Greetings dear reader,

If you are confused by the title of this blog effort, I suggest that you read this blog entry from the start and keep going till you get to the end because it's going to be the most personal blog entry that I have ever written.

In short, I am gay.

I was gay yesterday, I'm gay today and it's highly likely that I will be gay tomorrow (pending the apocalypse/return of Jebus of course).

In fact, I have been gay for as long as I can remember. Girls have never really interested me outside of people to talk to. The earliest that I can remember being interested in boys is way back in my history - somewhere around 2nnd grade when I was 7 years old. I won't go into the details of  how I realised that I liked boys at that age but suffice it to say I liked the bits of the boy involved a great deal - wish I'd stayed his friend through my school life.

Yeah, it's been hard being gay and pretending to be straight (or str8 if you are hip and cool and 12 years old) but I've been living that way for a long time.

I am 46 years old right now. I have been pretending to be heterosexual for over 30 plus years. That's a long time to keep a secret. One or two people have guessed that I have been playing a game but most of my friends still think that I am a "normal" heterosexual man. Believe me, I haven't been out to discourage their theories.

This is what fear does to you - it causes you to deny your true self and it makes you try to fit into a lifestyle that doesn't match how you really feel just so you can make other people feel comfortable.

What I am may possibly be worst kept secret at my workplace - I was once informed by a workmate that I don't do a good job of hiding my sexuality - I always thought that I was doing a great job of hiding who I was. I'm a pretty smart person (I think) and I think that I would have noticed people treating me differently from the norm if they had an inkling of my sexual preferences. I may be terribly naive if I missed any signs along the way. On the other hand, if my workmates have been totally oblivious to which way I swing, then I really must work with some blinkered people.

At the end of the day, I am still the person I was when I woke up this morning. and I'll still be the same person tomorrow when I wake up (albeit, a very hungover me). I just figured that if a friend of mine had the courage to come out at such a young age then I should also be as courageous as he was at my age.

Being gay is not a choice, a sickness or a protest against traditionalism. It's just people being the same as you but a bit different in the people they like. Tomorrow, I don't want to be treated any different to how people treated me today when I got out of bed. I respect people for who they are, not how they feel and expect nothing less in return.

All I ask is that you look at me tomorrow the same way you looked at me yesterday - is that too much to ask?