Anon

1 - leo

Dear anon,

First of all, I'm not homophobic. I know plenty of gay people, and I'm perfectly comfortable being around them. I have no issue with marriage, or them holding hands down the street. Christ, my own uncle is gay, so being homophobic is never really an option.
The thing is, anon, I really, really don't want myself to be gay.

Like I said, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I'm just not the type of person you'd think of as "gay". I'm not the poster child for homosexuality or anything. I'm six foot two, and LARGE, built like a tree, broad shoulders, and I do boxing and rugby and all kinds of fun "manly" sports, I hate theatre and dancing and musicals and hair and fashion and whatever other cliches you can pin onto homosexuals. Fucking hell, I'm even doing CCF in my spare time.

In other words, I'm an honest to god heterosexual, appearance-wise.

Which is where my problem arises. Everyone sees me as straight. And I'm terrified, so bloody terrified, of being seen as anything other than what people perceive me as. I can't talk to anyone about it, especially not my friends, quite frankly down to the fact that they're all a bit like me, in the "big butch man" sense, not the "closeted gay person" thing. And let me tell you that reading through forums of people who are going through the same thing as me doesn't help. Not really, anyway. There's a kind of comfort in realising that it's not just me going through this, but in reality, they're not me. They don't have my friends, my family, my interests (except the common shared one being...well, penises), so how on earth will their coming out stories help me?
So instead, I'm writing to an anonymous lesbian on the Internet in the hopes that maybe she can help me sort out some damn feelings.

Sorry to hear about your girlfriend, by the way.

-Leo.