Ms.

It was my 11th birthday and I had a bunch of girlfriends coming over. In my head I thought up possible scenarios about how the night may go. I knew that one thing would definitely be thought about, what guys we thought were cute. There was only one problem, I didn't like any of the guys, in fact I thought that a lot of the girls who were coming over where more attractive than the guys I knew. We were in 6th grade and I knew nothing about being gay, but what I DID know was that none of the other girls were "into" girls. And so I quickly thought up the first guy I knew and forced myself into pretending I liked him.

 That's when my charade began. For years I would pick a guy and become obsessed with him. I would make a point that everyone knew how much I "liked" said guy. But in the back of my mind I always worried, what if this guy ended up liking me? I didn't want to date a guy! And in truth under it all I would look at my girlfriends and pine over them. Would I ever tell them? No!

In 8th grade There came a HUGE turning point in my life. A good friend of mine was moving to Texas, and so I decided to throw her a going away party. I invited a majority of her friends, including a few girls I didn't know well at all. One girl who showed up, we'll call her Sam, was a little "out there." I didn't really like her much but then she started talking about how she had kissed a girl. I was shocked that she was okay with just saying that so blatantly! And the best part was, no one freaked out! In fact, all the other girls seemed really interested in hearing about her. Maybe I wasn't the only one who didn't think she liked guys... Maybe I wasn't wrong.

Later that night we ended up in my room with blankets drawn over the windows and in front of my door and the radio blasting so my parents couldn't hear us playing truth or dare. The fact that I had never been kissed was revealed and I could feel the tension in the room as my best friend, we'll name her Jessica, was dared to kiss me. Well, Jessica never turned down a dare sooo... she leaned over and gave me a peck. Well, that just led to more and more specific dares until I had gotten my first "real" kiss and then quite a few more. Pretty soon we weren't playing truth or dare anymore, we had moved onto more and more kissing games.

I think that all of us had wondered before that night what it would be like to kiss another girl. And for once in my life I didn't feel like such a creep. Unfortunately all the girls were kind of ashamed of what we had done because we were in 8th grade and being gay, or bi, or lesbian just was not talked about. And we all thought it was wrong and so we were sworn to secrecy. But I had a few parties after that, and they all led to the same thing. By then I knew I liked girls, but since everyone else was so ashamed I decided that it must be wrong. So I continued my game of liking random guys and the parties soon stopped. I was terrified that I might really be gay and I knew that it must be wrong. So I never revealed my secret. Well ... that is until this past year in 11th grade.

I knew a few girls who were openly gay and two girls I liked were dating each other. By now, I was okay with the fact that I was gay. Alright, not "okay" but I was in a better place then I had been. I came out to my family, spare my dad, and wasn't exactly embraced. But they have become more accepting and I am now comfortable with who I am and where I am in my life. I'm gay and that's okay.Now I have a new problem, they didn't teach being gay in sexed. It was never mentioned, and never brought up. So I feel like a little kid with no clue about sex or dating or any of that. I have liked one girl for almost 5 months now, but I have no clue how to go about telling her. I know that she's gay, but I don't know how same sex relationships work. I am hopeless in that area, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that gay relationships were never discussed with me. I'm gayI'm clueless, andI'm taboo