How I Overcame Self-Doubt and Found My Own Gay Identity

I’ve spent my entire life trying to find an identity. I didn’t always realize that I was gay. I grew up in a conservative, Catholic household. Gay wasn’t a thing that I could talk openly about with anyone in my family. We didn’t talk about gay people or gay identity in my family. When the subject did come up, it was definitely not a positive experience.

My mum would go out of her way to make sure we knew that gay wasn’t an option for us because of God, morality, and heaven, all of the Catholic arguments still being made against homosexuality today. It wasn’t until high school that I even considered any other sexuality than straight.

I had a high school girlfriend who was bisexual. She was an athlete and she was female. No one batted an eye at the bisexual basketball player. Not even when she started dating the nerdy, socially awkward, overweight, soft-spoken kid.

Females could be gay, I was told. Men being gay was just wrong and most people shied away from any man who was remotely openly gay in the late 1990s. I was the kid who never had the courage or the confidence to approach anyone I was remotely interested in. I would pine for days, months, sometimes even years, before I even considered making a move or moving on altogether.

It wasn’t until I was with this very girlfriend that I realised that I might not be as much into women as I had originally thought. I knew I was more of the book-smart, intellectual type and had never really paid attention to anyone in a sexual way much as a youngster.

I just never imagined that after all this time, I would be bisexual or possibly even gay as opposed to asexual or uninterested in romantic pursuits.

I knew that this realisation would lead to me being potentially disowned or shunned by my own family. That’s probably why I hid my true identity for so long. I felt like Clark Kent playing Superman.

I couldn’t let anyone find out who I really was because once I was found out, there was no going back. I had to hide my true feelings, my true self, for years, decades at that. I didn’t decide to come out to anyone outside of a small group of close, trusted friends until I was almost 30 years old.

I had previously snuck around going to gay bars and resorted to random, drunken hookups in my early 20s to try to find my place in the community at large but I rarely made myself visible for long enough to be recognised by many of my young peers. I didn’t stay around the scene very long. I realised that it wasn’t really the scene I wanted to be a part of. I’ve never been much of a drinker and going to these places made me want to social drink because I didn’t even have enough courage to approach guys I was interested in.

I would sit in the corner, alone most days, while I was trying to take in the scene and figure out my place in the community. I never actively went up and talked to anyone. I’ve never really been one to approach strangers anyway and all of these people I’d been introduced to were very strange and very different from what I was used to being around.

My approach was overly cautious and anxiety-ridden, and the only time I ever stepped outside of my comfort zone is when I would participate in consuming liquid courage.

I got so drunk one of these nights that I didn’t know which way was up and ended up flirting with an attractive older man and going home with him. These nights happened more frequently than I liked them to.

I never liked losing control of my senses and my surroundings but I felt like this was the only way that I could allow myself to immerse myself in the experience more.

I had feverishly low self-esteem and overthought way too much when I was left with my sober mind. I decided after a while that the bar scene just wasn’t where I wanted to establish my presence when I was ready to come out.

That’s when I started going to choir practice for the men’s chorus. I know it was a gay men’s chorus but there were so many people in the group, I felt like being associated with the group wouldn’t necessarily out me.

I found somewhere to join as a young, single man who didn’t have to involve drinking, drugs, or random sex. I could just showcase my talent without worrying about getting too out of control. I started to make friends within the group and gained some valuable experience in my short time in the choir.

I just didn’t feel like singing in a group, especially as big as the Sacramento Men’s Chorus, was something I wanted to do to establish my identity either.

I eventually gave up and stepped away from the community at large for years. I just decided that I was content being single and that I didn’t need to rush coming out just to find my significant other. I reasoned that I had plenty of time left as I matured to figure out my identity and my place in the overall community. Years went by. I managed to hold out for almost a whole decade.

I was still in partial denial because of my initial misfit with the local gay scene. I still dated women in my late 20s but mostly for physical pleasure as I found it easier for me to talk to women than to men. I was still overweight and I found that the women I encountered were more likely to accept that than the gay and bisexual men I found myself attracted to.

I didn’t want to be a gym rat. I was still very much into intellectual pursuits well into my 20s and didn’t want to have to change my appearance just because most men I had met were more visual than drawn to personality.

