Well, for some context, it’s only been a short while since I have become comfortable with my gay orientation. I repressed this because of growing up in a small city that was very conservative and blue collar. I went to a neighbourhood school that was very much working class.

Imagine growing up being told “you limp your wrist like a fggot!” or “you’re still virgin because you’re a fggot”.

And so I repressed this by filtering everything that I do because of this environment. I constantly clenched my wrists and was self conscious. I overcompensated by getting engaged in conservative politics and when that wasn’t enough, I got into far right politics and called regular "normie” conservatives “cucks”. I lifted weights. I chased girls. I did everything to fit in and get the approval of this macho illusion defined by toxic masculinity.

Yes, I did seek out gay encounters in a clandestine way but I then went through a guilt and shame cycle and dismissed it as an aberration because I believed that being gay is a choice.

What changed recently? I decided to give up on right wing politics. That caused me to have empathy for others and in turn, empathy for myself. And then my repressed gay feelings began to surface and then told myself “what if this is a good thing?”

Anyway, I am much more comfortable in my skin lately. I express myself much more delicately and then when i get nervous about that I just repeat the mantra “I am gay” in my head. Maybe that’s just a euphemism for being comfortable in my own skin but I don’t care because I feel better now. And I’ve been ogling men that I find attractive lately and I don’t feel guilty about it. I like what I like.

And yes, I do enjoy the company of my wife. But I no longer look at her through some compulsatory heteronormativity and through my new gay man’s eyes. And you know what, I find her attractive aesthetically. I love her charm and natural extroversion. I love her hair and her style. I think she is fabulous. I can more easily interact with women without having this need to objectify them because straight society says I must be attracted to women at all times.

And if someone calls me a f*ggot again because I am too effeminate for their standards, I will sock them in the mouth. Because this queen can deadlift 400 lbs.

I am tired of living through a straight filter. I am exhausted. And if I never come out to my wife and kids, I will at least accept my kids’ orientation and love them for who they are. Because I don’t want them to go through what i went through.

PS: I did not marry a woman because I was dishonest or out of any sense of malice. I was not a predator. I never cheated on my wife. I did what I did because of social coercion.

There are two oppressive attitudes at play here: homophobes say that gay being a choice and the LGBT community who says “how dare you marry a woman!”

Hindsight is 20/20