My name is Bob,When i was 10 i started wondering why i looked at women and men differently. I have had a few non sexual relationships with girls throughout my teens. There was one girl in particular who i wanted to spend my youth, and my life with. "Gerri" She is still now and always will be my best friend and the amazing mother of my 2 wonderful kids. Gerri and I first met in 6th grade in middle school. We dated off and on for quite a few years. Before we started dating then and even during our breakups i would "experiment" with my guy friends. Back then it did not feel that special. I felt as if i could not find companionship like i had with my best friend and girl friend Gerri at that time.By the time i was 13 years old i started looking at bigger sized guys and telling myself "I wish i had that kind of body" but some time went by when i first had a sexual encounter with a bigger guy. That is what made me realize that it was not me wanting that body "which i still do" but that i was physically attracted to bigger hairy men. "Bears". By the time i hit 16 years old i struggled really bad with my identity. I had a few friends that knew i was at least Bi Sexual. I kept telling myself that it was a phase i would get over. I never did get over that phase. I relied on finding other things to do that damaged me. I started smoking pot and cigarettes at a young age. When i got high i could push out the thoughts of me being gay, for a little while anyway.Right after middle school all of my old friends and i had taken different paths. I stuck by a few people that didn't deserve for me to be there, but i still have a few of those same friends still today."Some will stay and some will go." Now we are all into high school. Gerri and I were not together nor speaking due to her boyfriend at that time that wanted her to stop talking to me. That didn't stop me from trying to start conversations with her though. She got pregnant in the time we were not together and switched high schools. Me being a shit head of a kid "haha" I would always find some way to get in trouble leading me to change schools quite often.Once i turned 16 years old i started at a new continuation high school that Gerri was attending. At this time Gerri and I were broken up but still friends. I had met a really cool kid we called Swamp Thing. I would spend my entire free time with this kid. We never had any sexual encounters with each other but he also did not know my story and he was one of the only friends of mine that had no idea that i was struggling with my sexuality. I enjoyed all my time with Swamp, we would meet up at school every day and raise hell as often as we could. Once Swamp found out that Gerri was my ex-girlfriend he wanted to pick her up before i could have a chance again.Swamp and Gerri had talked about going to prom together, we all thought it was funny because she was really pregnant at the time. He ended up standing her up to stay at my place and smoke bud with me. Him and I had a bet on who could get with her first. We tried for so long. One day Swamp decided to go to my house when I was still living at my mom's house, I wasn't home but he wanted to borrow my copy of Skate. He went to another friends house afterwards and had a seizure and tragically died. I will never forget the call I got telling me the fucked up news. Me and a buddy were carrying a couch and I answered my phone, after I was told what happened I threw my phone at a brick wall and broke down.When it came time for his services the school let everyone out to attend it. He had a lot of people he called family. Out of all of them i was the only one who spoke at his services. We all had put weed in his casket so he could be buried with it forever. I also put a picture of my son in his Sublime jacket during the viewing. Gerri was really freaked out about it. It was kind of my way telling Swamp Thing that i will win the bet we made. At his funeral i was a huge wreck and didn't want to talk to anyone because no one had the balls to say anything at the service but me. Gerri walked up and i told her i didn't want to talk to her anymore. "In different words anyway"After all that had settled my mom moved to Chico CA, and left me our apartment at the age of 17. My friend Joey moved in with me. Joey knew i was struggling with who i was then. He was a brother to me. My real brother was and still is at this time in the Army and i hardly saw him back then. Joey always made sure my life was worth living. We felt like we had it made. We sold weed and threw parties to pay for our place and food. Also allowing people to sell weed out of our apartment, until the cops kept coming over that is.I was contemplating on moving up to NorCal to be with my family again. On my 18th birthday i had bought a 1990 Nissan 240SX "one of my dream cars". i had gotten an inheritance and decided to be stupid with it. Me and my friends bought a bunch of weed and alcohol and had a party at a lake in a near by town close to ours. October had came around too fast and i ended up moving to Chico with my mom. On my way out of town during my move i decided to go to McDonald's and get a quick bite to eat. Gerri was at the window working the drive thru and it was the perfect time to say good bye to her. She had already had the baby and he wasn't even a year old yet.I started my life in a new town with my sexy dream car. Not being in a relationship with anyone i could be me for once. I had no friends let alone anyone that knew me in general up there. I spent a lot of time at a local track called "Thunder Hill Raceway" I loved it. I was able to snag a job at a cheese processing plant putting labels on blocks of cheese for 8 hours a day. I had dabbled with Craigslist a little then but just to look for cars and parts. Once i found the Men seeking Men section i decided to try it. Every time i would respond to a post/ad i would get really nervous and couldn't decide if i should actually go through with it. I never did while i was up there.One day my mom asked me why i was packing up a few things. I told her i was going to a friends house for a night. I was actually going to the Bay Area for a Bear event. I showed up to the event and sat on the hood of my 240SX for close to a couple of hours to scared to go onto the beach. A few really cute guys ran up to me and "encouraged" me to go and meet some people. So i did. After they tore the shirt off my