I know this is touchy but I need to know...

well i don't know about the first one but for your second question i might have some ideas. apart from all the normal stuff like not hanging out and not talking to him except when absolutely necessary, the friend should make a big deal about not letting him touch him.
EX: MC go's to pat friend on the shoulder as a friend would and getsa brush off and a strange look, like the friend is disgusted.

sorry i cant help you any more then that.

a picture may be worth a thousand words, but no picture can tell a story.

People generally realize they're gay when they reach puberty and find themselves attracted to the same gender. It's really that simple. Of course, it's not *actually* that simple, because depending on A) their personality and B) their family environment and upbringing, they may spend several months or years in denial. This denial tends to be very emotionally and psychologically taxing, since the person in question is constantly feeling attracted to the "wrong" sex and feeling ashamed for it.

In an ideal situation, of course, the individual simply realizes he's gay and is okay with it. This ideal case rarely occurs, of course, because even if his family isn't homophobic, his classmates almost certainly are (this is puberty, after all, so we're talking elementary and middle school). Of course, in an ideal ideal situation, the person would realize that it doesn't really matter what his classmates think, but that's hardly realistic for your average middle schooler.

So the ultimate point to draw from all that is that it's really a different situation for everyone. Depending on how long he spends in denial, a person may not "realize" he's gay until he's 16 or 17 or even older, but for the most part, it's safe to say that the gay feelings start pretty much with puberty.

I don't really know what to say to your second question - are you asking for real-life examples? If so, I'm afraid I can't provide any, since I'm not gay myself.

I started to have crushes on girls when I was about 11. But I was in denial for... a long long time. Until 17. I didn't even consider it before I was 15 and got to know a lesbian girl who was very much out and proud. That's when I finally realized that homosexuality does in fact exist and it isn't just some weird and very rare disease or something. It's not that I was raised to think like that, it's just that nobody ever talked about it so I thought it was something that happens to other people. And I thought that if I were a lesbian, I would notice it immediately. Nope, I definitely didn't. :D And now that I look back I was totally obvious at times. I liked certain Disney-princesses way too much in my pre-teens and at 13 I had a hobby of drawing naked women in my school books. And I kept on thinking that I just liked that nice girl in my class a lot as a friend and that's I was so jealous when she got a boyfriend...

So... it's very easy to be in denial for years. Actually it's even easier if you are not a homophobe, I think, because homophobes tend to fear it so much that they start noticing their feelings easier.

Even after I made friends with the lesbian girl, it took me two years to get through the stages of "hey, lesbians do exist and they are just normal people!" -> "actually there's nothing weird when two women like each other, why do people even think like that?" -> "actually ,girls ARE pretty sexy, could I be bi?" -> "nah, I'm just imagining things" -> "actually, I think I AM bi" -> "wait... when have I ever wanted to date a boy? ... err...." -> "OK, I might be bi who likes women more than men." And then I finally got to the stage where I realized that I wasn't making any sense with this bi thing at all. I don't know. I guess I'm still not sure but then again that's only natural.

Long story. :p I don't know about other people really. Mostly they seem to say that they realized it when they fell in love with someone. For me, I think, the most important thing was to meet another lesbian and realize that it was normal and it wouldn't be anything weird if I was one. I guess I might be just a bit slow. But I was pretty confused as a kid in many ways so that might explain it. But I think that it is usually difficult to realize if you live in a totally heteronormative society. You just don't expect to be gay, you don't even consider it. You are so certain that you're just another hetero that you are ready to explain almost anything away with some lame excuses. If you already know other gay people, it's a completely different situation.

well, i'm not lesbian or bi, but i'm a bit bi, and i often think girls are really pretty in more than just an envious way. i was just raised right. i think how you react to that kind of stuff is different depending on how you were raised. my parents are not omphobic, and neither is my sister, so i never had any family pressure to be totally obsessively straight. i guess the reason that i like girls, evn though i'm neither lesbian nor totally bi, is that i just never thought of it like 'you can only like guys' so if a girl is pretty, i notice. i'm currently 13, so i'm still kind of at puberty, even though i'm basically out of it now. so i know my own feelings on the matter, even though i can't speak for someone raised in a more heterosexual enviroment then someone like me. i have gay, lesbian, and bi friends, so i don't think of heterosexuals as being 'normal', so my feelings on it is basically neutral. it's not something i consider good or bad, being gay or bi, it's just soemthing that's there and that soem people, a lot of people, are. if that helped, great i guess, if it didn't sorry. that's just me.

i may look safe, but as soon as i get you alone, i'm going to eat you.

Well, I can tell you my experiences for the first bit but I've been lucky so far and don't have any experience of being shunned by anybody.

I first had a crush on a girl when I was twelve or thirteen. I kind of went "what the hell is going on here?" It was just like that. I'd never had a crush on a girl, never even entertained the thought that I could be anything other than perfectly straight, then wham! There it was. I was terrified for a while and thought I wasn't normal and all that, spent ages looking on the internet and trying to get reassurance that I wasn't the only one feeling like this. I still pretty much identified as straight - I told myself it was 90% boys, 10% girls.

Over time - and not a long time, I was lucky in that it was just a month or two if I'm remembering properly - I got used to the idea and kinda went, "oh, okay then." I never bothered telling anybody because it didn't seem important enough. At some point, the figures started shifting and I went from 'yeah, 90% guys' to 'oh, hey, 50/50 guys and girls' to '100% girls'. Now I just let what happens happen. I identify as a lesbian but occasionally I still find myself attracted to boys and I find that more difficult to deal with now than I found realising I was into girls. I find it hard now that I've told everybody I'm a lesbian to say, "yeah, I'd go for him."

To be honest, once I got used to the idea, it became totally normal to me. It just stopped being a big issue and I forget that other people think it's a big issue. I don't go around telling everybody I meet but if somebody asked me I wouldn't deny it - although I did do that when I was about sixteen. All the people who are important t to me know.

Sorry, I'm not really sure I've answered your question there at all. Anyway, my experience is that I found out through getting a completely unexpected crush on a girl. Other people know from when they're very young and never have any interest in the opposite sex, but I wasn't one of them. My interest in the opposite sex developed a lot later than most of my friends so I always felt a bit weird and different, but I had all the typical schoolgirl crushes on boys in my class when I was eleven or twelve so the sudden girl crush came out of nowhere for me!

2006: Of Lost Causes - failed miserably.

2007: Those Who Wait

One snarky ex-con, one stressed university student, one psychotic teacher and two generic best friends. If I'm really lucky, there might even be a plot!

It can depend a lot on the person and how they were brought up. When I starting feeling that I was bisexual, I tended to obsess about my feelings and try to judge everything I felt, but, especially at first, I didn't feel ashamed about it because I'd been raised to regard homosexuality as being normal and okay. I actually have a harder time being open about it now, because I'm older and have encountered more prejudiced people.

But for someone who was raised to believe it was a sin, or just never taught about it, it can be hard. They might feel ashamed or really confused about what they're feeling.

As for shunning, again, it depends a lot on personality, beliefs, and upbringing. Some people are just a bit uncomfortable with homosexuality. They might not violently object to it, but they might find it "weird" or "kind of gross", or not really know what they feel. Though on the other end of the spectrum, you have people who are uncomfortable with it who are more aggressive, as in the sort who will shout out taunts or threaten violence, but thankfully, I've yet to encounter anyone liket his. Other people become paranoid that their gay or bisexual friend finds them attractive or is checking them out all the time (which usually isn't true). For other people, it's against their religious beliefs or the beliefs their parents taught them (which are often the same).

The act of shunning itself might be anything from casual but noticable distance being made to overt objections.

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