How do you know your gay?

I write this as the father of a gay son that never gave me a clue that he was gay as a child or young man. How does a child or young person know they are gay? Do they know something is wrong in seeing the affections between their mother and father and not understanding this? When does he or she began to ask questions about their own sexuality or orientation? These are mysteries to me as I did not know my son was gay until he was in his thirties. Was I just ignorant of the signs or did he disguise this so very successfully.

I am sitting in my living room right now and watching an article on A&E channel about gay bassing and Gay Right groups marching and demonstrating for justice against someone killed or maimed just because someone else believes gay is wrong and some one that needs to be picked on. Crimes, skinheads, police, tatoos, intelligence, assaults, swastikas, all these ugly subjects concerning gay and lesbians. What has happen to love your fellowman, and let people live their lives as they see fit? I am mainly a conservative, but can be a centrist on many things. I won't say I am a liberal because I believe in law and order and having been in the military, even though only as a reservist, I respect discipline, enjoy discipline, and expect discipline!

Getting back to my original story line, I now look back and maybe there were signals my youngest son was homosexual but did not know how to approach or tell his parents about this so we could deal with this together. Do gay men isolate themselves, feeling they will be rejected and just go day by day expecting things to change in time on it's own.

I have only seen my son recently this once in 15 years and rejected visually and only with his silence did I accept this. His look, his face, the change in his demeanor now tells me openly that this is not the Chris I knew as a child and a younger man. The man I saw made me feel very unwelcome and I felt it was best for all concerned to leave, not wanting to have any confrontation with the son I still love.

It is because of that continued love that I write this. Mine is to try day by day to try more to understand why he feels the way he does. I read something recently that may or may not be of any interest or have any meaning at all. I read recently that some boys who become men can only love one woman, and that is their mother. He was and is close to his mother and farther and farther away from his father. You can draw all kinds of parallels here where a man cannot love another woman and how he sees his father is far different from normal. Does he see me as a competitor for his mother love, now my ex-wife. Did this alienation between him and me have any shading on how and when and why she left me? Did she know of this competition and unhappiness that this was the only way in her mind to be a happy family (of sorts) again?

I hope my loving reader will comment on this and give me some insight if I am on or off the track in my thinking tonight. I wish him and her success and happiness and being away from me makes them happy then let it be. I do not wish any hurt for anyone on this planet and most of all to my children. Love to all, Jeff