I was bullied

The first thing that was odd was that I wasn’t getting interested in girls when year 9 and 10 came around. At first I thought I just wasn’t trying hard enough and that I just had to decide which girls and which ladies were good looking and attractive. I tried to force myself to look at a girl as she walked past and think “gee, don’t those legs look sexy”.

Then I thought I must have just been a late bloomer. That sooner or later I would start liking girls and then I could “get a girlfriend” like all the other popular boys at school were getting.

Then I thought it must have just been because I was at an all-boys school. I wasn’t friends with any girls and hadnt known many new ones since moving from my local high school in year 8.

It must have been year 11 when it started. I would find it easier to identify who was a good looking or cute man or guy than a good looking girl. Or rather I would “know” what a good looking girl looked like, but that they didn’t immediately jump out to me the way a cute guy would.

That was when I probably started acting more campy. Silly jokes and mannerisms which were not bloody or “cool”. The people around me probably realised I was gay before I did.

Even throughout year 12 as I would go to sleep dreaming of my cute classmates rather than an attractive female model I still wasn’t willing to accept myself as gay. I just wasn’t there yet. I was sure I would start liking females soon.

I tried telling myself that I was bisexual. That’s why I thought guys looked cute and why I complemented a particularly handsome classmate on how good he looked.

All the while my personality and mannerisms must have shown what I was.

I moved into the boarding house in year 11, in 2003. While it started off well for the first few days, as I already knew most of the boarders in my year, things quickly took a turn for the worse.

One individual chased me round and rubbed his ass in my face.

Constant mocking and taunting about being a “battler”. Making fun of the fact I liked the Lord of the Rings.

These things started to add up. Eventually the younger year groups saw that I had no respect among the people in my year group.

That meant they didn’t have to give me any respect. Some of the people in the year below me started to get in on it by mocking and bullying me. Performing floor duty to get the younger year groups into bed and shutting up, or cleaning their rooms in the morning became extremely difficult.

Once there was a used condom left on my pillow.

In university things improved, but I changed my personality as a result.

I became blander. More blokey. More cynical. I hid away the stuff that had happened during high school.

The words they said to me were the least of the things that they did. So if I was able to suffer from that during high school and come out “fine” then others shouldn’t complain.

But there was a different challenge. I had accepted that I liked guys in 2005 during my year away in China.

When I got back and started university I was planning on telling people I liked guys.

Then I got there and lost my courage. I feared people would treat me the same way as what happened in high school. So I kept quiet at first.

I was going to work up my courage, to go over and talk to one of the other gay guys in the college. But two of them were already a couple and the other two were, to put it bluntly, too camp.

Then I became best mates with someone who didn’t like gay people. I found my friendship with him was more important than trying to get together with one of two guys who I didnt like.

So I kept a part of myself hidden for years and years. Not able to try and find a relationship.

In 2008 I and a female work mate tried to have sex and I couldn’t “get excited”. That’s when I knew once and for that I wasn’t just bisexual. I was fully gay.

but I still could not act on it. For years and years I saw people forming intimate relationships, finding hook ups at the Uni pubs, hooking up among themselves and hearing about their various exploits. All the while I wasn’t able to, for fear of being found out and losing my friends.

Even when I returned back home after being oversea in 2008 I had to keep it hidden. My father doesn’t like gay people.

Whenever a news story about gay marriage came on he would complain about the Greens and the “do-gooders” wanting to change the definition of marriage.

So for another two years I had to live with a part of myself in secret, no relationships, no sex.

I decided I was not going to tell them I was out until I had a full-time job and able to afford rent and living by myself.

I finally got this in October 2010 and came out to a small group of close high school friends in December 2010.

I lost my virginity at the age of 24 in April 2011 when I stayed over at another guys house when my family were away on a trip and would not know I was gone.

I was forcibly outed in March 2011 when I brought a gay friend home from a club one night and he slept over in my bed.

I told my parents I was bisexual, rather than gay so it would be easier for them to take it. They still believe that. I still haven’t told anyone from university to make sure that it is not passed on to my university friends.I don’t know if I ever will.