I'm (27M) never coming out (And my digital biography).

I apologize in advance, for this post being super long. It's impossible to understand the context without knowing my life story, since family & friends have a huge part in my life.

Chapter 1: Early Life (1996 - 2018)

I'm pansexual, closeted & 27 years old. I was outed publicly a few times as a teenager, and my family had already found out when I was 8 years old (more on that later). I was furious, but my family was relentless with their homophobia & transphobia. It all started when a stepcousin assumed I was gay when I was 8 years old (the truth is, I didn't know what gay and trans and bi was back then - it was 2004, when - growing up in NJ - the only gay person I heard about was Governor McGreevey, but I only found out about him a few years later, and by then, I was 12 years old & McGreevey seemed like a figment of my imagination). All my cousins started to bully me multiple times a week after that, and they'd blurt out that I was gay during church (I also grew up in a Conservative Christian family - 20 years later, they're 10 times more Conservative than they were back then, which is why I hate them, but I put on a fake smile & pretend that I like them, when I'm around them; I'm still confused as to why I got Cs and Ds in drama class). I'd always say I was straight, but they just kept bullying me over and over again, for the next 5 years (and by that time, at 13, I was "the gay kid" in town - everyone knew me by my name and face, which are both distinctive for personal reasons), until I moved to the next town over.

I'd go as far as to say that I'm masculine myself, because of my family conditioning us to think that toxic masculinity is the only way for my family to accept me (basically, the only reason they - and most of my straight friends - accept me is because I'm a masculine LGBT man, since my family grew up in the '60s and '70s, when the only black gay person on TV was..... nobody. My grandfather watched Westerns on TV his whole life, so when my mom got older, she also became a homophobe & I've never been feminine, but it still doesn't stop my family from saying I'm fem to taunt me. Basically, if I had to translate - Somebody who'd fit right in, in my family, is Andrew & Tristan Tate - their toxic masculinity is exactly the same beliefs that I was raised on. No wonder I'm a vers top then? I didn't think about all the toxic masculine conditioning I went through (I grew up in the 2000s - I was born in '96) until typing all this today....... How did I survive all those years? I still don't understand it.

Long story short, the bullying kept continuing until my high school graduation at 17 (in 2014). I later came out to my mom in 2018 - biggest mistake of my life (I was 22 by then, and looking back, coming out to anybody is something I should not have done). My family and friends at that time, were all homophobic. Most of them still are. I cut off most of them, except my mom (I moved out 4 months ago, but when she visits, I don't talk about "your sexuality", as she calls it).

Sidebar #1 - Growing up, my half-siblings were (what I call) "absentee siblings". I always wanted a relationship with them, but they've never been present in my life. I was raised as an only child (I have 6 siblings, 2 of which are deceased, but the rest live between Bermuda - where my dad, a Pisces born in '55, was from - and the US). My mom neglected me growing up, and my dad was the active parent (but my family never liked my dad, so they continue to dismiss his extremely important role in shaping who I am today - they say my abusive mother taught me everything, while my family shuns my dad, unfairly and brutally - which is just disrespectful. My dad was the best father - which I didn't know actually, because my mom routinely lied about him being abusive toward me my whole childhood - and to this day, when I say anything nice about my dad, she snaps at me, "You're delusional!" My mom has a few personality disorders, so her mood swings no longer shock me. I wanted to add that, because my dynamic with my parents & my mom's abuse toward me still impacts me to this day).

Sidebar 2 - My dad died when I was 14 years old, in 2010. Due to everything discussed in Sidebar #1, television was my parent from around 6 years old until my high school graduation at 17. I was a latchkey kid after age 11, since my grandma pretty much raised me until she died when I was 11 (me, my parents and my grandma all lived together; after my grandma died in '08, it was just my parents and I, until my parents separated in 2010. My mom and I moved out of town, and my dad stayed at my grandma's house, which is where he died in 2010. My cousin's ex-boyfriend basically committed malpractice toward my dad, but he refuses to be held accountable for my dad's death, to this day). TV was my parent through all this. I knew I was LGBT at 13, when I watched gay porn for the first time. But long before that, I'd "have lots of good times", if you will, fantasizing about Ashton Kutcher, Ricky Martin (my 1st celebrity crush, way back in 2001 & still is, to this day), Desi Arnaz (aka Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy - my 2nd celebrity crush, way back in 2005 & still is, to this day - by the way, the line "Lucy! You don't like when we.... vibrate?" drove me wild back in the day. Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz are my idols & personal role models, so I'm not shocked at Desi happening to be attractive on top of being ahead of his time & an iconic trailblazer in TV history.

