it and what it was missing... in this case, love, real connections and honesty were missing in my life. That day, I understood that only YOU live YOUR life, and what others might think, at the end it doesn't matter. You need to collect moments of happiness without worrying about other people's judgements... 

The next morning when I woke up, I thought that I was given a second chance and so I decided to start living my life differently. The first thing to do was coming out of the closet. Luckily, I was 4,000 miles away from home, away from my friends and family, from all of the ties with the society where I grew up. I was in a country where no one knew me... and where being judge didn't matter. 

Picture taken from my room in Ottawa (2006-2007)

One night, after I recovered from my head concussion, my dizziness and some sleepless nights after my accident, I went to a Halloween Party and I met a Spanish guy. He was dressed as a zombie M&M with an adapted costume that he bought at the dollar shop at the Rideau Shopping Center and had decorated it with some fake blood. 

He was funny, I thought that he was gay and that perhaps, I could talked to him about my sexuality. Few days after, I bumped into him in the hall of the Student Residence, he was smoking a cigarette outside and I invited him up for lunch. We talked about the experience of being away, my accident and we made plans to go to a house party together later that week. 

When we met up for buying beer at the liquor store that following night, I decided that carrying 24 bottles of Molson Canadian was the right time to come out. I needed to talk to someone about my feelings and since it seem to never be the right time, I just jumped into it, so I asked him:

"You are gay, right?" I attributed the condition of being gay to my companion first. Classic psychological mechanism of dissociation with the condition until the other party confirms on its part for the fear of displaying their own sexuality first and being perhaps socially rejected.

He smiled at me and nodded

"I think that I'm gay too...." I said. That was the first time that I used the word gay referring to myself out loud.

He smiled again and said:

"You think but, you don't know?"

He had a point. I had not kiss a girl in my life and, of course, I had no previous experience of any kind of intimate contact with the female gender.... It was then when I realised that I needed not just to acknowledge my label in front of other people, I needed to act on it... I needed to explore my sexuality. Being in a foreign country was going to help... 

That night, I also told to a group of people that were friends with the zombie M&M that I was gay. It turned out that one of them was also gay, and another one was bisexual. They were completely OK with me being gay, and for the first time in a while I was connecting with people, I was being myself and it felt good.

The learning from my conversation with the gay zombie M&M was that I need to explore my sexuality.... and in a pool full of international open-minded students in their early twenties, there were a lot of opportunities... 

House parties, sports events and lots of gatherings organized by the University..... However, the girl that I had feelings for was gone... She only stayed for a semester in Canada. I send her an email saying that I liked her after accepting her Facebook friendship request and finding out that she was also interested in women.

She answered back saying that she also liked me but that it was too late.... she has back in Europe and carrying on with her life... fair enough.... you need to take the opportunities when they come along.... and now it was too late.... I was a bit heart broken, but it was my fault, so I accepted my part and moved on....  

One night a lesbian looking girl approached me in a party.  She was actually a friend of the girl I liked before, but she was not my type.....She was short and very intimidating, you could smell that she was gay a mile away due to her tough way of walking around campus and her masculine body language. However, she had an intense deep purple-violet-blue eyes that could easily catch someone eye..... 

She kept on approaching me in parties and one night, I was drunk and I decided that well..., she was not going to be the love of my life, but she was nice and funny and.... available..... So on a drunken night out she became my first girl experiment. 

It wasn't bad, but I just didn't have feelings for her...  This experience confused me more than bringing any clarity about my sexuality.... It was not the intense experience that I was waiting for.... It was more like the experiences that I had in the past with guys....

Therefore, I thought that perhaps, I was not gay after all... I wanted to not to be gay so much.... I could see now how my mind was already trying to justifying my experience: You tried with a girl and didn't really feel anything different that with guys.... therefore, I'm not gay after all.... so maybe I should go back to guys and my life will be easier..... 

A week later from that first girl-experiment night, I was in a party again. I had a few cocktails and got a bit drunk..... My temporal alcoholism probably was due to the fact that I was having a bad month: the girl that I liked said that she liked me too, but she it was too late now.... I was feeling like an idiot for not acting on my feelings at the right time.... then, I tried to explore my sexuality with a girl but didn't go as expected.... so, I was very confused and anxious about my sexuality and love life in general.... 

I started dancing with this French boy. He was cute and tall, with lovely hair and nerdy glasses, a bit like the French version of a mix between Clark Kent and Harry Potter..... 

The night ended up in my room, I needed to see if I wasn't gay after all.... But what were the odds that it turned out that the French guy was in the completely same situation. He was also gay and was trying to see if he definitely didn't like women at all.... as you can imagine the night was not very promising... 

After he left my room, I decided that ending up with a gay guy was perhaps a confirmation sign that I was gay... from all of the available boys at the party, I chose the closeted gay... also, having feelings for a girl before was definitely a sign that I shouldn't ignore.... just because my experiment with a girl didn't work out, it didn't mean that I was not going to develop feelings for another girl in the future.... 

