Okay, I have to post this now, because if I don't I'm not going to be able to. This is gonna be a really long post, cuz I need to get this out, even if I feel really weird writing it. I just hope I can say it right…
Ok, here I go.
I’m 14, I live in California. I just got into Buffy like 6 months ago, when I watched the first two episodes of season 4 on Fox reruns.
Somehow I missed a whole bunch of things in the middle, mostly because I wasn’t obsessed like I am now, and when I came back, it was somewhere around Hell’s Bells. I wish soooo badly that I had paid more attention to what I thought when I saw the W/T relationship then. I know I thought it was sweet and that it didn’t bother me, but I also know that when they kissed, the get-back-together Tara-in-leather kiss at the end of Entropy, I didn’t watch, I looked away from the screen. Ahhh I hate that now. When I didn’t watch, it was more of a weird reaction than anything else, because I’d never actually considered the prospect of me being gay before, and it was just a ‘this is what I should want to do’ thing.
Anyway, when I watched the end of season 6, I was really upset, even though I didn’t really know Tara as a character that well yet, because I had liked her in the episodes I’d watched.
Then they started the whole series over on Fox, because season 7 had only just ended on tv, and they weren’t allowed to show the reruns yet, but I was having doubts about watching season 7 anyway, so I didn’t really care.
Anyway, I didn’t actually see Hush, because I actually had all the time I spent watching Buffy limited, because my parents were getting concerned that I was too into it (it was on 2 hrs a day, I watched it)
I did see A New Man though, and I got really interested when Tara came on, cuz it was a real surprise and I was like ‘cool, this person was good when I saw her before.’ Anyway, after that I started watching hard-core again, like not missing a single episode, and taping the ones that were on. I started rewatching all of the W/T scenes over and over… but I actually didn’t think anything of it, somehow totally thought I just wanted to see how the whole thing was handled and brought out into the open. Then I got kicked off of Buffy… again… and bribed my brother into recording everything from This Year’s Girl to NMR.
While I couldn’t watch anything, I started looking up stuff on the internet (I was completely clueless, didn’t even know about fanfic) and then I was babysitting these kids across the street one morning, and while they were still in bed NMR came on. I watched it, didn’t get caught and stuff, but then I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
So when I went home, I looked up Willow and Tara online, and found… well lots of stuff. I actually didn’t find this board until like 2 or 3 months before I first posted, but I found an author’s W/T fanfic on their website, and started reading it.
I was really intrigued with the thing (it was behind the scenes of canon season 4) and how Willow and Tara could progress from friends to more…
Anyway, I was reading it, and I got this whole (okay, this is gonna sound SOOOO corny) jittery feeling in my stomach, and it was the scene in Who Are You, where Tara says “I am you know… Yours.” And Willow walked over to the bed, (behind the scenes part) and I was practically screaming at the computer scream “KISS HER!!”
And keep in mind, this entire time, for the like 5 days I’ve been obsessed with reading the fic (it’s long) I’m totally not even thinking about the concept of me being gay or straight, or bi, it’d never even entered my mind.
To make a long story short, she kissed her, and I had a, um, visual, and my heart was all pounding and I was sitting there thinking it was so sweet and getting shivers…
And then I realized what I was reacting to, and I kinda freaked. I didn’t go back to the story for a few days, just thought… but I couldn’t get it off my mind, so I kept reading, tried not to think about what I felt while reading the parts where they did more that kiss.
Then I started keeping this diary, which had started off about everything, but was basically now just about whether or not I was gay. I’ve had crushes on guys before, or actually only 3 guys, but still… but when I think about it, none of them were like I saw him and thought ‘oh, he’s cute, I like him.’ It was more along the lines of ‘oh, he’s nice. He’s kinda cute too. Funny. He’s the kind of guy I should like. I don’t have a crush on anyone at the minute. Guess I like him!’
Weird, I know, but it’s me.
