I'm gay.

But in the past I had a lot of sex with men because looking back I was falling prey to the magical dick trope and thought that there was some perfect guy out there who could fix me and make me attracted to men. Obviously that never happened. However due to low self esteem caused by intense denial, even though sex with men did nothing for me at its best and was painful at its worst, I continued doing it for the validation because I liked being wanted.

Then I came to terms with my sexuality and it was painful. But it was like a weight had lifted. I finally admitted the truth to myself. I came out to friends and family, most of whom were supportive.

However something that's been troubling me is that sometimes when I get depressed I occasionally have the strong desire (not sexual) to hook up with a guy because I want to feel wanted . I haven't given into it because I know the sex will be as unpleasant as it has always been and it's incredibly unhealthy. Trust me, I'm working on it. It's made me reevaluate my life and I've realized that when I was repressing my sexuality I was using sex with men as a form of self harm, like a drug for a temporary validation high that wore off quick and left me sobbing in the shower, scrubbing myself raw not able to understand why I felt so dirty. This was an unpleasant realization because I've always been a very sex positive person and discovering how much of a hypocrite I was is quite jarring.

I guess my main issue is coming to terms with how much I lied to myself and my friends to avoid the truth, pretending to be the sex positive hoe friend with a high libido who had tons of awesome sex with hot guys who were totally obsessed with me. That was my personality for the longest time. I spent so long pretending to be someone else I'm not sure who I am. I'm seriously worried my friends won't like the real me, and that they don't believe I'm actually gay.

Sorry for the essay but I reallllly needed to get that out.