Hungary (1999)
I grew up in a small Hungarian village, and I never encountered the subject of being gay until I started to read books and watch movies on my own. So even then, my first LGBT discoveries were in the fictional world.
At age 6, I wanted to start ballet classes. But my father wouldn't allow that, so I learned karate instead. And surprisingly, I was quite good at it.
Until age 11, everything seemed normal, even neutral. Then puberty hit, and things changed with my crush on Liam Aiken from the movie "Stepmom."
We had no internet back then, so I literally started to search for other movies he was in, and I watched everything I found. However, it never occurred to me that I might be gay.
At the time, I figured I just wanted to look like him, because he was so gorgeous!
Later on, I tried to have girlfriends, but when I closed my eyes, I always imagined I was with boys. Even then I didn't suspect anything. I thought it was just part of developing my identity. At age 17, I started to date a female classmate, and we were together for four years.
Later on while attending college, I started to consider the option of dating boys.
I didn't get religious education, and my parents were less conservative than the rest of our village. And yet, my family always asked me if I already had a girlfriend or not. It took them an unnecessarily long time to discover my truth.
I came out slowly, but every single person was incredibly supportive.
And many of them said, "Finally!"
Today, I live a happy life with my fiancé now, and I don't regret the long time it took to get here. Things take time, as a friend of mine keeps saying.
My word of advice to gay kids today is: Don't be scared.
I think most people don't know much about this subject, as it's just not the part of their life. And when they find out that LGBT people live the same way, wash the dishes the same way, drive a car the same way, do everything the same way - they soon realize the only thing we do differently is a private matter.
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