This thread is inspired by jarbabyj, who discussed her gay ex-boyfriend in the “things I firmly believe about Dopers” MPSIMS thread (find it yo damn self :D).
I have her beat - I had two. The second one was a boring story, but the first time was a lot more fun. One of my best friends and I, on a pretty drunken night, confessed our attraction towards each other and started dating. About a month later, we went off for Christmas break, and when we came back, she told me that she had realized while we were away that she was lesbian.
Since we had always been tight, I stepped into the role of her beard at school (she was ROTC), and she introduced me to the gay culture. It was probably one of the best things that had ever happened to me - I had lovely intellectual thoughts about gay rights, etc., but she was the first gay person I was really close with, and travelling with her through the local gay clubs and parties changed gay people from abstractions to real live people for me.
'Course, it was also damn funny. My favorite incident was one night when I was hanging at her place with a few of her friends, getting ready to go out to a gay bar. Jenna started pontificating on her new life:
Jenna: Since I started dating women, I’ve noticed that men are just lousy kissers.
Me: Ahem
Jenna: Except for you, Vince. You’re a great kisser.
Jenna: I really like dating women because we can really talk about things. Guys really only had one thing on their minds.
Me: Er,
Jenna: Except of course for you, Vince. You’re really deep.
Etc., etc. She was turning a lovely shade of red.
Anyhow, y’all got any stories of a SO announcing a change of sexual orientation to yas? How did it turn out - good, sad, ugly?
well, gee whiz, (no pun intended - ok, maybe) yes, since I answered jarbabyj there.
I went to my high school prom w/my boyfriend Jon. I was 15. He was 17. my dad hated him, referred to him as ‘that pansy’. When Jon and I would get together, there were usually his two other pals with him (Jim and Bill). Have I pointed out that I was exceptionally naive when I was in High School?
Fast forward to college. Michigan State University in the mid 70’s. I bump into Jon, with another guy. We head over to the student Union for coffee and ‘catching up’ (gee, I says I thought you were going to UoM etc.).
At one point, Isweartogod, he’s talking, then pauses and says “don’t worry, it’s not your fault I turned gay”.
This was the first I knew that he was.
Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
Why the hell would I have thought it was my ‘fault’?
It did explain quite a bit about the lack of physical contact (I said I was naive)
Ooooh … and I was thinking about starting a trhead on this exact topic a week or so ago.
Back during my sophomore year in college, I had a sorta’ kinda’ girlfriend named Sue. Sue started to cut her hair short. A little while later, she stopped wearing makeup. A month or so after, she stopped shaving her legs, and stopped wearing skirts. We didn’t see each other over summer break, but when we both got back to school, I found out that she “switched teams,” and got married to a female teacher, the ceremony performed by a lesbian nun.
Now I understand why she the furthest we got was the “very good platonic friends who sometimes kissed and cuddled” stage.
“Johnny, what’s the deal, boy,
is your love for real, boy?
When the lights are low,
you never hold me cloooose…”
– Josie Cotton, “Johnny, Are You Queer”
I’ve got one of my own. A couple decades back, I hit it off quite well with one of my sister’s housemates, and things were pretty intense there for a few months before I broke it off.
Several years later, her name comes up in conversation with a friend who’s been working with her at the university radio station. I mention that we had been involved awhile back, and he and his GF, who works at the radio station as well, kinda look at each other funny. A bit later he says, “we’ve known a number of people who’ve gone out with T., but the others have all been women.”
Shortly after that, my sister’s listening to me moan about my romantic life, or lack thereof. She says she thinks Tina and I would have been really good together. I relate to her what my friend has told me; she says, “maybe she just needs the right man.” I roll my eyes.
A couple months later, I run into T. again. We talk, and then we’re walking somewhere. Next thing I know, we’re in a major lip-lock. When we come up for air, I say, “I heard you preferred women these days.” The gist of her reply was that she was willing to make an exception in my case.
It still didn’t work out. Sometimes two people are just too different.
There was a girl named Stephanie who was a friend of a friend of mine. She hung out with my band and basically ran on the fringes of the crowd I was then hanging with. My roommate at the time told me she was a lesbian, which was neither here nor there to me. Well, one night we somehow wound up alone at my place after everyone else left. We talked for the first time, and she confirmed that she had never been with a guy. We hit it off famously and wound up making out. We dated through that whole summer, after which she disappeared with no word whatsoever. When she returned to the area six months later, she denied knowing me. She was still dating males though. I often wonder, was it something I said?
Hot summer night. High up on a hill. Full moon and bright stars. In the middle of “things” she said: “Now I sure of it. I’m gay.” Which given the irony of the moment set us off laughing so hard that she fell off. Down the hill. The entire matter left me feeling extremely flattered that she wanted to experiment with me.
A couple of years later a straight friend asked if she might have my baby. She did not want to have sex with me. Just wanted to have my baby. Again, I was left feeling extremely flattered.
Friends are wonderful, whatever the gender and orientation. Sometimes a bit confused and confusing, but always wonderful.
I’ve had 3 boyfriends switch to the other team. (Well sort of…)
We dated in high school for a while - then he said “I think I’m gay. I’m looking for a woman to convince me otherwise. You’re not her.”
OUCH!
We dated after high school. All was good. He was really hot. One day he said “Do you mind if I sleep with men once and a while?”
UMMM, YES? (Ok, technically, this guy is probably Bi.)
Lived with a guy for a year. One day he says “I’m in love with somebody else.” I say “But who can it be, you only ever go out with Bob.” He says “It is Bob.”
