mareepeeram Posted September 16, 2008 Posted September 16, 2008 Firstly I apologise infinitely for the length of this post. In some ways it's a great way for me to get a lot of things off my chest. It's a very long story though, so a huge thanks to anyone who sticks with it until the bitter end, it might shock you a little I'm 19, just. My birthday being only a couple of weeks ago. I met my (ex) boyfriend 3 years ago in September 2005. He's not the most conventially good-looking guy, and I didn't feel even 1% of attraction upon meeting him. We met playing football on a field near our houses (which it turned out were just around the corner from each other) and while I didn't think much of it, he started to knock on my door everytime he went out, asking if I wanted to join in. He was 13 at the time, (me being 16) turns out we had the same birthday. We got talking a lot and while I thought he seemed dead friendly, the picture I quickly got was that he was short on friends and confidence. He got bullied a lot, and I think the first time we appreciated each other as actual friends was a couple of months later when he was getting pushed around a bit by some morons on our estate. I stormed in and stuck up for him and we grew to be great friends. We progressed to going round to each others houses to play on games consoles and have sleepovers etc, the usual things. Now yeah I was 16, meaning by teenage convention I should be out getting drunk illegally most nights, but that sort of stuff has never appealled to me. I like a drink as much as the next guy, yeah, but clubbing and all that loud sort of stuff definitely isn't me. I'd known I was gay since 11/12. Took me a while to accept, yeah, but I think deep down I knew. I still didn't feel anything for my mate, he was just a very good mate, quickly becoming my best. I'm not somebody who's ever really been short on friends, but I've had bad experiences with them. When I was 9 my best friend at the time literally dropped dead in front of me one day without warning and that's an image it's very hard to come to terms with... even now. I moved on from him and made another good friend, who moved away to the other side of the country when I was 12. I had friends after that but was always too scared to ever really attach to any one of them in case they left me as well. But I really got on with this guy, and we became pretty close friends. I should probably mention another small factor here: his brother, 5 years his junior. His brother was probably his best friend before I came along and I was always very conscious about not being "the guy that took his brother away from him". So at the start, nearly everything we did together, also involved his brother. Instead of being annoying, I really got on with his brother and in a strange way became good friends with him as well. I loved the way he looked up to me and while we were never what you'd call close, we got on well. One time when I invited my mate to stay at my house, this brother seemed very down about it, so I said "okay, you can come as well if you want". It was a night my parents were away, so we ordered takeaway pizza and had a great time. Yeah, the age gaps might have been a little strange from the outside, but we all got on really well. I got on really well with his parents as well - they were apparently delighted their son had actually found himself a friend who cared about him, and started inviting me around themselves. I used to go around there every Friday night to keep the brother entertained (my mate goes out playing snooker every Friday night in town with his grandad), and eventually I'd stay until the little hours after my mate had got home, and we'd all have such a laugh. Still no feelings though. Just a very good friend. And it was like that for the next 20 or so months. Around Xmas 2006 I started developing feelings for my best mate. Now while I wouldn't encourage sexual attraction to a 14 year old boy, it didn't seem so bad at the time. Okay, so he was 14, but I was 17, not 40. Besides, I was pretty certain he wasn't gay. He didn't talk much about relationships, he'd just mentioned a previous girlfriend he broke up with within 3 days. I'd done the whole "falling for a straight mate" a couple of times before so I knew what to expect, and I wasn't about to let that damage my friendship with him. In one sense I was lonely, having never had a relationship and beginning to wonder what it was like, but I never let anything on about my feelings for him. The feelings continued until May 2006, when it all changed. I was feeling particularly down one day (friend of a friend being very homophobic to me) and after a great game of football we went for a walk around our estate. He asked me if anything was up and I said that no, there wasn't. We were sat on a pavement at this point (the perfect place for all heart to hearts, no?) and he put his arm around me and said "Look, I can tell when something's up with you. You're the best mate I've ever had and you've given me confidence and made me such a better person. You know you can tell me anything". I thought to myself, well why not. He's my best mate now and he's going to find out sometime. "I'm gay" I said. He looked stunned and went quiet. He looked up and saw me looking a bit bleh and said "It's a shock... that's why I'm like this. You should know it doesn't matter to me". We spoke a lot more and eventually I admitted to having "the