my friend recently had something happen to them that really reminded me of an incident from when i was 14. i feel kinda stupid for still being affected by it, although it’s definitely not as bad as it was back then. still i have trouble being around a certain person that was involved, without my anxiety kicking in.
so, back when i was 13-14, i identified as bisexual, before realising i was actually aromantic at 15. and my friends are all quite supportive, so i told them about it. but my one friend somehow thought it was a good idea to tell her back then best friend¿? without my knowledge about me identifying as bi. we’ll call him K. and i was friends with him too — i guess you could say K and i were childhood friends of sorts — and K had a crush on me for a very long time, but he’s also pretty homophobic (and once tried to argue with me about my disability not really being a disability ???) and i didn’t even find out until weeks later, only when the friend who told him, let’s call her M, approached me with “K doesn’t like that you’re bi”, which ?? i don’t need his permission but okay lmao
now, everything would’ve been fine it just ended there. but it didn’t. K and i were still friends, although things were a bit weird between us. And about a week after i turned 14, K threw a party. since i live very close to K and also have known him for a long time, my parents had no issue with me going. M came too, but neither of us were allowed to drink which was completely understandable. i did just turn 14 after all. and drinking laws in germany are quite different, where you can legally drink once you’re 14 with the supervision of an adult around and things like that.
M and i both stayed until midnight and by then kind of almost everyone had left and it was just K, M and a few other people i knew from school. one of them being one of my friends older brother, J. And besides M and me, everyone was pretty drunk.
now, K and J aren’t friends anymore but they were pretty close back then. and i don’t know for sure, but it’s the only thing i can think about that would make sense; K told J about me identifying as bi. and J is even more homophobic than K.
and in his drunken stupor, J started asking me about my sexuality. it started out okay but became increasingly more gross and inappropriate, to the point where i wanted to cry. he openly started making fun of me and tried to turn everyone who was there, against me.
it was really scarring for me — i dealt with internalised homophobia for a long time and had finally gotten around to accepting the fact i wasn’t straight. and that kinda just, backset a lot of the progress i had made.
it doesn’t affect me that much anymore, but i’m definitely not over it. like i said above, i still have a lot of trouble with being in the same room as J without feeling like i want to bolt out of there.
i guess i just never really got to properly process it, because i had no one i could talk to about this.
