Stop Telling Me Who I Am

Some things in life simply aren’t meant to be. The only way you ever find that out is by throwing yourself into them and seeing where they lead. As unfortunate as it may be, my last relationships were exactly that kind of lessons.

What we wanted it to become and what it was destined to become turned out to be two very different things. Looking back now, I honestly think the signs were there from the very beginning. We just chose not to see them.

Despite the odds, despite whatever forces seemed determined to work against us, we made a conscious decision to fight for what we had. We chose to make our relationship work. And for a while, it did. We lived every moment we could until, little by little, we stopped talking properly. We stopped sharing our lives. We stopped being a couple long before we admitted it to ourselves.

Nothing happens without a reason. As painful as the past weeks and months have been, they’ve forced me to recognise a few uncomfortable truths.

On 29 December 2013, I made a decision that would change my life forever. At the time, I knew there could be consequences, but I never imagined how far-reaching they would be. I certainly never expected my worst fears to become reality.

I genuinely believed that people wouldn’t have a problem with the fact that my fiancé was a man. Especially not a man my family already knew, respected and liked.

Clearly, I gave some people far too much credit.

For most of my life, I kept my relationships private. There were rumours about my sexuality over the years, of course there were. People always seem desperate to label what they don’t understand. The difference was that I never felt the need to explain myself.

My heart has always made those decisions, not public opinion.

For the first thirty years of my life, I mostly dated women. I fell in love with women. Deeply. Completely. Yes, I knew I was attracted to both men and women. Yes, there were moments when I found male friends attractive. But that never changed the fact that I was genuinely, hopelessly in love with the women I shared my life with.

Today, I understand why I kept my relationships away from public view. As an adopted child who grew up navigating two families—my adoptive family and my biological family—life was often complicated enough without dragging the people I loved into the middle of it. I wanted to protect them from the chaos. My solution may not have been perfect, but it made sense to me at the time.

I kept them out of the spotlight.

Eventually, as I began sorting through my past and coming to terms with who I was, I started introducing partners to family and friends. Some knew my boyfriends. Others knew my last girlfriend. What they didn’t always know was the nature of those relationships.

When I finally wrote publicly about Jean and revealed that Jean wasn’t female, as many had assumed, I knew it would attract attention.

What I didn’t anticipate was the feeding frenzy that followed.

The article spread quickly. Suddenly, people who had never spoken to me in their lives felt entitled to discuss mine. Overnight, strangers decided they understood me better than I understood myself.

And that’s when everything changed.

For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely free. Free to stop pretending. Free to stop editing myself for other people’s comfort. Free to be the man I actually am.

Ironically, that freedom came at a cost.

The year that followed was one of the hardest years I’ve ever experienced. Friends disappeared. Clients disappeared. Family members disappeared.

Some quietly slipped away without explanation. Others made a public performance out of it, as if my personal life somehow required their dramatic commentary.

What surprised me wasn’t their judgement.

It was their arrogance.

The assumption that my sexuality somehow changed my value as a human being. That was the real disappointment.

I lost trust in people. I lost faith in friendships I thought were genuine. Most painfully of all, I lost the man I loved.

My fiancé was furious about my decision to come out publicly. From his perspective, I had complicated our lives unnecessarily. As a writer, public visibility comes with the territory. Once the media knew about us, maintaining privacy became infinitely harder.

And yes, he had a point.

There were practical consequences I hadn’t fully considered.

But here’s the thing: every problem has a solution.

Living a lie isn’t one of them.

To those friends who stood by me and understood why I had hidden parts of my life for so long, thank you. Most of you made far less of it than I ever did.

Then came another irritation.

The world suddenly decided I was gay.

Let’s clear something up. I’m not offended by the label because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. What annoys me is when people insist on replacing facts with assumptions.

I’ve loved women.

I’ve loved men.

Every woman I’ve loved mattered. Every relationship was real. Every feeling was genuine.

Reducing that entire history to a convenient headline isn’t just inaccurate—it’s lazy.

I don’t fall in love with genders.

I fall in love with people.

I care about character. I care about hearts. That’s what attracts me.

I’m attracted to both men and women. That hasn’t changed and it won’t change simply because some people find nuance inconvenient.

My relationships with men failed. My relationships with women failed.

The common denominator wasn’t gender.

It was secrecy.

Living a hidden life puts enormous strain on a relationship. When you spend years pretending to be something you’re not every time you step outside your front door, it takes a toll.

Imagine loving someone but having to behave like strangers in public.

Imagine never being able to hold hands.

Imagine constantly monitoring every word, every gesture, every glance.

Imagine turning your relationship into a performance for other people’s comfort.

That’s not freedom.

That’s survival.

And eventually survival kills intimacy.

No couple should have to live like that. Yet society still expects many of us to.

Fear becomes routine. Anxiety becomes background noise. And over time it slowly destroys what you’re trying to protect.

My privacy remains my sanctuary. A very small number of people are welcome inside it. Everyone else should respect the boundary.

Not because I owe anyone an explanation, but because I don’t.

The difference is important.

Maybe there will be another relationship in the future. Maybe there will be another man who captures my heart.

Perhaps there already is someone special.

Someone who means more to me than he probably realises.

For now, that’s nobody else’s business.

Not the public’s. Not gossip websites’. Not strangers’ on social media.

Nobody’s.

What I hope for this time is simple. I hope people finally understand that love doesn’t become public property just because someone writes books or appears in the media.

I hope people learn that curiosity does not create entitlement.

And I hope the endless speculation about my sexuality finally stops.

Because whether I’m attracted to men, women, or both is not a debate for public consumption.

It never was.

My heart will continue making those decisions exactly as it always has

The rest of the world doesn’t get a vote.

So please—stop analysing, stop labelling, stop speculating.

And most importantly, stop assuming that my private life exists for your entertainment

Leave me the space to live it.

That’s all I’ve ever asked.