u/Tall_Ad_4679

I grew up in a very conservative area of Texas and didn’t explore my sexuality until college, and even then it was minimal. I got on Grindr but never even had sex. To this day I still haven’t had sex, largely out of fear of STDs and HIV, something I’m still working through. To make matters worse my main outlet of gratification is porn. It’s the only place I have felt safe with sex. Part of me thinks it plays a negative role in all of this. Other than that, I’ve had a few little flings here and there since, but nothing serious until recently.

I moved to California and ended up seeing a guy for about 4 months, which just ended tonight. He was incredibly sweet, super thoughtful, funny, and non judgmental. He was the most direct (in a good way) and serious person, but had a great child-like joy about him. He hit all the marks, but I couldn’t find myself sexually intrigued I guess. I don’t want to say attracted because that feels like too extreme of a definition.

I loved doing things with him and he brought me peace, but I couldn’t find myself ever declaring us as dating. I told him I felt more comfortable with no label, and he seemed ok with that.
About a month after we started talking, a lot of crap went down at my job and I am no longer working there. That, plus living in a place with such a HCOL, added to my stress and confusion about my attraction and romantic feelings.

Once I was out of work, I knew I needed to move back home to Texas. Given what I currently know about myself, I couldn’t do long distance. He mentioned that he doesn’t think we are in a clear enough relationship to label as long distance any way. We had this conversation and I suggested we stay friends, but he was not interested in that. We hung out for a while longer, but things ended tonight after a long coming conversation. He couldn’t see us continuing with a clearly defined end in sight. I agreed, and I didn’t want him to feel sad being with me, so that was that.

I cried all the way home and felt horrible. I got home and cried more in the shower, thinking about whether I was self sabotaging and should have tried to be in a long distance relationship with him. I tried to determine if I cared about him platonically or romantically, and I feel like I maybe just cared deeply about him as a friend. I will miss him and I cared a lot about him, and I’m questioning if ending things was the right call. My social net here is basically non existent, and he was what I had left. luckily I move in a month so, oh well.

So here’s the crux of it, and my main question: how do you all, specifically gay men, know when you’re attracted to someone? I cared about him and would kiss him, and sometimes felt aroused, and other times pulled back. I attribute this to religious trauma and internalized homophobia. I would sometimes look at other men and want something different, but still came back to the guy I was seeing. There’s only one guy I’ve ever seen that I truly know I was attracted to, but he ended things before we ever made it official.
I don’t know if the stressors in my life or the porn stuff I mentioned at the beginning that have overshadowed my feelings, or if I just wasn’t attracted to him in the first place.

I need to get this out because I genuinely don’t know how to process what happened.

I relocated from Texas to California for a role at a CPG company. Packed up my life, moved across the country alone, and gave everything I had to this job. During my onboarding my manager told me it would take a full year to really get up to speed. I was fired at 10 months.

My annual performance review was positive. My manager called me a wonderful addition to the team, said she was lucky to have me, and talked about how excited she was for what I’d accomplish in the coming year. Six weeks later I was on a Performance Improvement Plan.

No written warnings. No formal coaching steps in between. Just “you’re performing below minimum expectations, here’s a PIP.”

I tried. I genuinely tried. I proactively asked for feedback. I noticed issues that needed improvement and built plans to address them. The only issue: they gave me 30 days to fix issues should have required months of coaching by their standards.

Every week the feedback got vaguer, the goalposts felt like they were moving, and I kept getting marked down for things that either weren’t clearly communicated to me or that I was actively improving on. When I asked for examples on things they couldn’t give me anything specific or any issues that occurred prior to the pip. One time I asked about something and they said that my socialization (in an open office environment was a negative and distracting me from deliverables, I was never late for anything). They also blamed me for someone else’s group game of geo guesser. I guess when you play with groups of 12 or more the person who started it gets off easy.

At one point I was marked negative on my performance review for not using an accommodation I had been formally approved for in a specific way, even though my manager’s own written guidance said I could use it as needed. That same week she praised my focus and attentiveness in meetings in the exact same document where she said she had concerns about my engagement. I still don’t understand how both of those things can exist in the same review.

On my last day, an hour before they fired me, my manager and her supervisor encouraged me to go home early. Then came the virtual call. My manager’s supervisor sat there the entire time and said absolutely nothing. Just stared at the screen while I was let go. No acknowledgment. No words. Nothing. What made it worse is that like 1 hour earlier she had pulled me aside for a warm, friendly conversation , completely normal, like nothing was wrong. Hours later she couldn’t even look me in the eye on a screen. That’s the part that stings. This company prided itself on its culture and values. The humility and honesty they preached didn’t show up in that room when it actually mattered.

And then three weeks after firing me without an apology or a single acknowledgment of how hard any of this was, my manager texted me out of nowhere saying she was available as a resource for whatever comes next.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I moved across the country for this. I gave up my support system, my therapist, my people. I gave this company everything I had for 10 months.

I’m not okay. But I’m trying to be. I’m on unemployment and trying to find jobs, but I’m scared of this employment landscape and don’t know what to do. Should I move back to Texas? Do I keep applying here? Idk. I Just needed to say this somewhere