occasional really small feeling" for him . He laughed and said "Well I'm glad you told me yourself. See, I don't think I'm gay but I appreciate the honesty". We both laughed and I said I didn't expect anything to ever come from it anyway. That night I felt so happy I had such a great mate, but one sentence suddenly hit me. Something I hadn't picked up on at the time. "I don't think I'm gay" That meant some thought had gone into it... damn . This sent my mind spinning. What if? Eventually I decided if he was and wanted to tell me, he would, so it wasn't worth persuing. One month later he slept over at my house again (family away again) and we did the usual PS2 and pizza routine, before heading to bed. We were sat on opposite beds (I share a room with my brother) talking, when he came and sat next to me. He looked at me and said "You know when you said you had feelings for me?", I said "yeah". He continued "... erm... well, would you mind if I kissed you?". And yeah we kissed. A lot. Nothing more than kissing since we were both a little apprehensive about it, but still, jesus christ. Talk about world turned upside down. I had no idea what to do, but as one friend told me shortly afterwards: "If you like this guy, go for it". We went out from then until December 2006 at which point we broke up for a number of reasons. We'd argued a lot and I was a pretty possessive boyfriend. Not something I was proud of but I didn't take the break up well. I was diagnosed with depression in January 2008 and had a lot of counselling. I talked about a lot then. About how the death of my friend when I was 9 made me feel like I wanted to almost physically hold onto this guy to stop him leaving me. About how I was so overcome with love all of a sudden that it was easy to overdo things. I worked on these things and my (ex) boyfriend was there with me every step of the way. Eventually in April we got back together everything. I finished my first year at Uni for the summer and for the first time in a while, we were happy together. What could possibly go wrong? His parents. That's what. They hated me. My boyfriend had told them about us and obviously, it was all my fault he was gay. Now I wasn't expecting good reactions from them, of course not, they were protective of their son. But the reactions we got were beyond protective in my opinion. Being disapproving and uncertain would be one thing, banning me from their house completely and calling me a paedophile were another. That didn't stop me being gobsmacked when they then reported me to the police in June 2008 for apparently having underage sex with him. I felt undeterred at first. They were just causing trouble, and we had respected the law. We hadn't had sex and they could do tests if needbe to prove that. So everything was going to be okay, right? Erm, wrong. The fact I'd kissed him was illegal. In fact, under the crime, "sexual activity with a minor", it didn't matter whether I'd kissed him or had sex with him. I was guilty. I was advised to stay away from him for "a few weeks" while this got sorted out. Well when I was bailed AGAIN at the start of August I lost all willingness to co-operate fully and started seeing him again. His parents didn't like it one bit, but we made it to the end of August and he finally turned 16. His parents could not stop us seeing each other now and we'd be fine. He'd never really got on with his parents and he fell out with them over this, eventually going to stay with his grandparents a few minutes away to get away from them. They continued to go round there and cause arguments and a week ago he collapsed and was taken to hospital as a precaution, where they told him it was stress related. He then texted me saying he couldn't cope with all the stress anymore and that because his family would never accept him as that, we needed to stop seeing each other. Altogether. Now I'm really stuck. I don't want to cause him more stress and possibly harm his health even further, but I can't just give up on him. I can get over a lost relationship, but I really don't want to lose my best friend again. Is it worth persuing him and telling him whatever happens I want to stay mates with him, begging him not to give up on me, is it worth leaving it a few months until things settle down or should I just give up on him completely? Even though I'm worried that last option would completely destroy me If anyone's actually got to this stage, thanks so much for your time and perseverence in actually reading this!
Eyeofthoth Posted September 16, 2008 Posted September 16, 2008 First of all, I'm so sorry. You have been through a lot. I have to say though, that I do not think that you should pursue him at all. You are both so young, and -- this isn't any kind of a judgment, because I had a boyfriend almost 4 years older than myself when I was younger than you two are, but at your ages, I really think he is too young for you. He won't be in a few years, but you both have so much life you could be living and so much you could be learning about relationships before that time. I would just send him a message wishing him well, and then go no contact. And I am saying this with huge compassion. I just broke up a few months ago with someone who was the love of my life, and I feel destroyed that he is not with me anymore, so I know that this will be incredibly difficult and my heart goes out to you.
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