Basically, at that point in my life, I took what I could get. Then something changed. My girlfriend at the time decided that she wanted to lose weight and encouraged me to go to a group that would help.

I eventually ended up losing 125 pounds in one year undergoing drastic diet changes and more rigorous exercise routines, including cycling and light manual labour. My confidence skyrocketed. My self-image improved. I found a new lease on life.

I ended up dumping my girlfriend, putting myself out there more and highlighting my already existing positive qualities. I figured that as a previously overweight person, I would have more sympathy and compassion towards overweight people than the other guys I’d met did. I was, but I did fall into the trap of dating people physically similar to me as I dated smaller guys.

I didn’t want to be accused of dating my twin. It would be hard for me to be accused of that, though, considering that I am brown and from a mixed background. I’ll admit that even though I’d been exposed to a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities in the past, I’d mostly dated white guys.

This was most likely a byproduct of having a white father and wanting to date someone similar in appearance and demeanour to my dad. Was I going to be known in the community for the guy who is dating white boys?

I didn’t want to be known as a “potato queen” and I didn’t want the guys dating me to be seen as some sort of “rice queen”. I just wanted to find a guy who would date me for me and nothing else. I knew that the change in appearance would make my dating life easier but as I was slowly finding out, I would encounter some major issues finding meaningful connections.

The community I had wanted to find a role in was still just as superficial and label-happy as the place I felt excluded and isolated from many years before. The popular Grindr slogan, “no fats, no femmes, no (insert race here),” came to mind. However, because I was decently more attractive and fit, I had an easier time navigating the waters.

I figured that even though my confidence and self-esteem were increasing, I wouldn’t just settle for the next person that was interested or that I would engage in random hookups. I’m not saying that my transformation didn’t help my sex life. It certainly did.

I was just looking for my place in the greater scheme of things and I was also looking for love. I was mature enough, now in my early 30s, to want something more substantive than a one-night stand or friends with benefits.

I had been very experienced in sex for someone who had little interest in it and hadn’t dated very often. I resorted to dating apps. I went to places like Grindr, Scruff, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish, to find myself a match.

Then I had a realisation. Wait a second! All this time, I’ve been trying to find my identity and my place in the gay community. We’re not a monolith and there are diverse stories and backgrounds. I don’t have to conform to stereotypes, change my personality, or find appropriate labels to market myself to potential suitors. I could just be myself and let my personality carry me to a suitable match.

I could also apply this to the community at large. I’m not the openly flamboyant boy, I’m not the femboy, and I’m certainly not the party animal. I saw myself as being different and that I didn’t really have to establish only one niche to describe myself.

As I navigated the online dating world, I fully realised that my brand may not be the most marketable or the one that even stood out the most but it would just be me and I would show the world at that point that being gay was only part of my identity and not the whole thing as I’d been previously stigmatized to by my childhood and the time I grew up in.

My story has met a happy juncture to this point. I have been in a loving, committed relationship for the last eight years with a loving, supportive, and brilliant man. We’ve faced much adversity, both in our personal and professional lives respectively. We’ve been through a lifetime's worth of trauma and joy.

I’m finding my identity. Despite never being able to commit long-term to anyone or really anything before now, I found out that I’m the passion and commitment guy. I put my heart and soul into every commitment I make now, whether that’s in my writing, my relationship, or in my many interests.

I’m much stronger and more resilient than I thought I was before. I transformed from a timid, anxious, awkward, cautious person, to someone who is much more outgoing and who takes chances more often. I’m also the tiny home guy.

I stepped outside my comfort zone and tried something new that scared me. Even though I’ve pretty much gained back all of the weight I lost in my original transformation, my self-confidence and self-esteem mostly remained.

I still have my moments of self-doubt. I’m almost positive those feelings never fully go away, but at least now I’ve found a purpose, a love, and a direction in life.

Artist Bio: The Sturg is a nicheless writer, writing about an assortment of topics for dozens of different publications. He has been a top writer in writing, a two-time Top Writer in NBA, a top writer in NFL, a two-time top writer in energy, a two-time top writer in travel, a top writer in music, a top writer in food, a top writer in health, a top writer in this happened to me, a top writer in future, and a top writer in sports.

Photo by Renate Vanaga on Unsplash