The amount of thinking I put into things was really just fucked up. Like I said, I doubt I could have kept that up for much longer. No, I wasn't just waiting to explode out of the closet. It's more like I was just sinking into a depression where I was just caring less and less about anything. Who could stand to be scared of themselves, scared of showing feelings around others and always being hyper-aware to defend one's image. Nothing made me happy, however, in the eyes of everyone else I appeared to be an average, active, well-like 17 year old. Back then, my favorite days were when I was alone and doing nothing. I wouldn't need to think or concentrate on hiding how I felt. With tv, I would barely need to even think. To be so good at hiding one's self from the friends and family is a scary thing. It's a lie to say I hadn't thought of killing myself.
Cue the sad violin.
Dramatic photo for effect!Entering CEGEP, I was still very much that closeted, self-depressive asshole from highschool. (As reference for all you non-Quebec readers, most students in the Canadian province of Quebec go to a post-highschool institution called CEGEP, which is like a ladder step in between highschool and university. It actually replaces grade 12 and first year of university.) The leading up to my coming-out was initiated by change of school and people I met. I came from a small, preppy highschool (according to me: overpriced and filled mostly with kids who had no concept of reality) who's whole student body was 400 people. That meant my grade consisted of 80 students. Everyone knew everyone else and most tried their best to fit in. On the other hand, my CEGEP had atleast 1500 students, across 2 grades. It was a lot more diverse and I got the chance to meet tons of people who were radically different from the average highschool personality I had encountered. You all know the cliche of re-inventing one's self when thrown into a crowd of strangers. I didn't pull a 180 degrees, but in a sense this gave me freedom. I got to distance myself from highschool friends, with the exception of my close guy-friends, and mingle with new people.
The general group I come to know and like facilitated me letting down my guard and opening up. In part, it was because they were friendly, cool and not so judgmental. The main reason, however, was that I didn't care about them. Yes, that sounds harsh, but let me explain: For the first time, I could be around friends whom didn't know me very well and whom did not have so much history with me. I felt as if I could "test them" in what I chose to share about myself. If they didn't like me, I didn't care if I lost thier friendship or potentially turned against me. There were another 1495 people to get to know.
It sounds megalomaniacal and sad that I could consider people in such a manner, but you need to remember how I thought. In my mind, I needed to protect myself. I've always had friends, but the term friend to me represented a person who only knew the image I chose to show them. They knew very little about the real me. Hell, I didn't even know much about the ream me since I spent all my time surpressing myself. They were in a way test subjects (take a wild guess what subject I studied. Yup, science.)
Similarly, even my real friends, the ones that I refer to as my close guy-friends knew in reality nothing about me. I realize that it's odd I would call them my close friends, since they were in the dark about me as much as a new CEGEP friend. I felt close with them more because they trusted and confided in me. They cared about what I thought of them, so I reciprocally cared what they thought of me - even if I didn't share genuinely feelings with them very often.
That was what set the stage for me telling the first person I was gay.
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