Then, I think back, and I was always really weird with my best-friends. I met my cousin’s friend in 1st grade (ok, not a good example, I know, but it’s bugging me) and I really liked her. I was thinking that I wished I was a boy, so I could marry her.
The same thing happened with my best friend in 3rd though 6th grade. I wanted to be exactly like her, it was weird, like I thought she was some kind of god. Every single girl in my class was obsessed with this guy, Costa, in my 5th grade class, to the point where we all met at lunch ( I wasn’t really part of the club, it was more I followed her there and kinda watched, pretended to like him) and followed him, not exactly obviously, and counted the number of seconds he took to get a drink at the drinking fountain every day for like 2 weeks and averaging it out later to add to the club book… and I counted how many seconds my friend drank instead, because I wanted to know everything about her (yes I think I was slightly crazy in 5th grade, forgive me) (the ironic part of this is that my mom talked to Costa’s mom about a year ago, when she saw her at some store, and it turns out Costa had a crush on me for almost all of 5th grade, but didn’t say anything…
Anyway, there were other things, like I’d always (up until last year) wish that I was a guy, not because I thought ‘oh I could get a girlfriend,’ but for other things like getting to take my shirt off in public (that was 2nd grade, not last year), or not having to be the one to have a baby.
So then when I started writing little things, mostly from canon season 4, about Willow and Tara, I was really confused about whether or not I was gay. (still am)
So then I’d go to school, and think, ‘oh, if I was gay, I’dve had crushes on girls by now, or at least noticed something. But then I was all worried that I had, and just put it off as something else, or not noticed at all. So I started paying attention to how being around different people (guys and girls) made me feel, but the problem is that I’m so busy over-analyzing everything that I can’t know what I’m actually feeling and what I’m making up (I know that also sounds crazy, but it really makes sense if it’s happened to you.) I think that maybe I’m exaggerating the thoughts I had, lately or before, or actually making them up because I actually can’t decide whether I’d rather I was or wasn’t gay.
And that makes me think ‘hello, if you weren’t gay why would the idea of it almost appeal to you…’ and then I’m back to the W/T relationship and how sweet it is, and maybe I’m just projecting cuz I want the kind of love they have for each other with someone in the future… and maybe that’s the whole reason that I was drawn to it in the first place.
I also can’t talk to anyone about it until I’m sure one way or the other. If I tell my mom, or my dad, or my friends, then even if it turns out not to be true, there would always be that lingering doubt, especially with my best friend, who is currently trying to hack into my computer to find out what I’ve been spending so much time writing (aside from fic, I write A LOT of stuff that’s just like one scene things for me, or little diaries on here, and she’s started to notice…) and I have this thing on my webpage, it’s for school mostly, but I added a ‘Kitten links,’ page, which I didn’t put anything on because everyone I know knows about my website, and if they came here and found anything, I’d be pretty screwed. Anyway, she went on and saw it before I could delete it, and so now she is searching Google for “the kitten” and “the kitten stories” and stuff because she also knows that some of the stuff I am writing is fiction (she snuck up behind me about two days ago and read ‘Ch.3,’ which was in bold, before I could minimize it.)
But, back on subject, I kinda had to get this out, and there’s no one I can talk to about it at home, not yet at least, and so I’m finally posting this… but it still feels kinda weird.
And that’s not even going into the religious issues (I’m catholic) and other stuff… if I am actually gay at all.
It's hard to tell, because I'm only 14 and stuff, and haven't actually kissed anyone... ever... and so i don't really know what I'm actually feeling.
Anyway, I just realized exactly how long this was getting, so I’m gonna stop.
Any thoughts anyone has that you think might help would be really appreciated, but this was mostly just a thing I had to get out some way or another, so thanks for reading.
-michelle
"Love is giving someone the ability to destroy you, and trusting them not to."
by Aquarius Dreamer » Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:33 pm 
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at: 10/30/03 1:37 am
Out 
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Out