back. "haha" I ended up meeting some really awesome people up there. I didn't want to leave. I did end up hooking up with a guy that day and bailed that same night to go back home.After that awesome day at the beach with some sexy bears i felt so wrong for doing what i did the day before. I decided to get on social media and contact Gerri to see how she was doing and how her son was doing. She dropped him on his head in my driveway before Swamp died. I had to bring that up to her again. We decided to try a long distance relationship. It worked out for us. Besides me feeling like a nasty person who just hooked up with a guy. I needed to feel straight i guess. Gerri decided to make a trip up to Chico to see me for a weekend. It was by far one of the best times i ever had having that 240SX. Me and her would go out with my sister and her husband, me following them in my car. I remember hitting this turn so had that Gerri flew up out of her seat and her head hit the glass sun roof. After the weekend was over she had gone back home to be with her son and work. She has always been an extremely hard worker.In March of 2009 me and my sisters husband were cruising around in the 240 and we decided to go up a mountain pass and back down. On the way down i hit a turn to hard and flipped my car and we almost went off the side of the mountain. I like to think my dad who died in 1993 was watching over me. We got out of the car and i was freaking out that we were still alive. After my accident i decided to move back to Ridgecrest CA. to be with Gerri and to be a father. This is where our lives started over again with each other. I moved in with her and her mother. I got tired of seeing Gerri deal with the babysitter so she could go to work. I decided to tell her that i was there for her and her son. Who is now obviously my son.Now that Gerri didn't have to pay for a sitter anymore, we could save up and get our own place. Well it didn't work out that well as far saving money and getting a place. We struggled for a while and moved in with another one of my sisters. Her husband was an alcoholic as well as me liking to drink whenever someone else was drinking. I ended up knocking him out one night and my sister kicked us out. "Totally understandable" Gerri and I were able to find a 3 bedroom apartment for rent in what we called the Ghetto in our town. We got my friend Joey to move in with us seeing how we had a spare room. I ended up getting hired on with the City of Ridgecrest as a maintenance worker. We got our son a little white dog that would bring our neighbors dogs poop into our house. We ended up getting rid of it afterwards.We became really good friends with those neighbors too. We ended up moving out of that place and eventually we found another 3 bedroom apartment. This time we had my best friend move in with us. I have always found this friend to be extremely sexy. He was my dream guy. He didn't know it though. I lived with this guy prior to me moving to Chico and Swamp dying. I like to say he is the reason i fell in love with the Bear community. Anyway, at the new place we got together it ended up being right by our neighbors from our old place. We all became family really fast. We had so many parties at both of our places. My brother Jake and his amazing wife Adri would always come into town and of course my brother being him has to supply all the liquor and beer for everyone. He loved doing that shit. Always making sure no one could stand or see straight before it was even midnight. Gerri and I ended up splitting up for a few days, and i decided to hop online and see about meeting up with a guy. I found a post online from a local bear type guy, and by his picture I was extremely attracted to him right away. We ended up meeting and lets just say i got attached too fast. I was debating on coming out that same day. He made me feel as if no one would give a shit I was who I was. Again after meeting up with this guy i felt horrible and kept telling myself it wasn't me. Throughout mine and Gerri's relationship i would always be online looking up "bear porn" I was obsessed with bears. It was really hard keeping that in from her for years. I felt as if i cheated even though we were not together.Gerri and I decided to try to get our own house together. We were able to find a really clean single wide trailer with a big yard for my dog and son. At this time i no longer worked for the city of Ridgecrest. I was now working for WalMart. Still as often as they could my brother Jake and his wife Adri would make sure we partied it up. Me and Adri would go crazy over Nicki Minaj nights. "haha, how did no one know i was gay" Gerri and I decided to have another kid. My plan for having another kid was to hopefully have it keep me in the closet for a longer time. At this time i planned on coming out but couldn't let down anyone. So i kept it in. We had our amazing daughter and after a year of her being here it drove me even more crazy being in the closet. We met a guy named Jacob who i worked with at WalMart. He was really cute then. ;). We became extremely good friends with him. We ended up moving to Oregon with him. All three of us got a 3 musketeers tattoo together. We spent about 5 or 6 months in Oregon before we decided to move back to California.After we moved back to California i started hanging out with my best friend again. The really cute one from before. We drank a lot. He started to smoke weed and all i could think about was "if only this guy was gay" he was the perfect guy for me. "Me being in the closet still i started getting more comfortable with the thought of just coming out and telling everyone i was gay". One day me and him decided to head to the desert and bullshit, I ended up convincing him to hook up with me. He was really cool about it. "He still didn't know i how attractive i found him" He told me "I'll try anything once" and he sure did "haha', But from us being how close we were for a long time I again got too attached and he gave me that extra push closer to coming out. "So to this handsome ass gentleman i owe you so much you have no idea." As cheesy as it sounds he will always a place in my heart.About a week went by and Gerri had asked me if i was bi. I was shocked, like how long has she been thinking about this and how it was really weird for her to bring that up after this had happened with my friend. I told her " What the hell! No!". She