Apparently, I am gay.

I don't think of myself as gay, except as a convenient label. It fits reasonably well, and I don't find it offensive, so I describe myself as gay. It's an important difference. I wrote in another article that it's a flag of convenience, and that by labeling myself at least it's my choice how I'm described.

I used to work in an LGBT community centre, and yes, at that time I did think of myself as gay. Looking back, I was still coming to terms with it, and taking refuge in labels and stereotypes. I accepted my sexuality, but I wasn't really clear on what it meant about me.

Whenever I've had a conversation with someone about being gay, I've usually been asked the same questions. 'How do you know?' is often the first one, and the answer has always seemed pretty obvious: because I think guys are hot and girls are not.

I'm lucky there, because I can call myself gay, and even if they don't like it people understand what it is. It's not the difficult o get someone to understand that I'm attracted to men. I worked with a lot of transgendered people, and I know the most difficult part for many of them was not saying 'I am a man' or 'I am a woman', but having to explain how that was possible.

Sometimes in that conversation, I've been asked 'How do you know you're gay if you've never had any involvement with a woman?'. Once I was asked that by someone, and was about to give a slightly irritated reply, when he went on to say 'I've never been involved with a guy so I can't say for certain that I don't like guys.' To this day I can't make up my mind whether that means he was confused, open minded, or had simply missed the point.

I had a very confusing moment in my life when I had a brief crush on a girl. Having already come to terms with liking guys, it was a shock. Still, I recognised that my interest was romantic but not sexual. She'd been a good friend to me when I was in the middle of a bad relationship. It's become just another facet of my sexuality.

I have a capacity for romantic feelings about anyone. I know there is the possibility of becoming involved with a woman, at least in principal, if my feelings for her were strong enough that her gender didn't matter to me.

'When did you know you were gay?' is one of my least favourite questions. There's not one moment when I suddenly thought about it.

My parent's capacity for peevishness and eccentricity left me open to all sorts of possibilities about my life, although I doubt any of us foresaw my sexuality. It did mean that the knowledge of it just gradually crept up on me, rather than coming all at once.

I hate having that conversation. Not because it makes me uncomfortable, just because it's tiresome.

I don't come out to people any more. There's no need. I always refer to my partner by the male pronoun. My friends know, because they're my friends and if we go out drinking and I'm talking about my boyfriend, or flirting with a guy, it's difficult not to know. My sexuality is no secret, I just can't be bothered to tell people any more. If people assume that I'm straight, more fool them.

Anyway, I'm not gay. I'm me. How do I explain that to people?

Learn more about this author, Tom Robbins.
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