I always gave off signals that just made people wonder what the hell was up with me, and whether I was from another planet. Some actually ended up deciding that I was asexual, though they were wrong.
This is going to sound bizarre, but one thing that I think was going on with me is that I was actually sort of emotionally precocious. I was having what I now realize were rudimentary crushes on little girls at school when I was 6 or 7 (I fully twigged to what was going on when I was about 8). I don't think this is all that uncommon, but I don't think most boys experience it quite this strongly, this early; or they express the feelings they do have in this strange, aggressive, playful way that little boys have, playing pranks on girls and chasing-and-kissing games and such. Whereas I tended to over-think everything and got powerful feelings of shame instead, girls being officially icky. And to some extent it actually carried through puberty; now I was supposed to feel attraction but still thought that if I expressed it, it would be bad and ridiculous. And I became a sort of closeted straight.
Gay men sometimes say that they knew they were gay when they were small children, and people don't believe it because they think of their childhood experience as free from these feelings, but it sounds completely plausible to me.
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Date: 2005-07-27 06:52 am (UTC)This is going to sound bizarre, but one thing that I think was going on with me is that I was actually sort of emotionally precocious. I was having what I now realize were rudimentary crushes on little girls at school when I was 6 or 7 (I fully twigged to what was going on when I was about 8). I don't think this is all that uncommon, but I don't think most boys experience it quite this strongly, this early; or they express the feelings they do have in this strange, aggressive, playful way that little boys have, playing pranks on girls and chasing-and-kissing games and such. Whereas I tended to over-think everything and got powerful feelings of shame instead, girls being officially icky. And to some extent it actually carried through puberty; now I was supposed to feel attraction but still thought that if I expressed it, it would be bad and ridiculous. And I became a sort of closeted straight.
Gay men sometimes say that they knew they were gay when they were small children, and people don't believe it because they think of their childhood experience as free from these feelings, but it sounds completely plausible to me.