I had not had many girlfriends, up will I was 30. My last girlfriend was a really pretty girl and I loved her. For a whole year, we were together almost 24 hours a day,. as we were both in the same place of work. plus my room was the room everybody congregated in when we werent working. By the way, anybody made a girl come just by playing with your girlfriends foot, I did in a room full of people. That was a trip and a half.
Our sex life was amazing, every night and sometimes in the daytime, for a whole year. She was the one that always initiated it, I didnt have to. I think I lost about a stone in weight that year.
I was working on a piece for work about HIV as it was the early 90’s, and I knew very little about it, and I just could not get it started. I had not met a gay person before and I felt like I needed to go see if I could chat to somebody about how it was affecting them. So I told my girlfriend I was going to a gay pub I knew to chat to somebody if they would chat to me about HIV and if they had been affected by it. Off I went and that was the beginning of a mixture of a nightmare and me feeling like I had arrived.
I have to say up will then, I was quite homophobic. Did not like gay people at all. And the only gay people I had come across were camp and loud and thats what I thought all gay men were like. To my surprise when I arrived at the pub it was nothing like I thought it was going to be like, and right from me stepping through the door I was met by friendly straight acting me. I got chatting and the subject of HIV came up and I learnt a lot in those few hours I was there.
The other thing that happened was that realisation that I was attracted to one of the guys there, and I realised that I was gay. It was such a shock, I needed a drink, and the drunker I was getting the more I wanted this. As the night went on I eventually plucked up the courage to chat to him, and by the end of the night, I was going home with him. I cant tell you what was going on in my head, fear, excitement, about what was going to happen, and how I was going to tell my girlfriend.
he whole time we were off to his house my heart was in my mouth, and beating so hard that I didnt know if I was going to be able to go through with it.
Suffice to say I ended up sleeping with him, and realising that I was definitely gay.
For days after I was sullen, morose, and feeling really sick, and for the first time in a year, I refused to have sex with my girlfriend. For weeks, I would just about make myself talk to her trying not to show her that something was wrong. But eventually, I had to tell her. I just didnt know how and didnt realise what my life was going to be like after I had told her.
Suffice to say she was really upset, and for days just would not talk to me. I tried and tried to say how sorry I was but nothing would console her.
It was a few days later that I realised I had not seen many people come to my flat, and tried to call people, and I got a brick wall. It seems my girlfriend had called all our friends and told them, and I was now a pariah. Nobody would talk to me, and as well as my friends the other people I was working with were being really difficult. By the end of a couple of months I realized that I could no longer work there, the situation was horrible. I ended up leaving there, and found another job.
So, not only did I find out I was gay late in life, but I was outed against my will to everybody we both knew. It was quite a stressful time for me, and took me years to come to terms with what happened.
I am not very good at putting pen to paper, but that was the gist of how I got outed.
