Well, I've got a little bit I want to get off my chest. I was talking about this at the weekend.
School.
For me school wasn't great. I painted a happy picture at home; there were worse places I could be. By no means have I had it worse than some other people, but it was hard.
Around 14 or so I had noticed that I was attracted to boys at school. I kept this to myself and never mentioned it.
People at school used to call me "gay" "queero" "fairy" etc. I didn't even know then I was gay, I had denied myself into bi curious at "worst". I still harbored the idea I could settle down, marry a woman, have kids, retire, and die. The typical straight man life.
I started to realise that girls didn't get me hit under the collar at all. By 15 or so I had fully realised this. Sadly, in my homophobic environment, I rejected it, and tried to ensure that my every action was as straight as possible. I was in the army cadets, I did cross country running, then switched to fencing.
The school itself was okay. Teachers were very good on the most part. It was the time spent out of class, or the time spent not working in class.
Other boys had friends over to play football, or watch the Simpsons. I never had that.
I had a few close friends at school; none of us were the "popular" kids. I guess that's partly how we became friends. However that wasn't bad in the long run. I got a couple of good friends out of it. The final test will be telling them.
My typical day at school was along the lines of: Arrive, if I timed it right about 5 minutes before registration. That way I could walk in and sit down. I didn't have to stand in the playground waiting for 08:30 to come. The rest of the year was split into its cliques in the morning. A couple of different groups, all of about 20 or more people. Then there was me. I never had the confidence to go and talk to anyone in any of the groups, some of them I only knew from the receiving end of an insult anyway. I had no friend to go stand beside in any group, nobody that I could talk to. Sure there were people I got on with as far as "Watch the match last night?" but no true friends.
Most of my time was spent in class; this wasn't too bad as long as we had work to do. When there was no work I was on my own whilst the others started chatting. It was a very rare, but pleasant occasion that I was drawn into any of the conversations.
Then in 4th year (We do Primary 1-7, then year 1-6) I made a friend in the year below. He was older than me. (I was the youngest in my year) We had a bit in common, and he was openly bi. It was good, but he got stick for it. Still I had someone to talk to now. I also by this point had a couple of friends in my own year. (The guys I mentioned earlier)
I spent all my school time from 14 years old until I left the school at 17 last June in the closet. The whole time I wasn't exactly popular, and people spread rumours that I was gay. Sometimes I was called names, had stuff thrown at me. Physics was the worst in 4th year. I was target practice for the elastic bands and the paper clips and anything else they could fire at me. Sometimes it was painful. They drew blood a few times. I remember once the boy in front of me turned round and fired an elastic band directly into my face. It hit my eye. My eye welled up with water, and that at least masked the tears. I did my best to hold back the tears and noise. The teacher looked at me, the glanced away and continued talking. I really hated physics for that one reason. Sometimes I ended up in the toilets all lunchtime after it, just hiding away from the world.
By 16 I was smart enough to understand that I was gay and it was fine, but in an environment where "That chair is so gay, it's all wonky" and where "That's so gay, my chips are cold" it's difficult to hold onto that. Gay people seemed to be the cause of all that was wrong in the world. When it feels like your entire peer group thinks that, it's hard not to feel ashamed, and feel guilty.
School progressed; one benefit of the lack of friends and distractions was that I did very well in my 5th year exams AAAAB. However, 5th year itself is not an experience I would ever want to re-live. The highlight of 5th year was maths. I sat next to a guy I'd not really met before. He must've seen how most people treated me, but for some reason that didn't matter. We talked away, probably at the expense of my maths (not the B though, that was Physics. No prizes for guessing why). I also forgot to mention that he was frickin' hot. He had an air of cool about him, was unbelievably hot and a great guy. He also had this strange, but nice smell too. (it was powerful, I didn't sniff him.)
He played football at lunchtimes and morning break. He said they needed a keeper, and asked if I wanted to play. I said yes and took up my place in the goal.
This is where the only benefit of my crappy experiences in physics came in handy. I was great at blocking incoming objects from hitting me by palming them away. Not so great at catching, but I improved with time. I quickly made friends with the rest of the team. It was strange, we didn't get on that great with the other team, but still played fair and friendly every day.
Finally by just after half way through 5th year I'd made some friends. People I could walk up to in the morning and talk to. School looked like improving.
I spent all 13 years of my schooling at that school. Only the last year and a bit were moderately enjoyable.
During the summer between fifth year and sixth year I did a lot of voluntary work with a medical aid provider. I've left this quite a strange title to disguise the organisation. Basically the organisation provides free healthcare to those in immediate need. It's a great thing to do, especially as I want to qualify and register as a paramedic and work with the local ambulance service.