My type as a kid (before I discovered str8 porn at 10 & gay porn at 13, so before 2009) was Ricky Martin, Desi Arnaz, Eminem, Justin Timberlake (my mom once walked in on me.... "having a good time" to that Justin Timberlake photo of him shirtless in the back seat of a car in denim jeans. To say I was embarrassed is a huge understatement.), Ashton Kutcher (before he went off the rails), Chris Evans and Jason Biggs (American Pie; why wouldn't I be turned on by them? - that is all), Ike Barinholtz (I discovered Ike as K-Fed on MadTV - I also "had lots of good times" to Ike back in the day, and my crush on him died a few years ago, when I discovered his bearded twink death stole his attractive qualities from me), Drake Bell (Drake was also a huge celebrity crush of mine, which I actually forgot until recently), all 3 Jonas Brothers (as a 27 year old, I only find Kevin and Joe appealing - my crush on Nick died 4 or 5 years ago, and I don't know why), all of N'Sync and Backstreet (before the year 2002 - twink JT, twink Lance Bass, Aaron Carter pre-tattoos, and so many more are still my everything), Chace Crawford, and - on the Old Hollywood front - when I was 8 years old, watching Mickey Rooney in The Human Comedy, when he was shirtless walking down the stairs, really made me swoon. But they're just a few examples of the many men that I still model my physical type after, to this day.

I've made many mistakes dating wise - From 18 to 24, I once dated my now ex-boyfriend, a hoodlum gang member from New York City.

In 2016, Hoodlum (as I'll be calling him) posted revenge porn of me on Facebook (this is how I came out to my family; they'd suspected I was LGBT until the revenge porn confirmed it). My entire family found out, and they've victim shamed me ever since (they think that I posted it). Hoodlum, who was already serving prison time, told me later that he served an additional 3 months in prison because of the revenge porn. And he didn't admit to posting the RP at the time, but he only admitted to it in 2020, shortly after our breakup (and I forced him to tell my mom that he did it, because of how much I still hate her, for how badly she cursed me out about the RP incident. To this day, when I mention Hoodlum's name or anything about his life, she rolls her eyes at me, like a child. My mom is 61 years old.)

My family refers to this ex-boyfriend as "the crazy Puerto Rican", and one of my relatives (Trigger warning: My whole family is racist) said to me, "Puerto Ricans don't f*** with black people." Well, I dated 3 Latin men after him, and..... Other mistakes include letting my family tell me (Trigger warning: Misogyny & Femphobia from my family), "Please do not date a flamboyant homosexual." (Keep in mind, the cousin who told me this is 54 years old, and a gang affiliated career criminal - yes, my mom and I are the only people in the family who never got into the street life and pretty much I turned my life around. My mom, however..... she's also a hardcore homophobe/misogynist/transphobe/racist. My mom's from Georgia and grew up in New Jersey, so when she makes homophobic, transphobic, racist and basically Republican remarks, I'm very quick to snap at her, "You sound like Jefferson Davis!" but.... my mom's past is totally irrelevant to the story, for personal reasons). For context, my mom is so delusional that she told me, "I commend Trump for building The Wall." My mom is a black woman; the delusion is 3,000%!!!!!! I want to donate her brain for scientific examination when she dies, so somebody can see the high levels of Conservative Cray Cray that she fails to see about herself.

But as I said, my family's homophobia & transphobia are a different conversation.

Chapter 2: Later Life (2018 - Present)

Basically, I came out to my mom and cousin (the same cousin who made the "flamboyant homosexual" comment) at 22, moved out at 27. What led to me moving out was I was a victim of domestic violence toward me 3 times, and 5 days after the third incident, I started to visualize me living at home at 80 years old, and I didn't want my life to turn out that way. So in December 2023, I moved out & am doing much better. The only bad thing is, I've been unemployed since I moved out. I get government assistance (my mom basically Britney Spears'ed me to get that check every month) and she uses it to pay my rent here.

Positive: I have my own apartment (my mom - who's always been overprotective and controlling my whole life - pays my rent, since I got approved for an apartment in Nebraska, and she refuses to allow me to move to NE; but that's a different conversation).

Negative: I have decent work history, but the only jobs that will hire me are sales jobs (I've worked in a few industries before, but only sales seems to seek me out the most - and I resent this a lot).

Side note about my type - From 2018 until last year, I was polyamorous. When I fell in love with my boyfriend, I decided to be fully monogamous as my way of committing to him. However, last month (March '24), I started having sleepless nights, and have had them for the last 4 weeks - and still do, in fact - as well as started having dreams about 2 celebrities I have crushes on for these last 4 weeks (it's.... interesting & I just had a dream about celeb #2 last night). Last week, I realized the reason all that's been happening to me is because I regretted monogamy. This is a totally different topic (obviously), but I don't even know how to bring up polyamory to my boyfriend. He's my soulmate, and I'm terrified of his reaction.

So hopefully, it's easy to understand why coming out is my biggest regret in life. However, I'm in a happy, 1 year relationship now and my boyfriend is 27 like me. I'm black, he's Asian, and he's actually moving from Hong Kong to the US to be with me. And my lifelong dream has always been to be a father, and to get married. I hope my boyfriend also wants to start a family with me, since my life truly feels complete on the romance side; however, in terms of cutting people out my life, I still have a lot more work to do.