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Well, I first realised when I was about 13 that I went through a big denial stage, like where I was in high school. It was like You're not gay and like, if you're gay, you know, you got the best sort of shit. So I completely denied it from others, and I tried to ignore it myself, and I got to a stage where it was pretty easy and stuff like that. But then, like, girls started asking me out and stuff and I keep saying no and everyone started getting like, really push, you know, Why are you [00:00:30] doing it? Are you a faggot or something? It was like all my mates they were like was a big, tough rugby player sort of thing. And they were like we had, you know, really nice ticks and everything. And I hung out with her, like in and like, um, yeah, I didn't have a girlfriend. And I went like, two or three years without having a girlfriend, and everyone started thinking, you know what's up here? And then your friends, your friends start hassling you, and like, and just being sure not mean you can buy it, but you know, you know, it's true. And, yeah, it just really [00:01:00] starts to hurt. So I thought, Well, you know, maybe if I go out with a girl, well, then maybe I will change. Or maybe maybe my feelings can be hidden or something like that, but they never actually were. So I ended up with that girl, and I actually got to the point where I was. I was quite content, and I, um the time when I was going out with this girl was like, this guy had a real crush on and like, I was like, really good friends with him at the time. And like my girlfriend was like, you know, why do you spend [00:01:30] so much time with them? Why do you spend so much time with me? Well, all I wanted to do was come out and try and ask this guy out because I just wanted to know what he would say, what he'd do if you know, because when you're growing up, you always have this, this picture of everything, working out perfectly and, you know, being good with someone forever, even if it's not realistic. But it's like, really hard and like hm. At high school and going to P a would was rather because, like, OK, I was like, [00:02:00] go in the changing room sort of thing and like and I would have the heads down, you know, getting changed. I was like, Oh, yeah, this is pretty cool, but, um yeah, and it's like, that's once again when people started getting really fishy of it. And, um yeah, and like, there was like, one teacher who was, like, obviously really homophobic. And like, um, there was this one person at our school who was openly gay and there was only the one. [00:02:30] And, um, he picked him constantly, and he ended up throwing him out of class to find any excuse to throw him out of class, wants attention for a week or anything like that. I said it was just another deterrent not coming yet. So, like after a year, it got really hard, and I decided that I tell her, and then like every couple of weeks, I got to tell her, and I just couldn't do it. And then finally, when it got to the stage where I said I would [00:03:00] got up with the tower, it took, like, two weeks to break off because she didn't believe me at all. And then I came out right at the end of seventh form and things got pretty hard from now on because she turned really nasty and she went through and told my family and everything before I got a chance to and they didn't take it. Well, um, few of the family came to my house because there was a point I was fighting and they came [00:03:30] to practically try and kill me. Well, my girlfriend was the first person I told because I thought it probably affect her the most after two years, and I told her and she didn't believe me, she thought it was some sort of nasty joke. She thought that, you know? Oh, he's always a practical joke sort of thing. So this is just another nasty play. And she reacted really badly when she finally it took a lot of convincing, but I finally convinced her she started believing it. She turned really [00:04:00] nasty and she rang up my cousins because she knew how homophobic they were and she like, she told them, and they rang up my auntie and they were like, Guess what? You know. He's a sort of stuff, and then my family came to me and some of them It was a mixed reaction. Like my cousins. They came to do some serious damage sort of stuff, and I, luckily, wasn't home, and they got my flat mate and my flat mate and told [00:04:30] them to depart rather swiftly. But then a few weeks later, they came around again and I was there and we ended up having a talk about the whole sort of thing, and it was just more of a sort of disbelief thing for them. They sort of felt that I've lied to him through the years. But the thing was, I was lying to myself more than I was to them. My mother, on the other hand, me being an only other child was like really upset because she has no chance of grandchildren, which is like, really strung up on and stuff like that. [00:05:00] My father took it really well. My sister still don't know. It's gonna be really hard to explain it to him. Um, friends, a lot of them didn't believe it, and the ones that did just shifted away for for me that, um I wanted them to stick through, and I couldn't have probably got through without them because I had a lot of really bad times coming out. Um, [00:05:30] I felt great relief. It was like I'd spent all these years lying to everyone and to myself. And then I finally got up the guts to do it, and they came out in. At the time, I didn't care what what reactions came out, what people said, how people would would treat me or anything like that. All I wanted to do is like free myself from this burden. I felt like I was carrying, so when [00:06:00] I did, it was just like a big weight was taken off my shoulder and it could only be me instead of living this life. My first experience with now it was before I came out. It was it was actually with one of my friends. We were and to this party, and we ended up just like crashing him at my house and like no one was there. And I ended up having a few drinks and stuff like that and ended up talking, and [00:06:30] I found that he was gonna be moving away to Australia and we talked about all sorts of things about life, about about feelings. He was another one who didn't have a girlfriend, but no one could have ever picked anything about him. But he admitted to me he was gay and I moved to him the way I felt. And then he questioned me because I had a girlfriend at the time and it just felt right because it was like, OK, yeah, I am. [00:07:00] I'm gay. It's like, this isn't some Most, you know, this isn't some dream I've had or something like this. It's like I really felt like at the moment it was the perfect thing to do and yeah, I don't know how to explain it. It was just Oh, it was just good to be with them out and know that it wasn't gonna go any further, and so no one would care. And I could just get hung up in the moment instead of worrying about the repercussions of it. [00:07:30] The anticipation of it was, uh, disbelief. It's like when we're talking about it. And he told me, I just I didn't believe it. It's not that I didn't want to. It was probably I did want to and I just thought it was like, you know, I was just testing me sort of thing. So I it took a couple of guts to say, you know that Well, yeah, so am I sort of thing doing it. It was, um how would you describe it? It was It was relief. It was [00:08:00] It was really central. It was It was fun. And it was It was It was more like a friend thing. It was, Yeah, it was just a friend last sort of moment. But afterwards, it was just like we talked really well and like, we still keep in contact and stuff via email. But I just I think that helped me a lot in realising, You know, when I did come out, it was other gay people because like, there wasn't that many around [00:08:30] that I knew of at the time until I did finally come out.
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