What this organisation gave me was medical training of a basic, but progressingly more advanced level. What it also gave me was new friends. Most of them older. 99% of them lovely people. Not people who would call people "fags" or "ass pirates". People who just saw me as Blue-Mars the new guy. I got the typical light-hearted new guy stick. The whole "Nip into the store and get a glass hammer for us? And a left handed screw driver. Cheers mate"
Something that I've developed from it is greater self confidence. To be brutally honest, school left me so low in self confidence that introducing myself was a mumbly "Hi.... I'm....eh.....Blue-Mars....." I got self respect, confidence dealing with other people (an integral part of it all) I got a sense of achievement, and pride. The uniform to me represented who I was. Who I wanted to be. What I could achieve. It was a major turning point in my life.
Now, obviously it doesn't end happily for me, otherwise I wouldn't be here, and I'd never have seen the wonder and shimmer of hope that is mboy's blog.
School started again. I still had some friends, but we had the 6th year common room. Bye bye football. :'-(
My friend from maths? The really hot one. No longer took any of the subjects I took. The army cadets? Promoted me to Sergeant. (this is about as high as it gets in our schools cadets) I saw less of my friend. We still talked, but never saw each other much. By now I had a full blown crush. :$.
The army cadets soon took its toll. Instead of being a cadet that sat and listened, I was the teacher. I was the one that had to impart a basic knowledge of First Aid into 80 cadets. The medical knowledge was no issue; the taking control of a large group of people you know was the issue. When a situation arose with the voluntary group, it was strangers I dealt with, and I always had an experienced eye watching over me, and doing what I still hadn't been trained to do, or what I missed in my inexperience.
For this, I was alone. I was up there in front of groups of 20 cadets at a time for a 4 week block. It wasn't easy.
6th year itself was no walk in the park either. There were now people who didn't just insult on sight, they would go out of their way to give me grief. I had stood up to one, when he was giving grief to my maths friend. Then he turned on me. My maths friend tried to help, but really it was pointless. He was a rugby player, so were his mates. It was never going to end well. Luckily when it culminated and boiled over, I was alone, and none of my friends ended up involved in it. It wasn't something I managed to cover up too well either.
Bloodied shirt, broken buttons, shirt pocket ripped off, sleeve ripped. It was screamingly obvious what had happened. My training allowed me to close up the one bad wound and tidy myself up a lot, but it was till obvious.
It was a case of homophobic, angry rugby team vs. small gay footballer/fencer. None of the army cadet stuff about self defence worked, because I was just knocked to the ground. I couldn’t see who was about to hit me, it was all at once.
My parents were naturally incensed. They went into the school and demanded answers. Again I refused to talk. I was too scared to admit I was gay. I didn't want any of it coming out. The counsellor talked to me. Eventually after she swore to secrecy I explained a fraction of this page. She told the headmaster what had gone on, in an edited version, and somehow convinced the rugby guy to go along. Only he got in trouble. It was enough to keep my parents quiet.
It was also enough for me to be scared shitless. Every time I saw him was heart pounding worry and fear.
I near the end of my school journey. Ironically, by the end of my last year, I was on good terms with almost everyone. Some of them even apologised for what they did in the younger years. It was a nice gesture, but those years were depressing hell for me. Nothing can change that.
So I left school, and entered the transition between school and university. I had dreams for uni. Being me, and being accepted as me. Mostly though? A boyfriend.
I sit here 10 weeks into university. I've told 2 people here, and the youth group. I've told 1 colleague from voluntary medical work. I do hope to at least say yes if asked when I see them again this festive season.
I have accepted myself, but for some reason there is an element of fear, and it's something I've been totally unable to get rid of. Probably a fear forged in the blood of 6th year and the tears of school. It holds me back, it keeps a falseness about me. I feel like an imposter at times. I hate it when my flatmates (4 girls, 1 other boy) say stuff like,” Ross look at her, what do you think?” “Aww we’ll get you a girl.”
So life isn't what it could be at the moment. I remain optimistic, and I am more confident than I have been, but that still equates to "shy" in normal terms. Maybe soon things will look up. I remain hopeful about the local youth group. To be honest though this is the first time I’ve ever written a frank and honest account of school life. The place I identify as the start of the problem that now dominates and owns my life.
I’m glad to see it on paper in front of me. If you’ve read this any advice would be extremely welcome.
I’m also reminded of days where I literally cried myself to sleep, or hid in the toilets and cried for parts of my day. The pain I felt from my run in with the rugby people is reignited by this. I can still hear their shouting in my head “Fag” “poof”. Memories I had blocked out I have re-lived in my head and put on paper here.
I feel a bit better now. This might be a useful thing to give to the youth worker at the local group. I’ve not talked to them about anything yet really. They know I have some problems, but we haven’t had time to talk about it yet.
Anyway. That’s my molten crazy overflow for today. Probably for a while. I’m glad I bought two boxes of Kleenex lol.
If anyone has actually bothered to read this, thank you. Please drop a message on msn, or leave a comment. Any advice or any comment would be lovely.
I think a good plan would be to meet other gay people. I only know 4 from the youth group, and I;m new there, so don’t really know anyone.
