Sorry I’ve disappeared for a long time. I started to write a lot more on here and have a bunch of drafts, but as the world would have it, I’ve just been so busy.
To start, last year, I had a health scare. Thankfully it was nothing but a false positive, but unfortunately, with the way health insurance is in the US, I got stuck with a $6000 hospital bill. Three years ago, I had some emergency surgery and when I thought everything was over and done with that, I got a letter in the mail from a collection agency, looking for almost $5000 in uncollected debt from a monitoring group that was apparently in the surgical room. I had never received any notices in the mail about it until they put me into collections. On top of everything else, I also fell behind on my mortgage. So to say things have been a bit hard is an understatement. I haven’t told anyone about this and I’m just really trying to keep myself in a positive headspace.
I had been looking to for a second job and finally got one last month. So now, I basically work from 9AM to 1AM, Monday through Friday. It sucks and I’m so stretched thin, but I’m doing what I have to do to survive. I was adamant about not working weekends, to keep some sanity in my life, but I’m considering extending work into the weekends just to make ends meet.
I feel like I have no friends anymore. The few that I have, I haven’t heard from really at all. My family pops up here and there but I just can’t help but feel alone in all this. I talk to my parents every day, but I can’t ask them for help. They’re retired and on a fixed income. I can’t bring myself to worry them. After all, I got myself into this, right?
Despite being busy, I haven’t really heard from Dean or Luca at all. I last saw them when I went to visit for Christmas. I was in a rush because I had a limited time before I had to go and spend the holidays with my family. Dean does reach out every so often, but I haven’t really heard from Luca. I had tried to reach out but I can tell things are different. The texts are so short. I guess I fucked up that whole relationship too? And forget about trying to find anyone to have a relationship with. I think I’ve blocked every guy in a 30 mile radius on Grindr. I had met someone, we met up and I thought we had hit it off really well. He seemed like such a genuine and sweet guy and then I was ghosted yet again. I guess it’s legit me. Maybe I’m just toxic and I don’t even realize it?
I’ve come to accept that I’ll just be alone for the rest of my life. My cousin has been suffering from some serious depression. We weren’t extremely close growing up but then we went on a vacation together and we got really close. We would talk all the time and then she took an opportunity to move overseas and then things changed. I’ve tried to reach out to her but also give her her space. She reached out to me, super excited to tell me how she met someone online and how he’s amazing and checks all of her boxes. I was so happy for her. She began to tell me how she had accepted and was ok with being alone for the rest of her life. I felt so bad and told her not to give up and this guy seems great. I couldn’t understand how she felt back then, but now I do. It turns out that the guy was a total catfish. He was using photos of some Spanish actor and telling her all the right things that she wanted to hear. What make it worse is that I was the one to do the reverse image search and figure it all out.
Anyway, so amongst everything going on, I am struggling, as usual, to come out. The two people I had come out to was my best friend and my niece. My best friend, if you hadn’t read about him already, seemed to be cool with it but then really wasn’t. He ended up becoming a drug abuser and has been in and out of rehab since. His drug usage wasn’t because I came out to him, he definitely has some demons to deal with. My niece has been quite supportive but at the end of the day I have to remind myself that she’s my niece. She needs to lean on me for support and not the other way around.
So since I started my second job, I’ve been wanting to come out or at least be honest as to who I am with those that I work with. It just so happens that one of my besties works there and her mother is the manager, so that’s how I was able to land the job. I’ve known this girl for over 10 years and I know very much so that I can tell her and she would be 110% supportive, but I just can’t seem to tell her. I’ve had MANY opportunities to tell her, but every time I try to, I just can’t say it… “I am gay.”
One of the guys that works there is gay and very much out and proud. He’s only 20 years old but genuinely such a nice guy. I figured he has suspected I was gay but has never said anything to me about it. He’s openly talked about his hookups with us and has even flashed some dick pics of the guys he’s hooked up with, but he respectfully has never asked me. Now I’ve also never denied it. I’ve come to the point where I won’t deny it if asked, but I am also not announcing it to the whole world.
Anyway, so last night, I went to drop something off to them and he was working and about to go on his break. He asked me to go on his break with him, so I had decided to sit with him and just hang. He brought up him hooking up with some guys again. He showed me their face pic and then their dick pic. I did my usual “Oh, good for you!” bit, trying to react just right to not raise any flags. I genuinely don’t know if he was trying to test me or what, but I didn’t do the overly straight and insecure reaction of “What the FUCK bro!?” either. We had a basic conversation and then his break was over. I had walked up to the front and something came over me and I had decided to tell him that I was gay. I went to the back and he was gone. He had went to the bathroom. When he returned, I hesitated, but finally went up to him and said “You know that I am, right?”
He immediately said how he has suspected but wasn’t sure. He actually told me what gave me away was TikTok. Since we’re friends on the app, whenever I comment, my comments go to the top and apparently I’ve commented on a lot of videos that we have in common. To be honest, I don’t hide who I am on TikTok. I comment freely without hesitation, so I suppose it wasn’t hard for him to figure it out. We talked some more and he gave me a few hugs in between everything. I told him how I realized that I’m struggling with those three simple words… I. Am. Gay. I realized that when I came out to my niece, I never actually said those words. When I had come out to my best friend, it was initially “I guess I’m bi” and eventually it was that I never slept with a woman nor did I want to. I never uttered those three words. Even now with my coworker, I still didn’t say those words.
He ended up being so supportive and loving. He told me when it’s the right time, it will happen. He sent me this beautiful text of how he is so proud of me and that it’s some serious growth on my part. I was genuinely ready to shit a brick but then he just made it so much better with his text. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a 20 year old could be so supportive and beautiful and respectful. It honestly gave me hope.
I know that Grindr is not the best app to find a soulmate and that I should probably try Tinder, but with that comes with me having to put my face pic out there along with me showing that I’m interested in men. I’m not there yet, but I think I’m getting there slowly. I hate this so much.