I grew up in a major city, a city that many people dream of living or visiting, yet I hated most of my time here for the majority of my life.

Even though we lived in a big city, both my parent's families came from a small rural place that was deeply conservative and catholic. My earliest childhood memories basically consist of visiting said relatives for multiple times a year where it was always sitting around the house with two alcoholic grandparents, a conservative uncle that hated everyone who didn't conform to his beliefs and visiting the mass of a pastor that had fucked his own cook and had two kids with her, yet refused to baptise babies that were born out of wedlock in his town. I grew up hating and resenting everything about it.

Sometimes you just have bad luck with the surroundings, your 'friends', your social circle in school and your family.
After all, you spend the majority of your time growing up in kindergarten, elementary- and high school where you can't really control who's being thrown into that with you.

I hated my time in high school as well since basically everyone around me was an genuinely awful human being (inlcuding often times myself). You came to school in the morning and wouldn't know who was the target for this day or what would happen to you. Everyone would bully everyone. Doesn't matter if nerd or popular kids we'd all go at each other. It was stuff like spiking drinks with laxatives, stealing from others, spreading rumors and all that bullshit; couldn't show weakness and had to defend yourself or you'd be at the bottom of the food chain (that included both girls and boys)

Thinking back, everyone was deeply insecure about all kinds of stuff and so to distract from their own problems, tried to make other people's time on this earth a living hell - talk about the crab in a bucket mentality. Fun times, huh?

But hey, from what you're describing, you could have it way worse - like being born in a 3rd world country where they stone you or throw you off buildings.

If you could ask me what my future dream is, it would be to work on my body to tone up and get a bit more fit/muscular (I'm just lean), finish my degree, get a nice job that I don't have to make crazy money but I can do what I need to do, get my paycheck, have time to relax and save enough to travel on that time off. And when I think of it, move out for good somewhere far where no one will recognize me or know I am that I can start fresh, so I don't have to deal with the baggage that comes with my hometown that seems to follow me around.

That's pretty much what I did. I cut contact with all of the old acquaintances and moved away. Even though I could've just moved to a different part of the city, all the old baggage, the same old faces I would've eventually ran into was just not something I wanted.
Moved to a different country, started working some jobs then when I somewhat established myself I decided to take some savings and travel. First South America to Colombia, Chile and Uruguay then I went to South East Asia like Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.
My main goals were to hit the gym/be active and not succumb to that lazy expat life where you start your day at 2pm with a cold Tiger beer, meet new people and experience lots of new things.
I enrolled in a Muay Thai/MMA gym in Asia for like half a year where I had a strict schedule 6 days a week (6am 5k run, 8-10am technical and strength conditioning, break where I'd work and then from 4-6pm sparring). That was honestly the best time of my life where I learned alot about myself, got a different outlook on everything, learned to be disciplined and conquer all that shit that gets thrown at you.

Moving far away and focussing on myself and my own well being was the best decision of my life. Period!
I travel a lot know and one of my biggest joys whenever I visit a new city is just to dress up nice, put in some headphones, listen to good music and walk around like I own the place ;). Sometimes I get lost for hours, but that doesn't matter, I just see where it takes me, talk to random people, visit some sights, eat where the locals eat and just soak in the atmosphere and the vibe of a place. It's seriously amazing.

Everytime you visit a (new) place where you hardly know anyone it's like a different chapter of your life. Treat it like a blank page in a book. You can be anyone you want and you're not defined and confined by others if they can't tell you to be like this or that like most of your family or social circle would back home.
If you were always the quiet kid at home and everyone puts you in this box, fuck them, nobody knows that 2000 miles from home. Bonus points for getting to actually choose who to associate with. Don't like someone in a city? Eh, you won't see em again if you don't want to because they're probably either a tourist or you won't be here in a few weeks anyways.

My hometown just sucks balls and I hate every time I come here, especially when so many people have done nothing with their lives and even my bullies have gone nowhere.

I know that feel and every time I visit I strictly treat it like a holiday. Like I'm getting a hotel room in the touristy/nicer parts of the city for a week, go to my favorite restaurants, check out some museums or sights then visit my parents once or twice. Has really helped me get some room to breathe.

As for being gay, I know this is so over done but it's also discouraging to not be able to date anyone, or ever be given a chance because so many guys have high standards or are closed or flakes or [insert reason here].

Hate to break it to you but that same thing could be said about girls. Not only is a thousand times harder for guys to hookup with girls like it's done on Grindr or Scruf, girls also do have ridiculous standards when it comes to dating. Basically every other Tinder profile contains stuff like be 6'+ or if you're under 6'1 don't bother. So after these girls exclude like 90% of the world's population, being in the 10% is still not enough. Gotta have a good haircut, nice face, preferably car and place to host, pay for dinner, have a good job/degree, be smart but not a wise-ass, funny but not a clown, confident but not cocky, a gentleman but not a white knight etc.

That being said, being gay is most likely not the cause for your situation. I'm bi and only dated girls in high school, yet still had awful friends, financial difficulties, family drama and what not. You just got dealt a shitty card with your surroundings and need to work on your problems one by one. Anyways, if you need some info regarding travelling the world (especially South America, Europe or South East Asia) and some good places to start you can hit me up.