Sexuality, falling in love, and coming out....

Coming out to my family was one of the scariest things I've ever done. Along with the Tower of Terror. My God that was horrible.

Fortunately I'm very lucky to have a lovely, caring family, but it doesn't make it any less scary. Homophobia can be lurking within anyone sadly, even the nice ones. And sometimes people don't think they're homophobic at all, until someone they're very close reveals themselves to be gay or bisexual.

But I was lucky. And I should never have doubted my family, who have been nothing but supportive throughout my entire life. In fact, when I told them I had a girlfriend I think they were relieved more than anything. I had tried to date boys in the past, but I always came away feeling down and confused at my inability to feel anything towards them. My family were just chuffed to finally see me in a happy, and loving, relationship.

I never said the words 'I'm gay' to my parents. It felt too mortifying. I spent my entire life feeling embarrassed about the idea of myself being a lesbian, so I suppressed it. And I suppressed it to such a level that I refused to accept - even to myself - the remote possibility of ever being with a girl in a romantic way. 'Coming out' to myself would have eventually meant coming out to the world which was too terrifying to contemplate. But I soon found out that lying to myself was a lot more scary, and lonely.

I managed to ignore ALL relationships throughout my teen years. I never let the 'forbidden' idea of dating a girl enter my mind, and chose not to let the idea of dating a boy enter my mind either. But as I got older and started university, I began worrying about my future and my total lack of relationship experience. My two older sisters were both in long term relationships - one was to get married a year or so later - and both have since moved out with their partners. Every family occasion we had, I was always on my own. I started to feel the pressure more and more. Not only this, but when I started university and joined the craziness of Fresher's Week, I quickly noticed that everyone was pairing off, or at least trying to. But this left me feeling pathetic. I mean I'd never even kissed somebody properly before, and everywhere around me people were trying to get off with each other. But what scared me even more was that I had no desire to kiss anyone. I never let myself want to kiss a girl, and the idea of kissing a boy left me with no feelings at all, except from perhaps fear which is obviously not ideal. But having never even got close to dating before, I wasn't sure if I was just terrified at my lack of experience, or at the general idea of being with a guy in a romantic way. I decided it was probably the former.

So, I made the decision to get myself out there. During my three years at uni, I dated four guys. I tried hard to make myself like them in a romantic way, but I just couldn't. I left university feeling afraid, afraid because I'd really put myself out there for the first time in my life to meet somebody, but had failed. Having gone through my experiences at university, and then finishing it alone was the wake up call I so desperately needed. I had always thought to myself, 'Hey it's okay that you've never been in a relationship, you'll find a guy at university'...but uni life had come and gone. It suddenly dawned on me that I could end up living my life for a very long time without ever having had a proper relationship. For the first time in my life, I tentatively allowed the caged lesbian within me to surface. Why? Because the very real alternative of being forever alone finally scared me more than anything else.

That was the moment I decided to make a dating profile online. As a lesbian, of course. I made my profile as private as possible, which meant that nobody could view me unless I spoke to them first. I remember scrolling down the list, shallowly judging and generally discounting profile after profile, until I saw the most incredible blue eyes staring back at me. Not trying to be deliberately corny here, this was the profile photo of the girl in question so you can see for yourself...

Stunning right?!

So it turned out her name was Emma, and of course I sent her a short message saying hi Standard. She sent a message back a few days later, and we had a very brief conversation before Emma went quiet for a couple of weeks. I thought about her a lot during that time, so decided to send her one last, and rather long, message outlining my closeted situation and asking for any advice. I heard nothing back again, so figured she just wasn't really interested in being a friend let alone a potential girlfriend. As it happened, me and Emma only lived a 10 minute drive away from one another and had attended the same university...small world eh! What made it even smaller, was that we shared the same graduation day which occurred slap bang in the middle of the period when Emma hadn't messaged me back. What made it even smaller still was the fact that I was sat just two rows in front of Emma in a room full of about 1000 students...

That's me with the brown watch trying to stop my hat from repeatedly falling off...

I had no idea Emma was sat there, and neither did she until we spoke about it afterwards.

After weeks of no messages, Emma eventually replied sent me one back and we added each other on Facebook. We enjoyed a very brief conversation about Chicken Run, I think...But sadly, our online convo's didn't amount to much and things petered out again. Equally sad was I was far too shy to even think about asking her to meet up in person, and so was she. However a few days after our last online conversation, fate struck and our world was about to change forever.

I was on my way home after a long day at work, with the bus making its usual stops, when I noticed Emma had walked onto the same bus as me. I was listening to music at the time and never really pay much attention when people get on, but she had stopped at the front and was looking at me, smiling nervously. I can't imagine what shade of red my cheeks were at that moment, but for the first time in my life - ever - I had butterflies. I felt nervous and shy, and I had no idea what to say. Absolutely none. On my previous dates, I had always been able to come across as chatty, maybe a little bit funny and generally confident probably because I genuinely had no interest in whether or not they fancied me. But for the first time in my life on that bus, I really wanted her to get a good first impression of me...which unfortunately resulted in me giving off the worst impression possible. Typical. Luckily for me, Emma was also quite nervous so it was a two-way street in terms of awkward conversations and rosy red cheeks. I waited a whole hour after getting home to message her saying that it was nice to meet her finally in person, and she responded by inviting me to a Halloween party!

