I meant to write my rucomingout story when the site was in development, having followed the team behind it from pretty much day one and thinking “fair play, great concept, I’m involved”. Though, I never got round to it…
Something kept stopping me. I’d sit down to write and somehow I’d find an excuse or something else to do. I kept telling myself I’d find the time, but I never did!
What dawned on me recently was realising the potential for uncomfortable memories to be stirred in me when writing this entry: revisiting a time in life where fronting was standard, a lot of lies I didn’t want to tell had to be told and feeling pretty, well, isolated. A time I’d almost kind of forgotten about. I guess it’s that whole compartmentalisation/repression thing, but it’s time it was revisited, so here goes…
My childhood was amazing, growing up in a beautiful little rural town in the south west of England. Loving parents, confident and popular at school, fit and healthy. My parents did all they could to give me, my bro and my sister the best start possible in life and for that I’ll always be grateful. I enjoyed learning in class, had the best sleepovers and had an N64 – literally how much more could you ask for as a kid in the 90s really? I remember life just made sense and was simple!
"That’s not to say I didn’t always know I was ‘different’ though. It wasn’t just a feeling either, I really did know but probably hadn’t made sense of it or learned to understand it yet."
The majority of primary school was okay tbh because besides holding hands with your girlfriend or boyfriend, or giggling at who each other ‘fancied’, there weren’t really the pressures you face sexually and culturally later on in life at that age, just the harmless, meaningless stuff. I remember sensing being different, but just getting on with it. Besides, there were bigger issues at hand - like rushing back to catch episodes of Pokemon before it started or completing the Jungle level on Goldeneye.
I’d say one of the most daunting experiences of my life was starting secondary school. Having these internal conflicts really started to kick off towards the end of primary school, while also knowing I found myself naturally getting on with girls better socially, going to an all-boys grammar school was a big and scary move! I knew the next five years of my life were going to be one hardcore front but I was determined to keep it secret. This involved playing it straight, saying a lot of things I didn’t really think or feel to fit in and dating girls from the all-girls school next door because it was the thing to do! Again, in year 7 this was mostly banter but things were progressing in the first couple of years of school and I started experimenting. I had a couple of ‘long term’ (in relative school terms) girlfriends when I was 14 – 16, and I think for this reason people weren’t guessing my sexuality. I managed to ‘fake it’ successfully when we got down to it. No one knew but me, and I preferred it that way. Well, that and the people I spoke to in online chat rooms.
The internet has always been a huge part of my life and I consider it an absolute blessing tbh. My first proper use of the internet was MSN messenger - catching up on all the gossip with friends after school, but also the music downloading programmes I’d installed had chatroom features and I used these a lot. Compared to current social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter these would now look totally primitive but at the time it was the coolest concept to connect with people around the world and chat about everyday stuff. There were gay chat rooms and curiosity obviously led me to these. I spoke with a number of guys and I truly feel like this was a saviour for me, knowing there were other people like me, every day people who shared the same struggle.
I’d say one of the most daunting experiences of my life was starting secondary school. Having these internal conflicts really started to kick off towards the end of primary school, while also knowing I found myself naturally getting on with girls better socially, going to an all-boys grammar school was a big and scary move! I knew the next five years of my life were going to be one hardcore front but I was determined to keep it secret. This involved playing it straight, saying a lot of things I didn’t really think or feel to fit in and dating girls from the all-girls school next door because it was the thing to do! Again, in year 7 this was mostly banter but things were progressing in the first couple of years of school and I started experimenting. I had a couple of ‘long term’ (in relative school terms) girlfriends when I was 14 – 16, and I think for this reason people weren’t guessing my sexuality. I managed to ‘fake it’ successfully when we got down to it. No one knew but me, and I preferred it that way. Well, that and the people I spoke to in online chat rooms.
The internet has always been a huge part of my life and I consider it an absolute blessing tbh. My first proper use of the internet was MSN messenger - catching up on all the gossip with friends after school, but also the music downloading programmes I’d installed had chatroom features and I used these a lot. Compared to current social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter these would now look totally primitive but at the time it was the coolest concept to connect with people around the world and chat about everyday stuff. There were gay chat rooms and curiosity obviously led me to these. I spoke with a number of guys and I truly feel like this was a saviour for me, knowing there were other people like me, every day people who shared the same struggle.
