Dear Tom,
First of all, I want to encourage you to follow your own process. There are always many factors to consider such as the attitudes about sexuality of the people who populate your life. What might be the response of your family? Your friends? Your work? Most important, how would their responses impact your own happiness? The most significant thing to figure out is the path to your own happiness and being true to yourself.
Your comments about not viewing yourself the way you see other gay men acting is relevant and I would like to speak to that a little. The milieu, or setting, that you see these men in makes a considerable difference. For example, there are many sub-cultures of gay men. Some are into the “club scene” while others sit home and watch football on the weekends. The interests, attitudes, mannerisms and appearance of gay men vary considerably. As a result, you are often unable to get an accurate reflection of gay men, or gay lifestyle, from the media or small groups of individuals who identify as gay. Many gay men report that they are surprised at how diverse the gay population actually is when they do finally step out of the ordinary.
With respect to coming out and your main question, yes, there is a process that is often talked about in research about coming out. Troiden (1989) clearly articulates a four stage process. It is important to note, however, that individuals go through the process differently based on any number of highly individualized factors. The stages are: (1) an early stage of sensitization to same-sex attractions marked by recognition usually in childhood or early adolescence…(2) sexual experimentation, usually in adolescence, with both opposite-sex and same-sex (in some cases) partners…(3) a stage of identity assumption, a stage of self-identification as gay, lesbian, or bisexual usually in late adolescence or early adulthood…(4) identity commitment and becoming more connected to the identity and disclosure to others.
As you can imagine, progressing through the stages above vary considerably for each individual. For example, the knowledge of same-sex attractions (i.e. stage 1) is evident much earlier. In addition, some gay men never have sexual relations with the same sex. These are just some examples. As I stated above, your level of comfort and being true to yourself is what matters most. Some gay men have very strong feelings that coming out is essential to meaningful relationship development and this may very well be true, but this view simplifies the varying impact coming out has on each individual. For some, everyone in their lives is perfectly ok with them being gay and yet, for others, it means changing their friends and social networks respectively.
Good Pleasure,
Dr. Simple
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