Worry of A Closeted Guy

There are some questions raised by a reader from my previous post titled "A Beginner's Guide as A Gay Person" in the comments. I tried to reply in the comments area itself but it's too lengthy to be posted as a comment. So I'm replying his questions as a follow-up blog post here.

Here's the question:

Hi! I have something to ask about point number 3...hmmm, supposedly those gay dating sites or grindr are for gay people to browse thru..however, I am also afraid that there may be straight homophobic people who are so free like they have got nothing else to do, who will purposely visits those site, just to hunt down gay guys around them whom they recognize, and exposing them to get fun.. do you think this will happen? I have not been to any gay dating sites, so maybe you can enlighten me about the possibility of that? or well maybe I am just being paranoid, hahah!

Again, too long, so click on the Read More link.

TL;DR: You're not ready yet.

I'm glad someone asked this, because I had a similar worry too last time (if it is not asked, I'd have forgotten about it). Actually, I don't have definite answers for the questions, but since the reason I wrote the blog post was that I want to share my experience with people who are starting to come out, I will try my best to clear this up a bit.

First, I can't say for sure that there isn't any possibility that this could happen. The point is totally valid.

But let's put this into perspective a bit. Let's start to think from asking, why would the guy visit a gay site? You may say it's for fun and he's too free, but those are not valid reasons, there should be more than those. The possibilities I can think of are:

  1. He seems homophobic but deep down he's gay, or at least curious.

    He's probably curious and want to know more about gay. He's probably suspecting that he's gay too.

    If this is the case, then it's quite unlikely for him to expose you in public, because others would question why is he in the gay site in the first place? By exposing you, people might start suspecting him being gay too, and that's a big no-no for a homophobic person.

    So in this case, there's nothing much to worry about. He might (or might not) come to you personally to confirm your sexuality, but he probably won't make a fuss over it.

  2. He hates you.

    Well maybe he doesn't really hate you, but he dislikes you or is displeased with you. Maybe for some reasons, you got on his nerves. And at the same time, your behaviour is obvious enough for him (and very likely everyone else too) to reasonably suspect you being a gay person (after all, if you hide it well enough, who would suspect you're gay?). So for him to relief his nerve on you, he followed his suspicion and went to a gay site to hunt you down.

    For that I think you can blame yourself for not being a nice person. But chances are, you're pretty comfortable with the homo-suspicions around you already so you probably wouldn't even care if anyone expose you.

Those are the two possibilities that I can think of, of which the worry about being exposed can be dismissed. But there might be other possibilities that didn't come to my mind as well. So treat this as something to provoke your thoughts, not a definite solution.

Anyway, if a worry like this arises to you, it's an indication that you're not ready yet. Give yourself some time and take it slowly. You can test the water by not showing your face on the sites first (at the same time don't expect too much for a serious relationship yet).

As time goes on, you'll get more comfortable with yourself being gay. When the time comes, you won't care that much if a homophobic guy who hates you would log on a gay site just to expose you. Yes, it's possible that this could happen, but when your desire to find true gay friends and lover overcome your fear of being exposed as gay, you won't care about those anymore.

I hope this can at least generate a little thinking process in your mind. Again, don't take my advice as it is, because everyone's circumstances are different.

5 comments:

  1. Oh gosh hahaha! Ya know! I was actually wondering was I asking some stupid questions on your last post! LOL~ seriously thanks for your answer, thanks so much! It's so true and 一针见血!!(sorry for my poor English, haha!)..If this is gonna happen on me, it would be more towards situation number 2...people start to suspect I believe,obviously I am a bad actor..I am trying to stay not too close with people, so that they wouldn't suspect..and yup, I absolutely know that I am not ready at all...I don't know when I will be ready, probably when I am old where I have nothing to loose...so pathetic that I am actually so afraid.. >.<

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Sharks: No problem. These are not stupid questions to me. When I was at the state you are in right now, I didn't have anyone to consult to, so I'm so glad my answer helps.

    And I too thought that I would probably be too old already when I'm finally ready, but it actually came much earlier than I thought. When you have a chance to start a new life in a new environment, you probably will consider to take another step in your journey being gay. Don't rush it and you'll find it coming its way earlier than you thought.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha! Anyway, thanks again...well, I actually find that you are quite mature at your age, with a very clear mind...Good luck to you~ ^^

    ReplyDelete
  4. If a straight guy even bothers finding out about Grindr - and then attempts to download it.... you can be sure he isn't all that straight after all. Most straight guys wouldn't be bothered to go through so much effort just to be vindictive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Sharks: You're welcome. Yeah, my thinking is definitely overaged, thus the subtitle of the blog, and probably because I have too much time on my own to think on anything.

    @savante: Exactly my point. I think that's too much for the effort required for a straight guy. But we still can't deny the slightest possibility of it, so I think it's better to draw the whole picture for the readers to decide on their own.

    ReplyDelete