OOOOOH. NO WONDER HE LIKED SHOE SHOPPING WITH ME SO MUCH.
Well, the last boyfriend I had didn’t speak to me for quite some time after I told him. He was a fundamentalist Christian and only became more entrenched in it throughout high school.
There’s a very short list of things in my life that I regret very much, and having Eric be my last ditch at being a perfect straight girl is in the top three. I was a very frigid girlfriend- I froze even at holding hands, and we never went past kissing in 6 months.
I think my second boyfriend was gay. He never came out, but I feel like we had that queer vibe.
I have had two lovers come out of the closet while we were dating. One we were sitting around one evening after grilling something and she asked, “Do you think I might be a lesbian?”
I pointed out that she did seem to “work” at sex with me more than most women I had known and she didn’t seem to enjoy it as much. She then said (and I loved this), “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
I told her it really didn’t matter if I did, but that no I didn’t. I pretty much moved out after that. The entertaining thing after that was trying to help her find a lesbian friend. She had never stepped into that world and didn’t know how to become a member of that sisterhood. The more obvious lesbians she knew of frightened her, and she was hesitant about approaching others who might not be lesbian. I finally had a gay friend suggest some gay bars. She said she would go but only if I went too. She met a couple of nice people from which a relationship or two developed and I learned I was a terrible dancer.
The other grew out of a three-way we had tried. A little while after we tried it, I had to go out of the country for a while (no the law was not after me) and in ongoing correspondance she said she was seeing this woman and was thinking about making it a permanent relationship. Somehow as “Dear John letter”, it was surprisingly gentle.
Perhaps the strangest was not a young woman who announced she was a lesbian but another situation. We had been having great wild sex for a couple of months when one evening after we had finised the act, she rose out bed paced a few times the length of the bedroom and then came over to me and said, “I’ve decided to become a nun.”
I said “huh” in a number of different ways and she said almost nothing as she collected her things and prepared to move out. It really threw me.
A couple of years later after she had taken her vows, I saw her again and we talked. She was nice and pleasant, but I was very uncomfortable with this. I mean I had sex with this nun! I mean, I’m not crazy about meeting boyfriends and husbands of old girlfriends, and this lady is married to God!
She told me that I shouldn’t feel bad. It had nothing to do with the situation or my performance. This made me feel a bit better, but I still was not at all comfortable with her talking about sex and our relationship. I just knew at any moment I was going to be struck by a lightning bolt or something.
I travelled in China for about 6 months with an Australian woman. We were very hot and heavy as one only can be when in the middle of a foreign country about 24 hours a day. We remained really good buds although she went back to Oz and I went to Taiwan.
Fast forward about 8 years. I’m working for an investment bank in Tokyo and flew to Sydney for a holiday. Well, before I went but AFTER I had bought my ticket, she let me know that she had “crossed to the other side” and was seeing a pretty amazing woman. I was well, okay, cool, whatever, I still wanna come to OZ. It was a good time. The most ironic was a party right before I left with a majority of very vocal lesbians. I met a Kiwi, and we went back to my friends place and shagged like minx. The next day, my friend and her girlfriend were in hysterics that I dared to do that at a lesbian party. Still ranks up there as probably my best holiday ever.
Freshman year in college (he was a sophomore) - was dating a very nice guy. We’d been friends, gone out, had some laughs, made out, and eventually had intercourse a few times. And yes, the word ‘love’ had been included in his side of the conversation.
After about 6 months, he tells me one night over dinner, “I guess I should have told you earlier, I’m gay. I just wanted to see what it was like to sleep with a woman. But if I wasn’t gay, I’d continue sleeping with you - you do some really great things.”
Lovely. Shot my whole year to hell right there.
(He transferred at the end of that year. Should have been an acting major instead of accounting.)
Frankly, as mean as it sounds, I’m glad that other people went through this because I felt like such a freaking…dolt.
when i told my family “Oh, by the way, benji broke up with me because he’s gay” they all just said “of course he is” It’s like everyone on the whole f-ing planet knew but me.
I’m sure that I didn’t give him a pleasant “coming out” experience that all the gay men of the world would like us to present, with hugs and balloons and banners that say “Best Of Luck With Your Sexuality!”…but when he told me, AFTER telling everyone else in our friend group and telling them to keep it a secret from me, I berated him until he was literally in a fetal position on the ground.
To be honest, it felt good. I wasn’t yelling at him for being gay, I was yelling at him for telling me LAST and making me look like a grade A clod in front of everyone we cared about mutually.
Jeez, when I finally came out to my one and only pseudo-girlfriend (we went to each other’s proms), she asked me if I wanted to have sex, “just to make sure.” And her fiancee didn’t mind. I was like, “Ew! No! Gross!” She’s like, “You’re gay…”
yeah, i’ve had a few.
like my gf freshman year in hs. she broke up with me after my brother died. she was a lesbian.
then there was the other girl that broke up with me my freshman year, she was also a lesbian.
then the girl that i dated my sophmore year, she broke up with me becase she was a lesbian.
it goes all the way back to the first girlfriend that broke up with me, she was a lesbian too.
[sub]at least that’s the way i like to think of it…[/sub]
When very young, I had a huge crush on a guy who told me from the start he was gay. Not being stupid enough to believe I could change him, I married someone else. Who ended up with the gay guy I had the huge crush on. The three of us stayed friends for quite a while.
I guess my ex and I had the same tastes in men. Other marriages have been based on less.
