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View Full Version : Emotions can be dangerous things...



nothings5d
Sep 15, 2007, 2:48 AM
It's weird what our feelings end up doing to us. When I first realized I was bisexual I was afraid to tell anyone for fear of rejection, of what they might think of me. As a result of this I just bottled my feelings up and pretended like they didn't exist when I was near people who didn't know. My parents were the first people I told, mostly because I pretty much knew what their reaction was going to be and I knew I wouldn't be hurt. But around all my friends at college I still acted like I was straight.

Recently though, during a conversation about relationships, I told a friend that I was bisexual. It sort of just slipped out of my mouth and I asked her not to tell anyone, she immediately said to me "Don't tell anyone, but I'm bi too." That reaction gave me a little confidence about telling people, though it caught me by surprise. That was about two weeks ago. Last week a friend was talking about this test to determine sexuality based off the length of your fingers. He asked me to compare my index and ring fingers, I told him they were the same length and he immediately said, "That means you're bisexual." I immediately came back with something to the effect of, "No shit!" Really the only reaction from the people in the room though was a bit of surprise. Then on Thursday at the beginning of one of my programming classes, before the professor got there, the guy next to me was talking about relationships. This guy tries to turn everything into jokes and he suddenly turned to me and started asking about why I didn't have a girlfriend and if I actually wanted one. I just turned to him and said, "Girlfriend, boyfriend, I don't care. I'm bisexual." I still don't really know why I said it, it seemed like a good idea at the time though.

So now a good deal of my friends know, and none of them seem to really care. The fact that none of them care is, to me, the weirdest part of it all. I was especially expecting the guy I said it in class to to react badly, he's a rather stereotypical Christian, he's even a preacher's son. After steeling myself up for bad reactions from people I had a bit of pent up anger at the intolerance I was expecting to receive. Thinking about it now I know why I told the guy in programming class. He was the person I most expected to be intolerant. I was trying to pick a fight with him to help let out some of my anger. Since he didn't react much at all that left me without anyone intolerant to take my anger out on, so I turned the anger toward the only person I could, myself.

During the last day and a half I found myself on a downward spiral of self hate. Anytime I made the slightest mistake I would harp on and on about it until I turned an innocent little error into the worst mistake of my life. The worst of the lot, and granted this one was a little bad socially speaking, got turned into something so bad that in my hate confused mind suicide started looking like a viable answer, and not for the first time in my life. I was just lying in bed contemplating what to do when I realized that none of the people involved in the bad social mistake had even mentioned it since. I started thinking about it and I realized I was being an idiot. My mixed up emotions had taken my mind along routes it never would have gone normally, and all because I didn't get the response I was expecting out of other people. This all reminds me of a reading in my East Asian Philosophy class about Daoism. Daoism is all about living a better life by not reacting based off conscious decisions but by simply going off pure instinct. Maybe they had something there.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of an essay didn't it...

shameless agitator
Sep 15, 2007, 3:49 AM
Oh man I have soooo been there. You learn over time that the only opinion of what you do that matters is your own. As that great sage Dr. Seuss put it, "Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter"

DiamondDog
Sep 15, 2007, 5:12 AM
Just relax, chill out, and calm down.

Other people's opinions about yourself don't matter.
What matters is how you see yourself, if you love yourself, and how you view yourself.

It sounds like people have been pretty accepting and in all honestly most people don't always care if you're gay/bi/non-hetero.

Also not all Xtians/Preacher's kids are bad people and just because someone is an Xtian/PK it doesn't mean that they hate gay/bi/non-hetero people.

Life outside of the closet isn't as stereotypically bad as people who are in the closet say that it is. Congrats on coming out!

If you are feeling suicidal or depressed, get help!

You're in college and there are people (counselors/therapists) who you can see for free and it's confidential, and there are numbers you can call or things like that.

That whole thing about your index finger and ring finger being equal or shorter that if they are either, that you're gay/bi that's an urban myth and what's even MORE funny is that scientists have actually done studies trying to LOL "prove" this. My ring/index fingers happen to be equal but it's just genetic coincidence, just like how I have small hands.

It's just one of those things that kids say to each other to pick on them, like when I was growing up it was said that LOL "two out of every 5 blondes is gay!" LMAO I don't really like twinks but it's a stereotype/myth.

naive
Sep 15, 2007, 5:31 AM
Life outside of the closet isn't as stereotypically bad as people who are in the closet say that it is. Congrats on coming out!

That whole thing about your index finger and ring finger being equal or shorter that if they are either, that you're gay/bi that's an urban myth and what's even MORE funny is that scientists have actually done studies trying to LOL "prove" this. My ring/index fingers happen to be equal but it's just genetic coincidence, just like how I have small hands.


i think i've been brought up on too many movies where gay bashings are so common. do they still happen? i don't get out much :rolleyes:

i must also not pay attention to people's hands very much because i'm so used to my hands where my ring is longer than my index finger. what's more common? i thought i was normal :bigrin:

DiamondDog
Sep 15, 2007, 5:43 AM
i think i've been brought up on too many movies where gay bashings are so common. do they still happen? i don't get out much :rolleyes:

i must also not pay attention to people's hands very much because i'm so used to my hands where my ring is longer than my index finger. what's more common? i thought i was normal :bigrin:

yes bashings do still happen.

I've had them happen to me but it's been verbal for the most part.

I've been beaten up by men before but I've written about that on here before.

Just keep your wits about you and you'll be fine.

Also life in small rural towns isn't hell for GLBT people as one might think that it is.

I've been bashed more when I lived in/near major cities than when I lived in small rural towns in the middle of nowhere.

Germanicus
Sep 15, 2007, 6:41 AM
You need to seek help, and I mean that in a charitable way.

From what you've described about the anger within yourself towards yourself and others, it seems to me that you are in an isolated place at the moment and you need to break out of that.

From my own perspective, I was in situation for a few years - on and off - and I began to rid myself of that through counselling. Counselling made me realise a lot of the concerns I had were either false or I had given them undue emphasis in my life, and consequently, I've felt a lot freer. You reference to Daoism is interesting since living one's life through impulse driven behaviour and not "paralysis through analysis" is very similar to the school of thought that my counsellor practices. It is possible to think too much and the voice of rationale/reason can often drown out the voice of one's own heart. I've always "known" deep down what was "right" and what was "wrong" for me, and what should be filed under "I just don't know (or care)", yet I never had the courage to admit this out loud and to myself until I walked into the room where my counsellor was. It provided the right forum to discuss matters in a sober and objective setting in which to evaluate all these issues without emotion getting in the way.

I suspect from what you have written that you already "know" what the answers are, and you just need to find the right environment in which to express them.

I_am_alone
Sep 15, 2007, 2:19 PM
My ring finger IS the same length as my index finger. :tongue:

Seriously now, I have always has a self-destructive personality. Anger and resentment turned inwards resulted in a drug problem that still today I fight.

Word of advice; Don't be so hard on yourself for having emotions & desires that you do not always understand. If you have 1 or 2 close friends that you can vent to, do so. Keeping things bottled up can lead to all kinds of trouble, above all try to learn to accept yourself (i struggle too), love yourself and recognize that human nature isn't black and white.

I think a lot of the problems with todays society is the fact that most of, if not all, grew up with a religious influence that put on us unrealistic expectations. Combined with the whole "Walt Disney" era of unrealistic notions of love and relationships, people are influenced with false beliefs of what is wrong and right...natural and unnatural.

Don't be so hard on yourself, were all human. :2cents: