Sleepless Nights

Warning: Contains some content that might not be entirely suitable for younger children. Nothing too terribly explicit, and I will try my best to keep it as clean as possible.

A little precursor to this blog and my thoughts on making it: I don't expect necessarily anyone I want to read this to read this. As far as I'm concerned, not too many people actually frequent the blogs section of PokeCommunity on their own regard. Sure, people get linked to peoples' blogs all the time, but this particular blog isn't something I want to force down peoples' throats and spam all over the Showdown Server. It's more of a personal vent and I will discuss a lot of my thoughts here for my own well-being. Not because I want anyone to necessarily read it (otherwise I wouldn't make it a blog post), but because I think it will help me mentally. For that reason, I'm disabling the comments on this blog.

I'm currently attending The Ohio State University and second semester just started at the beginning of January. Midway through January I was walking through a building when I heard a particular song come on the radio or whatever they have playing in the building. This song was none other than "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction. I mentioned to my best friend that I actually liked this song despite all the hate the band tends to get. I honestly hadn't heard any of their other songs besides Live While We're Young (which I've barely heard at the time). He then mentions to me that he also liked the song quite a bit. Upon returning to my dorm room, I brought up the video for the song and listened to it on repeat for quite some time. Apart from that, I began "researching" the band if you will (I like to do that stuff because the more you know about anything, the better).

We'll return to that topic in a minute. Let's rewind a little bit. Sophomore year of high school. Let's just say for quite some time I was not one to look at pornography. It was until Sophomore year that I confirmed a suspicion I had about myself for the longest time. While this may not be a huge reveal or anything on here or to the people on the Showdown server (because I make it terribly obvious), it's a huge deal to me and is currently still an issue I'm dealing with. And that's the simple fact that I'm gay. Sophomore year was when I was 100% positive that the former suspicion was in fact, completely true due to some...internet searches if you will.

Now because I grew up in a religious family, I was highly against the idea of being gay. It wasn't something I wanted. I thought it was wrong, and I felt very guilty just for being who I am. I wanted to be straight more than anything. I was jealous of the fact that my friends found women sexually attractive and I just saw them as romantic interests or just "pretty". I was unhappy with the idea of the fact that if I were to get married and have kids that I wouldn't actually be truly happy. But I wanted to be straight more than anything. So much so that I was willing to sacrifice that true happiness just to live the life that I thought I wanted. I dealt with this for years.

Fast forward to before I took that detour. Mid January was when I began taking an interest in One Direction's music and started to learn more about the band. That's when I discovered a certain someone who will mean a lot more to me than I think anyone can honestly comprehend. That special someone goes by the name Zayn Malik. Why is he so important to me? Well, when I first saw him I guess it hit me. I sat there and realized, "You know what? I'm glad I'm gay." At that moment, I accepted my homosexuality. I didn't want to be straight anymore. I was happy with the idea of being with another guy.

So I had hit that point where I finally accepted myself for who I am. Great for me, right? Yes, indeed it was terrific and a great feeling, but then for the next month I couldn't sleep. At all. It started to eat at me. I was hiding these feelings and thoughts for so long and now I've come to love who I am. I needed to tell SOMEONE and free myself from the secrecy that I swore to myself years ago. So for a month I was basically depressed. I was happy with the progress I made in accepting myself, but I wasn't happy with the idea of confining it. I wanted everyone to know so badly. During that month I actually took my One Direction fandom to an extreme and obsessed over Zayn Malik like crazy (which I feel is somewhat justified considering what he did for me). I did this to an extreme online, and to a lesser extent in real life. The plan was to start to appear like I was into Zayn so that coming out would be an easier process.

While it's certainly worked so far for the online community (because I'm very aware that this whole thing isn't a shock to any of you who talk to me), in real life my best friend decided to tag onto this whole obsession over 1D and Zayn Malik. To the point where it became a joke. The positives is that it allowed me to be more myself openly without the suspicions of my sexuality being at stake, but it messed up my plan to make things easier in real life as well because it's just a joke essentially.

Around a week after I got into One Direction, a friend of mine was playing some Macklemore on her computer as well. Everyone knows the song Thrift Shop, and I'm sure many of you are familiar with the song Same Love as well. Well I hadn't heard Same Love before and when she played it I guess my sense of pride was heightened and encouraged me more into the idea of coming out. Not to mention when I first saw the music video I had to hardcore hold back tears because it will literally make me cry 100% of the time. This only made my pent up feelings "worse" I guess though. I was going to burst.

So after that month of me basically ripping myself apart, I came out to the first person. That person is a special someone who goes by the name Jake♫. Not only were we good friends before my return to PC at the beginning of January, but we always considered ourselves to be twins. We have a lot of similarities and it just turned out that being gay was one of them. I figured not only would he know what I'm going through, but I thought he would be able to help me (and he definitely has). I can undoubtedly say he's the best friend I've ever made on the internet and the only person I'd be willing to actually hang out with in real life. Jake, if you're reading this, you're an extremely important person to me and I want you to know that.

So that satiated my need to tell people for quite some time. Like half a month. Telling Jake was great, honestly. A great deal of weight was lifted off my shoulders and being able to talk about things I hadn't even thought of or ever said "out loud" (I know it's text, but it's almost the same) was just about the greatest feeling in the world. However, my only connections to Jake are through the digital world. I can't actually talk to him in person. I needed someone in my immediate vicinity to know so I could not only get first hand opinions on more surrounding-based questions, but also just have a physical person being there to pat me on the back when I doubt myself.

So the weekend of February 16th rolls around. My best friend, and honestly a great candidate for the first person in real life to tell, was one of the few people who was going to be staying at the dorm that weekend. I live in a quad, and our other roommates were both going home for that weekend. His younger brother was coming up, but I figured he'd go to bed a reasonable-ish time to the point where I could get my best friend alone and tell him, get that weight of my chest. I knew about this upcoming weekend for about two weeks. Each day that it got closer, I doubted myself more and more on whether or not I could do it. Then I found out my other friend from home was visiting that weekend as well. I was disappointed to hear this naturally because it kinda messed up my plans.

I didn't lose hope though, I was sure that if I was determined enough I could tell him, pull him aside if I needed to. However that other friend of ours stayed up with us until the early hours of the morning (8AM) and then when he finally went to bed (after a series of tricks by me to keep my best friend awake) I talked to my best friend for about an hour...trying to just get it out. I couldn't. I stayed there and held what probably felt like a normal conversation to him. Then he went to bed. I hated myself. I thought I was weak and stupid and couldn't follow through with plans.

So the depression got worse because I started to beat myself up mentally I guess. I was becoming increasingly less happy with my inability to tell him. The weekend ends, everyone is back into the school routine, except me because I can't sleep. Then Tuesday night / Wednesday morning roll around. My best friend and I are sitting in the office / study area of our room and another friend of ours is in there talking to us about life and stuff. The conversation was moderately emotionally deep I guess. Anyway, that other friend left the room and went to bed at about...I want to say around 4:30 AM.

So I told my best friend that I was going to go hang out in our common room (shared by 12 people in a suite) because it was more comfortable or whatever. He decided to join me. At this point everyone is asleep except us. I'm going to skip a bit of what happened because it's honestly one of the silliest things ever and I hate telling that part of the story. Anyway, I ask him a stupid question, I tell a story to him about my life, he tells me one of his stories.

Then the time comes. He's done talking. I break the few seconds of silence with: "Jake, I have to tell you something. It's really important." I start shaking violently and crying. I literally sat there, shaking and crying and babbling about how stupid I was for 20 minutes. I'm not exaggerating about that time either. It was literally 20 minutes of me saying "I can't do it." / "You know, you say it!" / "It's just two words." / etc. Obviously at that point he knew what I was trying to tell him, but being the friend that he is, he didn't want to take that moment from me. He played stupid so that I could get it out myself.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to. I hated myself initially for how I told him. But looking back on it? I think it's one of the most adorable things in the world and it honestly brings tears to my eyes. After the drawn out crying and inability to tell him, I told him to look away for a minute. I grabbed my computer and started to play a certain music video by the name of Same Love. As I hit play, the music began, I turned away, broke apart (crying), and he said "Aww, Connor" in the most calming way I can ever imagine. I'll never forget the way he said it because I knew he was happy I was happy with myself. At that moment the biggest weight in the world was off my shoulders and I can't describe any feeling that even compares to how I felt at that moment.

So. Jump to today. Why am I doing this? Well, you see, I'm not happy with myself again. Not because I'm gay. But because I'm beginning to have trouble telling more people. At this moment in time, I've told 6 people in real life, and after this blog goes through, anyone who reads this will know as well (or have it confirmed because I mean I make it obvious as ****). I'm currently awake at 7:30 AM writing this up despite the fact that I have quite a few things to do tomorrow (today I guess), such as study for my midterm on Thursday.

I have a list of people I want to tell personally, and I personally feel it's a huge undertaking because excluding those 6 people I've already informed, I still have about 15 more to go. 5 of them need to be told before the end of this month as well (I know I shouldn't set time limits to tell people, but one of them is leaving OSU next year and the others I can't really talk to in person until next year comes back around). It's stressful as hell to think about and even when given the opportunities to tell someone, I haven't been taking them. I've become a coward and it sucks. I know for a fact that I will get those 5 told by the end of the month. I can't let that not happen no matter what.

Like I said at the beginning though, this blog is for me. I just needed a way to vent since everyone I know in real life is asleep right now or doesn't know yet (and they're with people I don't particularly want knowing right now). It's messing me up pretty bad to the point where I'm literally nocturnal. Anyway, if you read this, thanks I guess. As a thank you I'll give you a picture (bet you can't guess of what):