Once you accept that you’re gay, it’s easy to recognize the thoughts and behaviors that go hand in hand with being a little fruity. But when you’re growing up in the closet, no one could blame you for writing off very gay
So discussed gay men on a Reddit post titled, “Did anyone else have a ‘Wait… am I gay?’ moment that was so obvious you feel dumb in hindsight?”
The original poster kicked things off, writing, “I swear, I was completely clueless for YEARS. I genuinely thought I was 100% straight, but looking back… wow, the signs were there.”
From there, he gave a few examples. “I had a ‘totally platonic’ obsession with my best friend but told myself I just admired him a lot. I watched Call Me By Your Name and felt weirdly seen but convinced myself it was just a really well-made film. I used to say, ‘Yeah, I can objectively recognize that guys are attractive, but it’s not like that.’ (Spoiler: It was exactly like that.)”
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Folks in the comments section shared their own stories of self-ignorance. “I was such an idiot,” one commenter began. “As a child, I took fairy tales and rewrote them to make male characters end up together and left out the princesses. As a teenager, I always jerked off to fantasies about male bodies, but I thought it was pure empathy with [the] female perspective.”
Even that commenter’s own mother clocked his queerness before he did, he continued: “When I started dating my dear female friend, my mum gently asked me if I’m sure she was the right ‘type of person’ for me, so I got offended that she wasn’t happy enough about the news.”
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Other commenters reminisced on their time in middle and high school. “I remember in 6th or 7th grade sitting with a group of girls who were talking about their celebrity crushes, and I caught myself agreeing and fully relating to finding these guys attractive,” one commenter shared. “I still didn’t fully know for sure that I was gay but that was my first time being conscious to the fact that I found men attractive.”
“I was studying the LGBT movement for debate back in high school,” recalled another. “It was confusing and hard to understand. Little did I know, it completely described why I was sniffing my best friend everyday.”
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