My son is 11. We were riding in the car and he randomly blurts out “dad-I think I’m gay.” I say okay. He asks “are you mad at me?” I say no, that’s fine.
Then he said “actually I think I like girls too.” I say that’s fine also. Then he said “actually I kinda only like one boy.” I ask him who the boy is. He says Ryan (his best friend of 6 years). I ask how he knows he likes Ryan.
He says “I just want to like hold his hand and hug him for like a really long time.” I say “well it’s okay to love your friends too.” He says “I know. But it’s different with Ryan. He makes me feel all tingly inside. And when we had a sleepover last weekend I woke up and I was accidentally close to him in bed and he was warm and I didn’t move away cause it felt kinda nice.”
I reminded him about consent and touching, to which I got an eye roll and a “I know that dad.” I asked if he ever thought about telling Ryan. He said “I don’t know. I kinda like things the way they are now and I don’t want to ruin it.” I said that was okay and he didn’t have to figure anything out right now as he was still young.
I’m totally fine if he is gay. The stuff he described to me is not stuff I would’ve ever thought about saying about my male friends at his age. But at the same time what he described to me sounds pretty innocent and it’s not like wanting to hug a guy makes you gay either.
So I don’t know if it’s just because he’s starting puberty and has confusing feelings now and this is the only person he’s close to so he’s projecting feelings onto him. But a few gay people I’ve talked to have all said they knew they were gay from a very young age. So maybe he does know.
Regardless, he’s young and doesn’t have to have it figured out and I’m fine if he is and I’m fine if he’s not. So it doesn’t really matter. I was just wondering if any other guys had had the same experience when they were younger.