shame and way out of it

First of all I never thought I was ashamed of myself, or to be more correct I did not realize it, although I am 32 and I think I am very smart. But the fact is I am ashamed, not because I am not the greatest scientist, or the best human being, but because I am gay. Yes I know in the present world it is not that hard to be gay. Most of my friends are so accepting, I can talk to them about my hook ups and all and not to ever forget my most amazing family who will support me who ever I sleep with. But still I am ashamed of myself, or I should say I have been ashamed of myself for last 31.5 years, leaving the first 6 months when I just eat, slept, cried and pooped. So you might ask if everything in my life is so accepting and rosy then why am I ashamed. And as I said, I myself did not know I am, and am just realizing it. I was ashamed of myself from the day I realized I was different, and that was much before I started feeling something “down there” after seeing a cute guy. I knew I did not like sports, I was not aggressive enough to be called a man; I knew I liked my sisters’ dolls more than the cricket bat that my grandmother bought me. That feeling of seclusion and “exclusiveness” did not work very well with me. I still feel tremendous shame when I pass a football ground, although I really want to look at the guys in shorts, but I know if the ball comes my way I do not have the skill to send it back to the players. So I kind of all my life avoided routes that will take me near any kind of sports. But as 4-5 year old kid, and knowing there is something inherently wrong with you, as in all popular media and in your extend and near family, the only role you are depicted as is a kid carrying a cricket bat or something of that sort, I started to find other ways to prove that I fit in. so I observed and learned. And who better to learn than from your father! The only man you were that close to at that age and by the grace of God my father was a Man in all possible way. He was attractive, self-established, sporty, insensitive, aggressive and always angry and in control. As most of the other “qualities” in my father was a little far-fetched for me to imbibe as a 4 year old, I decided to be always angry and try to be in control. So I remember always being short tempered, and trying to prove my worth by throwing tantrum. This worked well as I could distract my “gayness” or so I believed, but my sisters being kids as well and having, like any other kids, a sharp sense of finding out flaws, started taunting me as a “princess of angry fits”. They were so vivid in describing my anger and sometimes so hilarious that they told me that no prince will take me when I am actually in a desirable age as I would have lost all my teeth as I grind them too hard when I am “angry”. This statement although was to criticize me, always made me burst in laughter. And now that I try to remember from where I learned this grinding of teeth when angry thing, I know for sure it was not any man, but another person in my life who was a woman but was “manly” enough for her time, and that was my grandmother! So although I thought I would be safe in hiding my difference by being angry, but my role model for anger tantrum was from a completely wrong side of the spectrum. So by early teenage I knew I needed a new camouflage. I was always a “wiser” kid who was able to carry orders very well and execute plans, so being in a Hindu missionary school I was spotted early on as a “good kid” and so I found my second “deceit”. I became the saintly character of my school and family, who was very much into religion (back then I did not know the difference between religion and spirituality), performing religious rites, listening to only old, sometimes ancient music and appreciating art. I think this worked very well, so well that most of the time even when I was grown up, my lack of interest in girls was correlated to my sainthood. Reading these the readers, who are homophobic to start with, or may be not very aware of homosexuality, must be thinking of me and all “my kind” as manipulative demons. But trust me neither me nor anyone of my kind did it exactly to cheat you, it was to cheat and hide ourselves, as we knew we did not fit in. the shame and scare of this was so deep that we were desperate. And it is so difficult for me, and am sure for most of us to find out if eventually if there was anything that we actually liked in our “camouflage” or not. Like, I cannot decide now that my comfort with art and philosophy and history whether those are real or if I have enacted a role for so long that I have lost myself. This writing is neither to get pity or sympathy nor to enrage people I knew because I have “cheated” them for so long. This is a process of self-realization, where I am seeing how and why I am and what I am. A man is only a man if he is into sports, is aggressive, takes charge and the most importantly sleeps with a woman, even if I qualify for many of these I do not qualify for the most important one. So I wonder if I can change the definition of man (and for sure a woman) as someone who is not scared and ashamed of himself.