At the end of the day the 'feeling it or not' it is a matter of having feelings for the person, and I have to confess that I did not have feelings for my first girl experiment... I guess we all made mistakes... The moral of the story this time was that I needed to experiment with a girl that I had actual feelings for and stop messing around....

For a while, I was doing my thing without getting involved with anyone.... I started to go swimming.... and then, when I was doing my thing... without any plan I met a French girl.... 

We bummed into each other at house parties and at the poll quite a lot... She was very nice and had a nice conversation. We always ended up the swimming session chatting at the sauna.... or we were in a house party we would talked for a very long time.... she had the gay vibe and few of my friends confirmed it too.... 
I wanted to make a move.... Once I tried to shift the conversation to the gay zone, but she brought up her boyfriend... So, finally, I decided that perhaps, she was not gay and she was just friendly and that I was not going to make a move and ruin a nice friendship....

However, in my last night in Canada, she knocked on my door at about 4 am, I was still packing.... she had been wandering around my building since we said goodbye at the bar around midnight. She looked at me and hug me.... it was her way of telling me that she also had feelings for me.... 

At that moment.... I understood how the girl from the first semester felt when I send her the email telling her that I loved her.... it was too late... It was too late to see where this could have gone.... we were both coming back to Europe and we both had lives back home... 

We said goodbye and pretended to keep in touch for a while.... Thanks to Facebook, I know that she is now married..... to a GIRL!!!! I am very happy that she finally came out of the closet and left her boyfriend....

The lesson from this event was that we always regret what it didn't happen, and one more time, once the opportunity is gone.... it is gone...!!!

My year abroad was over and coming back home was going to be another story.... I had to face the people that I grew up with and tell them that I was now gay....  Well, I was gay before, but I was now ready to BE gay. This was going to be tough, so I started slowly with my school friends... Most of them were very understanding, however, they asked me the typical questions that we all get when we come out.... 

I remember that one of my friends said to me: 

"How can you be gay if you are way more feminine that I am?"  

To what I answered:

"Sexuality is not a matter of femininity or masculinity... gender identity and the conformity with the traditional gender roles in society is different from being gay or straight".

After given few speeches similar to the one quoted above among my friends, I told a few of my university friends too... But I don't think I told all of them. Sexual orientation among early-twenties university students tend to be often a topic of conversation so, I knew that any gay gossip would spread quickly. With some people I just acted as if it was assumed that I was gay and didn't do an official statement. 

Since then, I've been telling people when I meet them only if the occasion comes up, but I usually try not to make a big deal out of it... Brighton is actually a great place to live, most people is gay or gay friendly and no one judges you...

Regarding my family, I didn't tell my parents straight away. I was waiting to have a stable relationship to introduce it as something normal, but unfortunately, I didn't have too much luck in love during my first years of being gay. So, decided to put myself a deadline to come up to my parents: My 25th birthday!

Every Sunday before my deadline, when I was driving to my parents' house for lunch, I found myself going through my coming out plan in my head.... thinking that "today is the day, I'm going to finally tell them"... But whenever I opened the door and started to chat with them parents, it never seem to be the right time, it was never the right conversation nor the right moment...

One Sunday afternoon, when I was about to leave, I told my mum. 

She was sitting in front of her computer and I said that I was gay as if I was telling her that I was planing to have pasta for dinner.... without making any kind of speech or changing my voice.... as it was something very normal and did not deserve a special moment.... 

She lifted her gaze and said:

"Does this mean that you are not going to have children?"

She was worried more about not having grandsons than my actual partner.... I replied that one thing didn't mean the other and left...

I gave her a whole week to process and the Sunday after we had a lovely conversation over tea. I ended up crying but she was very supportive. I didn't tell my dad directly, but I know that my mum did that for me. 

My parents tell each other this kind of stuff, and he seems supportive. We watch movies whenever I go to visit and he lately keep insisting on watching gay theme movies. I guess that it is his way of saying that it is OK. 

At the end of the day, love for children is unconditional and if they love you, they will love you no matter what.

Finally, after my year in  Canada, and due to the fact the I didn't know that many gay people in my home town, I turned to the online dating world... so, here we go back to my previous post: "My first online date". 

I have had some off-line dating experiences too and I have being out on the scene, usually with the zombie M&M that I met in Canada.... and sometimes with other gay men too.... it wasn't until recently that I started to have lesbians friends... so the online world has been a big part of my dating life, possibly due to my insecurities in approaching girls out of a gay context... Maybe when I run out of online dating stories I will start with my off-line ones... but for the moment, I still have a bunch of stories on my pocket yet to be told... and the ones that are happening now...

Apologize for the long post...  but coming out was a long process for me...