I missed out on a lot during my teenage years; no snogs behind any bike sheds, no fooling around at the back of the cinema, no making out on my single bed with The Notebook whirring away in the background, and
In fact, I grew up deliberately avoiding all that stuff because I had no desire to do any of it with boys and I never opened my mind up to the possibility of doing it with girls. So, I just stayed young and innocent for as long as I could get away with it for. Sadly though, there does come a point in life when at the age of 19 it becomes mildly unacceptable to be deliberating whether to spend an evening playing Sims, watching Freaky Friday for the 167th time or go mental and do both at the same time. I guess the realisation that I couldn't avoid growing up forever eventually hit me, and with that, my Sims now only exist as a distant, and precious, memory.
I guess dating guys at university, and not enjoying a single minute of it, was the push I needed to finally convince myself that I might be gay after all. And, in hindsight, the whole gay thing probably explains my numerous attempts to get the Mum Sim to
So having experienced the horror of dating boys, and with the feeling of loneliness becoming too familiar, I gave in and dipped my toe into those enticing lesbian waters by joining a dating site which led to me meeting and falling head over heels in love with the most amazing girl ever...
Coming out with a girlfriend
This was the key for me. I dated Emma secretly for around a month before deciding that I didn't like lying to my parents. In fact, lying made it seem like what I was doing was wrong, and it definitely didn't feel wrong. Meeting Emma changed my whole outlook on the way I wanted to live my life and I rapidly transitioned from thinking that it was absolutely unthinkable to EVER contemplate coming out to people, to realising that I would have to do it if I ever wanted to have a normal relationship with the girl I'd fallen in love with. Having Emma waiting in the wings to potentially pick up the pieces if it all went wrong made the idea of coming out far easier.
In life, if you don't have a partner it's usually your family who are always there to support you when things turn sour, so the idea that your family may reject you is a terrifying one. For me, dating first, then falling in love and having a girlfriend firmly by my side, made me feel a lot braver.
I also really wanted to be able to bring Emma back to mine. I had finally found someone who I wanted to find standing in my garden lobbing pebbles at my bedroom window, I had found someone who I wanted to snog on the back row of a movie theatre, and more than anything, I wanted to be able to make out with her on my single bed with a chick flick rolling in the background. She was my girlfriend, and I wanted to be able to do girlfriendy* things with her. *This is a word...right?
Having that moral support of a girlfriend - and wanting to be with her all the time - was enough to drive me to come out to my parents. And they were great about it, in fact it's nearly 16 months later and they absolutely love her. But it was reassuring to know that if things hadn't worked out quite so well, I had a girlfriend who I loved, and who loved me, and that was a reassuring thought.
To wrap up...
Coming out shouldn't be some major life altering moment. We shouldn't have to psych ourselves up to pluck up the courage to tell those who are supposed to love us unconditionally that we're in love with another human being. And as I had hoped, both mine and Emma's parents have been nothing but supportive of our relationship.
However the sad reality is that there are girls out there who have received a negative reaction. Everyone is different and every situation is different, but all I know is that being in love and having a supportive girlfriend by your side will always make things easier. And if you haven't found her yet, just remember that she is out there right now, waiting to meet you.
