When people make you feel wrong! || Being gay in a small town of Italy

I do not even know how to start this post. I don’t know why I’m writing these words. I just feel I have to do it. So here we are.

Italy is such a great country for many reasons, we have culture, food, art, history and so many beautiful places. But nothing is perfect, especially when we talks about people. With this post I don’t mean to say all the ones living in Italy acts in the same way or has the same mentality, I’m talking about what happened to me, in my small town, with most of the people that crossed my path. Everything started in primary school. So young I used to think only about playing videogames and watching cartoons with my best friend. In that period, maybe in the last years, I heard for the first time the word “gay” associated on me like something bad, something wrong. I don’t remember my reaction but I wasn’t this strong guy so for sure it wasn’t so good. One of my classmate told me that because I refused to sing with the other guys for the concert we should have in the end of the year. I preferred to sing in the choir, first because the guys were doing rap and second I’ve never had this great relationship with the guys of my class. Just one or two of them.

From that time, even though I didn’t know what the word “gay” means, I started to feel judged, pushed aside from others and I couldn’t understand why. What did I do wrong? Did I have to say sorry for something?

Things got worse during the secondary school, when we passed from that bad word “gay” associated to me to laughter behind me, shoving, bad gestures. In one word, bullism. I remember the secondary school like one of the worst period of my life, too many bad memories and bad thing happened which I’ve never told to anyone. And they weren’t only guys doing those things, even if mostly yes.

After this nightmare I started the High school which for the first 2 years seemed like a proper zoo where all the animals were free to make mess everywhere anytime. For the first 2 years no rules, no manners, no respect. My insecurity became bigger and bigger, I was afraid when someone wanted to talk to me, I fell shamed for everything I did and I was was scared of what I was, because “if everyone says it’s a bad thing, it must be bad!” In my class I used to spend my time with girls mostly because I wasn’t feeling judged from them, even if I had some episodes with them too. Once a girl, not very kindly, told me “Take a masculinity bath!” And if I think about her now I can say she wasn’t this great goddess of female. But nevermind!

All this is to explain how difficult for me it was knowing myself surrounded by people who used to tell me I was wrong. And how difficult it became accepting that part of me. I think I’m actually doing it now, since I came in London. Maybe one of the reasons why I decided to leave my country was to find a place where I don’t have to be afraid of saying, doing something wrong because too much gay. And maybe one of the reasons why I feel sometimes bad when I come back to visit my family is this kind of mentality still present in those people that never changed.

I did! I changed. Or probably I just finally decided to leave the mask of that sad and scared guy who was bullied all the time, who couldn’t speak too much and who used to feel like a virus of the society.

Of course my past wasn’t always and totally bad. I had wonderful moments with amazing people. This is just a tiny dot in the end of a small paragraph inside of my huge and still mostly empty book.

This post could even be a kind of “coming out” since I said to be gay to only few persons. Even if to be honest, it’s not so necessary saying it, I don’t use to act exactly like a straight guy. But if someone that knows me and has the patience to read this post, maybe translating it in Italian will have the confirm of it!