brought some things that happened when i would be drunk in the past with some friends. A little time went by and I convinced her to have a threesome with me and my friend from the desert a couple weeks prior. "I was wanting to hook up with him again bad". We went over to his house for a night and got drunk and decided to go through with it. At first it was really awkward having her watch me and him, but when i started to kiss him and feel the scruff from his beard is when it hit me. I knew i was gay. It felt as if i found exactly what i was attracted to again. Don't get me wrong i loved Gerri, still do to this day. Always will. Kissing this man made me see that I needed to pursue this, not with him but I needed to be me.The next night i went back over to his house and talked for hours i told him i was thinking about coming out. He was so encouraging and helped me through the whole thing and how I was going to tell everyone. Well I needed to sit on it "no pun intended" I just needed to think about how i would do it. I ended up calling the guy from the last craigslist hookup I had when me and Gerri broke up. He moved to Nashville. I still had feelings for this guy. Him and his roommate who are both openly gay told me that it would be all okay and to tell everyone who didn't approve to fuck off. And just like that on that same night I called them I went to back to my friends house and told my mom first. Then i called Jake, Adri, and all my other sisters and told all of them. It was funny, i was so scared and i can remember my mom's response to it. "Good for you" she said. They were all so supportive of me i couldn't believe it. Except for Gerri. She was a wreck for a day. I couldn't believe it was that short of a period for her. Loosing the man she had kids with and the man she was going to marry. I think when it hit her that how much of a huge LGBT supporter she was is when she calmed down. We tried to do an open relationship and i could be me and she could still be with me. It didn't work out on my end I felt like I was still cheating on her and she felt the same way.In the time between the threesome and coming out I hooked up with another guy who is always going to be an amazing memory. After i came out i still felt like a piece of shit and went to the desert to kill myself, but i got a phone call from this guy i just hooked up with. I decided to answer it just to hear what he had to say. I had bought a plane ticket to Virginia to live with my friend Joey and his family weeks prior to all of this. This guy is talking to me on the phone not knowing what i am about to do, asking me to come over and watch a movie. I was telling him how i was moving and didn't want to lead him on or anything. He said "You just came out and now your'e going to leave because your'e scared of what people will think seeing you be you" and how i would be running from my problems. He had a good point. I didn't have a place to live because Gerri's family didn't want a gay man living in their house. Gerri was so supportive of me she couldn't believe the way they acted towards me. She encouraged me to take this guys offer and move in with him seeing how it was the only place for me to go without having to run from my problems. So i did. This guy was amazing. treated me so great and my kids as well. They adored him, and so did I.I started to feel suspicious of him and found out some things that led me to believe he was cheating, "still not sure to this day if he did or not." Near the end of mine and his relationship I kept debating with myself on moving out. Well when the time came i packed up and left. He came home in the process and I was a total ass to him. I know I messed up and i couldn't take it back. He saved my life twice in less than a week and he helped me be comfortable with being openly gay. He hates me know and i regret everything i did to this guy. He gave me the world and I just kept refusing to take a thing from him. Except his happiness. I think i left because i knew how much of an ass hole i was to him. All i wanted was to be with him and cuddle as often as possible while he was home. I guess he got tired of that really fast. He would start little fights about it. I didn't want to be in a place where someone couldn't be romantic when your'e in a relationship with them. And to this man, Thank you so much. You really do have the biggest part in my life that helps make me who i am today and am very grateful of what you did for me and my kids.After I left that relationship I took a quick period to be by myself and my friend Liz let me and my kids live with her and her kids. I lived in her garage and the kids stayed in the house. It was a great time being there. I woke up one morning to a friend coming over telling me that someone stole from his parents place. I got up and went to check it out with him. We got to the gas station and that's when I met Gary. I knew right away this guy was gay and he was amazingly sexy. He said as i was out the door. "See you later" I responded " yes you will " About 2 weeks went by and i got a Facebook friends request from him. I decided to accept it and message him. We went to the movies to watch Rio 2 with my son and when he dropped me and my son off at my place he pointed out how he was pretty much my neighbor. That night he went to the bar with his friends and he ended up coming over to my place and that is when i found out he had a boyfriend. So i decided to keep it mutual. Well i got really drunk and just had to start kissing this guy. He later went home and he woke up next to his boyfriend and told him that he needed to move out and he ended the relationship. I felt terrible that he did that. I never wanted to be a home wrecker.Me and Gary are still together and loving life.We are going 2 years strong. Gerri has the kids full time and I moved closer to Nevada to be with him so he could be closer to his family. I still talk to my kids of course because i may be a piece of shit but i'm not that big of a piece of shit. We have plans for me to get them this summer. I can't wait!That is pretty much the shortest i can make my life story. I hope that if there are any LGBTQ people out there reading this that i have helped you in some way. I am available for talking via email @ bob.hardison4@gmail.com if anyone needs help or just wants to talk.To everyone struggling with their sexuality please hang in there. LIFE IS WORTH IT!!!