What If...

Had a little break over Xmas/Birthday and to be fair not much of note has been worth blogging about. But today Twitter highlighted a certain Daily Mail article which got me thinking and reminded me I've been neglecting my blog.

The article in question is with regards to including references to homosexuality in the National Curriculum, I'm not going to go on a rant about this, I'm just going to explain my story...

As I said in my first post, I don't make a big thing about being gay. I met a guy at the weekend, who when I mentioned it didn't believe me, even when I showed him the screen saver on my phone he thought it was a joke. I explained I don't use it as an introduction as people have preconceived ideas about gay guys, and I like people to get to know who 'I' am as a person.

Its a weird thing realising your gay, before I was sexually aware I had pictures of guys from Smash Hits on my wall, as they were the kind of people I aspired to be (mostly quite muscular guys being the skinny weed I was as a child.) It wasn't until later in life it kind of clicked why I really had them on my wall.
Once puberty hit my first sexual experience was with a friend from school but shortly after that was in the past and I did the 'normal' thing and dated girls. And this was most of my late teens and early twenties doing what I thought was the normal route through life, find a girl, get married, have kids... which at one point I almost did.
As I got further into my twenties I started to come to terms with my sexuality and if I was single I would hook up with guys, but I was never looking for anything deeper and it was always in secret. This was until I met my ex.
I was 26, and although there'll be sceptics, it really was love at first sight, I knew straight away that this is what I wanted and proceeded to come out. As I said in my earlier post, the reaction was basically 'why should it matter, you're still Dean,' (except my sister who is the only one to reply 'I know') and I realised coming out wasn't the big deal I thought it was going to be.

So back to that article, the point of my story is that I grew up, even in the liberal 90s, thinking homosexuality wasn't normal. Not that it was wrong but not what normal middle class people do. Things have come a long way since the 90s we can now (almost) marry, have kids, and that's all I wanted from life since the age of 16, unfortunately it didn't happen with my first love but I'm still young.
But if I had been taught at school that its perfectly normal to be gay, I'm sure my life would have played out differently. Maybe I wouldn't have waited until my mid-20s to try and find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I wouldn't have been one miscarriage away from being married with a kid right now, or most probably by now divorced with a kid.
And I certainly wasn't 'brainwashed' into being gay it was there in me since before I even realised, without any contact with gay people or gay media. We're born that way simple as.

I've e-mailed a link of this blog to Melanie Phillips, maybe she might take some notice of someone with a bit more insight into these matters, maybe she won't. All I care is I'm happy with my life and don't feel the need to judge how others live theirs.