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Where the hell do I belong? I live in the bible belt, but don't believe in god. I'm athiest, but, I'm politically conservative. I'm in a dating site and want a girlfriend, but, I'm bi, I enjoy men as well as women. Almost any group I happen to be in at the moment, I feel if I don't keep a part of me to myself, I'll be ostracized. I feel more free than ever before to be who I want to be. But, don't know anyone that really knows ALL of me. I love people. But most will shun some part of me or another...How many closets can a person keep...?

elgato3141 5 Sep 16
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10 comments

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2

You do not need dozens, you need One person who will accept & cherish you! Keep looking & being openly honest!

3

You have to be yourself so you can free yourself. Let it all out there and discard the people who don't like it. If someone can't handle all of the real you, maybe that person (or persons) isn't meant for you. I know, that sounds kind of glib. It's all I got. You can hide parts of yourself for the sake of companionship, but you will eventually pay a psychological price. And you know what? Everyone will eventually figure it all out anyway. Best wishes!

5

I do think people spend way too much time trying to fit each other into categories... mostly so they can view themselves as being better than other people.

I would think it difficult to be conservaive politically while also being bisexual and atheist, as conservatism seems to be aligned with religion and against any kind of sexual or gender diversity. Personally, I could not belong to a group where I felt they would not accept me for who I am. The more judgmental the group, the less I want to be a part of it.

Most persons I have met who are gay or bisexual and conservative are trust fund kids, who adopted their political values to protect the money they never actually had to work for. People born into some level of privilege tend to want to protect it.

It is a matter of looking at your life, figuring out what would make you happy and making changes in your life that align with that. Most people who aren't happy, continue with values they were taught as children, which prevent them from achieving long term happiness.

I was born into a conservative, far right wing (for the time period), Mormon family. I left religion, which was difficult, not in giving up the beliefs, but in the loss of community that came with leaving religion behind. However, even if I believed, they would not accepted me for who I was, because I later came to terms with being gay. I am now progressive/liberal in my politics, because i feel the philosophies are more humane and they try to put people first. Unlike conservatives who consistently put profits before people.

As a child I was "conditioned" to be racist, and to this day it still takes conscious effort for me not to fall back on that childhood conditioning. To give you an idea of what I dealt with, it waasn't until i was 16, that I learned my mother had a sister named Barbara, because she married a (mostly) black man. If Mormons didn't keep such ardent genealogy records, and us kids stumbled onto your parents records, I may have never learned about her. As it turned out, my parents never talked about her because they didn't want her example of inter racial marriage influencing us kids, because at the time the Mormon church was wholly against inter racial marriage, especially to blacks.

So, anyway, I myself had a lot to get through to figure out what my own beliefs were, after working through all the baggage my parents tried to push onto me, and what it was that would actually make me happy versus what my parents church said would make me happy. I had to question nearly everything to figure out if my values were my own and what I myself decided, or what I was told and what others decided for me. It took many years to work through it all. Just taking it a little at a time.

To be honest, I think that I would nto be totally accepted by most persons if I were to put everything out there all at once. The most important thing to me though, isn't to be accepted by everyone else, so much as it is to accept and like myself for who I am. After all, I have to live with myself for the rest of my life.

Living with yourself and liking who you are is the most important thing, if you want o be happy. And, if you are happy, well then, happy people are just generally more attractive to others, and it makes it more likely you will find someone to share your life with... if that is what you want. I am both happy and content to remain single myself.

My conservatism does not include many social conservative concepts. My mom and grandmom were illegal aliens from Mexico. I have relatives in Mexico. Growing up my dad had a black coworker and friend whose family lived near us, our families were close. They were always kind to me. I have an adopted Black daughter. I have dated black woman. Not racist. Not homophobic since many of my friends are gay and I generally just want them (and us all) to be left alone to be happy as we wish. I grew up very poor and I volunteer and help when I can. Conservative to me simply means limited government that doesn't meddle in our lives. As a matter of fact, think of classical liberalism that John Kennedy believed in.

@elgato3141 conservative is a word with many different meanings. I'm going to dislike the word a great deal. I used to describe myself as a human rights liberal who was fiscally conservative. I have switched to a human rights liberal who believes the government should prioritize people program expenditures over war and corporate handouts.

You might consider describing yourself less generally.

@elgato3141 Sounds like you may be more like friends I have from Illinois, who describe themselves as fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. Most people doen't agree totally with either party completely, or are totally on one side or the other.

I have to say I am a bit envious of persons who are raised without prejudice. My upbringing made for an unhappy childhood, as the values I was raised to believe in did not really fit who I was, which I why I rejected most of them.

6

Labels are for canned goods, since you can't see what's inside.

0

I'd suggest looking into the Libertarian Party, as their fiscal/economic conservatism along with being socially liberal and accepting would probably appeal to someone like you. Personally, as a Libertarian myself, I gladly accept you for who and what you are and stand for, regardless of whether or not if I agree or disagree with some of your positions. No need to be in a closet. At times I feel like that myself, that people will reject a part of who I am, as I don't particularly fit in with either political extreme.

I'm not a member of any political party since there isn't one that isn't just another tribe to go against the other tribe. I consider myself a libertarian since their basic idea is just live and let live. Without really knowing someone, it's lazy thinking to categorize them into broad groups. I like people and want to interact, socialize and exchange ideas with various life perspectives . I love people, but shun the herd, the tribe, the mob.

@elgato3141 Same here, registered independent with overall Libertarian views. I concur on the tribalism part, and your take on the matter is a good way to be.

7

Well done, you belong to the human race, most of us are like that.

I'll second @Fernapple 's assessment. Most people are willing to accept some aspects of another person and not others. It is a human trait. Be willing to accept the boundaries of other people and maintain your own.

2

You are what you want to be, being bi and politically conservative at the same time shows there's something at odds in your way of thinking and behaving, once you come to terms with the fact that you're doing this to yourself, because nobody else is, then you might realize why people shun your company.

2

Congratulations! You are even more of a cultural and lifestyle outlier than I am, in my local dating pool. I always fear that I am terminally unique, but you take the cake. Thanks for letting me know that others have it worse than me when it comes to the dating game. I have no advice...

6

Just because you want something doesn’t mean you have to have it. Life is not only about you. It about compromise a lot of times.

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Oddly enough, anyone who will ostracize most of the things that you hide are likely to be checks notes.... politically conservative.

If that is true for most things ostrcize are political related. Then the Government would be your true God.
We pay them a third or half our money and they boss us around all the time.

Actually, no. try discussing limited government or secure borders in the agnostic crowd...

@elgato3141 I was speaking of the things you mentioned- being atheist and bisexual aren't generally acceptable traits in the conservative crowd.

In all seriousness though, freedom comes from loving who you are and worrying less about what others think.

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