Well, despite not knowing a single person, and barely even knowing Emma, I braved it and went along. This was so unlike me. But I was experiencing a crush, a real crush with a real person. Something totally alien to me, but it was already making me do crazy things. I spent most of the night talking to one of her male friends who happened to have a massive crush on her which was rather awkward when he started discussing it with me. In fact, he actually asked her out that night only to find out that she was only into girls. In total, I probably spoke to Emma about three times that night, all very briefly, and only mustered up the courage to give her a quick slightly awkward hug as I left.

Me on the far left and Emma on the far right...probably the closest we got all night actually!

I was pretty sure Emma didn't like me in that way after the party, mainly because I had let my nerves take hold so failed to show her the side of my personality which I like to think is actually quite fun! So it was Emma's turn to take the reins and make the next move, and she text the next evening to let me know that I had left my pompoms at her's I went as a Zombie cheerleader - awesome huh! and then...she asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink! I was so relieved that even at my worst shy and awkward self, she still wanted to see how things might go.

We started dating early November, and as each date went by we both started to grow in confidence around each other. It was probably around our third or fourth date when we shared our first kiss which turned into a big make out session =D. My first kiss with her was something I will never, ever forget because I was finally feeling something. And it felt GUUUURD. I asked her to be my girlfriend on the 18th November which is now our anniversary, but I still had the problem that I was lying to my family about who I was spending so much time with, and similarly Emma felt that she couldn't tell her family that was in a relationship either. I hated lying and feeling like I was doing something really wrong. But meeting and falling in love so quickly and hard with Emma made me realise that there was nothing wrong at all with what I was doing. I was hurting nobody, and I was really happy so how could it be wrong? For Emma's birthday in mid-December, I booked a hotel in London for us OI OIIIIIII ;P It was our first night together, so it was a big deal, and I was nervous, but also excited. Very excited. So I decided I needed to tell my family because lying about who I was going to the cinema with was one thing, but lying about a weekend away was a bit too naughty for my liking.

So after hovering my finger over the send button for an eternity, I decided to text my sister one night to tell her I was dating a girl. I wanted to gauge her reaction first before moving on to the parents. I was overwhelmed at her response, which was incredibly supportive, and she offered to tell my mum and dad for me. But I said I would do it, and set about crafting a text message. Texting may seem cowardly, but I felt cowardly and in my mind there was no other way. Waiting for their reply was a surreal and scary experience, as I had no idea what they would say. I mean, you hear some real horror stories about people coming out to their families. But their response made me cry, and thankfully happy tears! I went to bed super early that night to avoid an awkward conversation with them when they got home, definitely the downfall of texting a rather large piece of news. In the morning, nobody mentioned anything so in the end, to break the ice, I thanked them both for their response and they just nodded and smiled. I never used the words 'I'm gay', instead I told them that I was dating a girl. It actually took me over a year before I felt comfortable enough to use the term 'girlfriend' around them.

I won't lie, it was awkward for us for quite a long time. There are always lots of things to overcome in a new relationship and even more when you have just come out. To name just a few...Emma coming round for the first time, meeting her parents for the first time, staying the night round each others for the first time, telling other people...all difficult stuff, but very worth it.

I have now been with Emma for about 14 months and couldn't be any more in love with her if I tried. It has taken me all that time to find the courage to tell allof my friends, I finally told the last couple around a month ago and they were just as supportive as everyone else I'd told. Sometimes it just takes time, and this past year has been a life changing one that's for sure.

So far in our relationship Emma and I have done so many things together. We went on an adventure weekend with her friends, climbed peaks in the Lake District, visited a volcano in Tenerife, relaxed on different beaches, I took her to Paris and Disneyland for her birthday, and my favourite moment of all...when she came with me as my plus one to my sister's wedding.

My story is a happy one. I went from feeling alone, scared and wondering if I had something wrong with me, to experiencing the most exciting and exhilarating period of my life. I do regret certain things in my life, particularly the moments where I managed to willingly put myself in awkward, and some quite frankly scary, situations. But I had to go through them in order to realise that I couldn't go through them anymore. Coming out seems like such a huge barrier and I have to be honest and say that I would probably have never come out to my family had I not had a girlfriend by my side for moral support. I'm just not strong enough. I've also been incredibly lucky that the first girl I dated has not only lasted, but is the girl I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with. Had things not worked out with Emma during those first few crucial months when I was adjusting to life with people 'digesting' the fact I was a lesbian...well, I would have found things very tough. But I would have found my way again eventually, because life has a habit of falling into place eventually.