To All The Dudes I Was With Before I Came Out
Let’s start with a cliche: It’s not you, it’s me. Alas, there was not one single man who “turned” me gay, so you can all breathe easy. And, no, I wasn’t just using you all in an effort to turn myself straight. I can compare my relationships with men to cold pizza: comforting and familiar, but just not as hot as it could be.
Hindsight is 20/20, and mine tells me that all my feelings of dissatisfaction within my male relations comes from the fact that I probably should have been with your sister instead, so don’t take our endings personally.
And don’t think that because I prefer Sally to Sal, that I had no standards when it came to choosing my male counterparts. Something still drew me in, whether it be your humor, your talent, or your willingness to drink on a Tuesday. All of these qualities are coincidentally the same as the ones I look for in my friends. And isn’t any relationship supposed to consist of some degree of friendship?
This got me thinking that a lot of these men probably weren’t interested in anything more than sex. Coming out is a great way to weed out the people (not just dudes) who are interested in your happiness and the ones who are not. Postcoming out, I have had my share of support, but also some anger.
The anger mainly came from the guys who realize I no longer want to have sex with them, and they then decided that I wasn’t worth having around anymore. I am taking this as a blessing, because they’re probably not the type of people I want in my life anyway.
Of course, I have had immense support as well. I still keep in touch and hang out with men that I once dated, and nothing is really different except that we don’t go home together. We still laugh, still talk about our problems (sharing girl troubles, woohoo!), and still respect each other. This is how any relationship be.
A relationship shouldn’t terminate with the loss of sex, so if you are ever wary about somebody, think about how your relationship would be minus the physical stuff. Or just come out…that’s what I did!