Blogging
Not having any luck making gay friends, I resorted to the internet to confess my frustrations and insecurities. I decided it would help me deal with these issues and perhaps help others that could be going through something similar. I always hoped there would be people that felt differently that I could identify with.
During that time, I started following someone that had a channel on YouTube. His name was John and he would talk about his experience being in college and sharing his way of thinking. I found John to be very interesting not only because I liked the way he expressed himself but I saw him as someone that could easily be my friend if we lived in the same city. He was not the stereotypical gay guy (whatever that means). He was into sports and played waterpolo. I was intrigued by his videos and the things he would discuss on them. He seemed to be very comfortable with his sexuality and in my opinion he could easily be considered a role model – At least I think I did.
After watching his videos and seeing the impact he had on other people, I decided I wanted to share what I was going through with the world. I decided to start my own blog, which in other words was a diary for myself. I started writing about my life (just like I do now) hoping to figure things out and hopefully reach others and get their point of view on specific matters. One of the first things I wrote about was about my “Internal Homophobia” as it was something I had recently figure out by going to see my therapist.
I had followed John for a few weeks, when I decided to contact him and share my new blog with him. I thought it would be nice to get feedback from him about my humble blog. I did not hear from him for a couple of weeks but his response was I loved it, good job. That was enough for me, I was really happy he had taken the time to see my website and respond but my surprise came when watching his latest video he mentioned my blog! This was crazy, I could not believe my words had impacted him so much that he would talk about it on his blog.
He thanked me for this blog post and he said that after reading it, he was 100% not internally homophobic. He was now sure that he had gone through dealing with the internal shame some guys have for being gay. He also said he was happy to finally say that he not longer felt internally homophobic. He shared my blog on his video and this resulted on a lot of traffic coming to my blog.
I started receiving comments from people from all over the world, saying that they felt the same way about certain things. I finally, felt I was not the only one feeling this way. It was nice seeing other people opening up with me and commenting on my posts and telling me their personal experience about something I would talk about. This was a great way for me to realize that there is more people like me or at least that think like me.
Opening up online helped me move forward, I knew there had to be people that felt differently but I also read stories from older men that had finally had the courage to of coming out after being married and having a family. I learned that everybody deals with this differently and the self-acceptance process varies. Even though at the time I was not 100% fine with being gay, I knew I was doing the right things to move forward and finally get comfortable with myself.
Sadly, John closed his Youtube account a few months after that. He sent out a video saying that would be his last video because although he doesn’t mind putting his life out there he did not want his family to be affected by it. Not sure exactly what could have happened but it was sad to lose contact with him.
As for me, I kept blogging during my acceptance process, once I felt I was feeling better I slowly stopped doing it. I guess, I felt I did not need to do it anymore. I was looking for help wherever I could find it and blogging certainly helped. Even though I stopped blogging I always felt I left an unfinished project.
For this reason, I am now back to blogging after realizing the impact it had not only on myself but in other people as well. I decided to create Zabi Knows it All with the same purpose of helping people and sharing my thoughts but this time with a more professional and mature outlook. Having grown and being in a different stage of my life where I can look back at things and reflect on them.
This post is also available in: Spanish