I’m from a quiet, conservative, rural town remember! I actually, in part, put my keen interest in forums and social network sites from a young age down to being gay and being in search of understanding and people I relate to. And considering I make my living off social media now well… #winning
Between the ages of 16 – 18 it started to fully feel like I was living a double life. I was one person with my friends and family, another person online and with guys I had met through the internet and now considered friends also, sneaking off to certain clubs on the downlow. I stopped dating girls for image and knew exactly my situation. No longer was I praying and wishing to be straight, hoping it was just a phase… instead I was starting to feel bitter and resentful I ever beat myself up so badly about it. " I guess this was the first step to self-acceptance. I was in a dilemma nonetheless: I was in the closet." |
I applied for the University of Liverpool to study Anatomy and Human Biology when I was 18 and I knew my whole time at college this was my ticket to freedom and self-discovery. I started university and came out to my halls of residence pals during a drinking game on the very first night! I knew it had to be during freshers week or I’d be bogged down with excuses and lies again. I downed a few beers, gave myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror, slapped myself and told myself to just do it. It was during a round of “I have never…”. I’m not gunna say exactly the line I used because…well let’s keep it tasteful!
Had a weight been lifted? Deffo. But there was no going back now. Next situation up was my friends from home coming to visit me at university for my 19th birthday night out that December. I was COMPLETELY wasted and don’t even remember telling them. My uni pals told me the next day after they’d left that I’d told them so I thought, oh god what do I even do now… do they remember? Are they gunna tell everyone? Is my life over? It’s all I thought about the next day. I couldn’t even eat. But the best thing that could have possibly happened, happened the next night. My best mate rang me (he was drunk, again) and asked me if I remembered what I told him. “Yep…” I said, wanting the ground to swallow me up. He said “I just want you to know I’m cool with it.”
"Genuinely, mere acceptance of who you are shouldn’t make you feel on top of the world but it did. It made me realise you know what, maybe this isn’t a life sentence of isolation." It was finally time for the big’un… My family. I bottled it during the Christmas break, but when the Easter break started I had a similar pep talk to myself to just come out with it, literally. I went for a curry with one of my best girl ‘space’ friends in town. She lived just up the road from me and my parents and she knows them well, so having her encouragement and support was quite key to the big reveal really. We walked back to mine and my mum was sat on the sofa watching some terrible crime series she was obsessed with, ciggie in hand, totally oblivious to the inner turmoil I was experiencing. Just another night to her… but to me it was the most nerve-wracking, gut wrenching couple of hours ever. I didn’t even know if this information I had on the tip of my tongue was going to result in me being disowned or hugged! We sat watching TV for hours… I knew time was getting on.
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I was sat bolt upright, gripping the seat, palms sweaty just thinking “say it, say it, SAY IT”. It honestly felt like there was a brick wall between myself and where I needed to get to. My mum switched the TV off, was turning the lights off and said she was going to bed. I ran to my room, grabbed a piece of paper out the printer and wrote exactly what was racing through my head. I was in such a state I can’t even remember exactly what I wrote but it included statements like “I’m sorry”, “please don’t tell me it’s a phase I know it’s not”, “I’ve tried not to be”, “it’s nothing you or Dad did, it’s just who I am”.
"I left my room and gave it to her and asked her to take it upstairs and read it. I ran back into my bedroom and pulled the covers over me (it’s hard to believe I was 19 and not 5 years old lol)."
My mum knocked on the door and came in, expressions of shock and worry were on her face. We discussed it at length and, being my mum, she tried to take control of the situation. “We’ll start with the family first, tell your granny first, then your brother and your sister, then your father.” I was like, I love how she genuinely thinks it’s her call! I was like whoa steady mum, this is definitely my news. She obviously had my best intentions at heart and didn’t want it to be swept under the carpet, but I did need to clarify that this was extremely difficult and required my own pace for things. The next day I felt like a stranger in my own house at first, which was silly really because my mum (pictured below) was acting no different.
I did decide however that I wanted my mum to tell the family one-by-one. The more I thought about it, I knew my bro would take the mick, my sister would probably have known already and as for my dad… Lovely guy, but I had no idea how he’d take it what with his background being Catholic etc. My mum reported back with the reactions… My bro laughed (standard), my sister knew (standard), my cousins thought it was “cool” (get in!) and my gran’s reaction was surprise that I “act nothing like that gay chap on the TV”. I still have no idea who she was even referring to!!! I knew that my dad knew at this point, and a few days later he knocked on my bedroom door and asked if he could have a word. “Your mother’s been pestering me to come and talk to you” lol which I can totally imagine. He's deffo someone who prefers things to just blow over than deal with them. He explained it ‘isn’t what he would have wanted exactly’, but that ‘my happiness is paramount and I’m his son so it’s what he wants for me’. It’s the best possible reaction I could have expected considering his Catholic background growing up in Ireland. I was more than happy. |
"By this point the overwhelming sense of acceptance my family had demonstrated outweighed the slightly ‘meh’ response of his. It had actually happened. 19 years of pent-up anxiety had amounted to this… Seemed almost, simple?"
Will my mum have kept that letter? Knowing my mum, hell yes, though we’ve never spoken about it. Will I ask my mum if she still has that letter? Hell no! One day I would like to but right now the thought of acknowledging that level of vulnerability is too much. I know exactly how vulnerable I felt writing it and how much forgiveness I was begging for and frankly I’m not ready for how shaky it would make me. I’m only just typing my entry for this website!!!
I’m at a good place in life. My parents have met both the two boyfriends I’ve had and been really welcoming and cool with everything, it really is just as regular for me as with my brother and sister’s partners. I have lots of dramas in life but hey who doesn’t. It took 25 years to get here, but... I’ve overcome my fears, developed my confidence and established a good sense-of-self. I have a successful career in Personal Training, specialising in online ‘bootcamps’, encouraging guys with body confidence issues, specific physique goals or a general passion for health & fitness to get involved through social media to follow my diet/workout plans and network with each other. Exercise was something I committed to to get me through stressful times when I was growing up and my career is based on encouraging people to do the same! I was a physically fit and healthy person, but was I mentally fit and healthy?!
I’m at a good place in life. My parents have met both the two boyfriends I’ve had and been really welcoming and cool with everything, it really is just as regular for me as with my brother and sister’s partners. I have lots of dramas in life but hey who doesn’t. It took 25 years to get here, but... I’ve overcome my fears, developed my confidence and established a good sense-of-self. I have a successful career in Personal Training, specialising in online ‘bootcamps’, encouraging guys with body confidence issues, specific physique goals or a general passion for health & fitness to get involved through social media to follow my diet/workout plans and network with each other. Exercise was something I committed to to get me through stressful times when I was growing up and my career is based on encouraging people to do the same! I was a physically fit and healthy person, but was I mentally fit and healthy?!
"Now I’m out the other side and can see the dark times in early life, the utter confusion, the crippling self-hate, the moments I was so upset I wanted to end it all, and section that off as my ‘in the closet’ days I can say with absolute certainty I’ll only continue to grow."
Oh, looks like I’m at that stage of my story where I bring the cliches like “I’ll continue to grow” out, but knowing how lonely it can be and how you question whether life’s fair or even worth living when you’re in that place, a lot of them hold true and it’s important young people hear that side of things.
I was honestly really glad when I saw this organisation and concept being launched. Coming out really shouldn’t have to be a thing, and there’s a long way to go before we’re on a level playing field to the rest of society. I sometimes wonder if I never scribbled those messages to my mum down on paper, how much longer would it have taken? Would I have ever come out? To think there was a time I was actually googling ways to turn myself straight with tears in my eyes… If I ever found out one of my cousins or any young person for that matter was doing the same in 2015 it’d break my heart – but it IS happening. And so is bullying. Change has to happen.
I was honestly really glad when I saw this organisation and concept being launched. Coming out really shouldn’t have to be a thing, and there’s a long way to go before we’re on a level playing field to the rest of society. I sometimes wonder if I never scribbled those messages to my mum down on paper, how much longer would it have taken? Would I have ever come out? To think there was a time I was actually googling ways to turn myself straight with tears in my eyes… If I ever found out one of my cousins or any young person for that matter was doing the same in 2015 it’d break my heart – but it IS happening. And so is bullying. Change has to happen.
"My advice to anyone coming out or coming to terms with their sexuality would be, stay focussed on you and your own happiness, keep pressing in life and you’ll end up the stronger one - in more ways than one!"
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