Just the same advice I'd give any teenager:

Being in middle/high school are the worst parts of most people's lives*, so just repeat the mantra: "college**. college. college."

Luckily, there's nothing teens love to hear more than, "just wait a few years, TRUST ME."

* It might not ACTUALLY be a bad part, but it sure as fuck feels like it at the time, with all the uncertainty and awkwardness and pretending that you are neither uncertain nor awkward.
** NOT a college in your hometown, duh.

I had the same problem when I was a gay teenager. I was a "straight acting" kid with the dilemma that nobody knew I was gay and I was scared to tell anyone. I tried the gay youth groups that at the time I felt were filled with what I considered "the funny-looking gays" - wrong I know. But I found nothing there, and was scared to be seen with obviously gay kids. So I started going to the bars and I met guys to fuck, but had trouble finding friends, partly because I kept my gay life and regular life separate. It took a few years for me to combine the two lives I was living and come out to everyone. I think I wasted a lot of time trying to live a double life and neither was satisfying.

It's not easy, but you have to come out and let people know you are gay. I'm not talking about rainbow flag wearing "out", but just casually let the people that are in your life and at work or school know that you are gay. When other people see a straight acting kid that is gay and cool with it, they'll either come out to you or introduce you to other gay people they know.

I have a friend with a younger brother that worked with an out gay 18 year old who was just in the process of coming out. He told his coworker, who then introduced us, and then through me he's met other regular gay men, and it's given him more confidence to be out with his peers. I'm proud that in our becoming friends I've gotten to introduce him to some great movies like "Pink Flamingos" and "The Cruise". Anyway, you have to be out to everyone to be an example to others that are still in the closet and to make connections with people that you never would have guessed have gay friends or are gay themselves.

I've been thinking a lot about the girl Constance McMillen. She could have easily slunk home and stared at her tuxedo hanging in her bedroom on prom night and cried herself to sleep, but instead she decided to stand up and be visible, and now she's going everywhere. Who needs the stupid little MS prom when you've become everyone's favorite lesbian. I admire her bravery to refuse to be pushed in the closet, and it makes me proud of our community for rallying to her side.

Start a facebook group....

"Sexuality Anonymous, for people who don't wear their sexuality on their sleeves. "
Offer support group meetings.

What he doesn't say is why he doesn't like that "personality." In fact, there's a striking absence of a reason, which I suspect was purposefully left out. I bet that there's a bit of self hate there. Being with someone obviously gay means he is obviously gay, or being sissified by showing affection for a man is bad enough without all the other sissy attributes that may also come along.

If my suspicion is true, I would remind him that rights are not won whilst hiding in the closet and rights were won because some could not hide in the closet. In other words, the "sissy" paved the way fucker, so get over yourself and show some respect.

natureboy, give it a rest. Self-hate/ do you think Alexander the Great self-hated? Many people find an overt and cultivated self-stylization boring and a turn-off.

Nothing to do with self-hate. This kid just likes men/boys without a self-revealing attitude. To each their own, I say.

All this identity projection and speculation and judging. Do the psychosexual identitiy-verifiers think that a woman who has a crush on Michelle Obama, but no interest in masculine women, is a racist self-hater?

The whole way that stupid street renaming went down was because of all the accusations of: "you're a racist if you don't want to name 39th after cesar chavez " and the defensiveness generated.

It's sad, the power of accusation. And creepy.

The guy writes in for advice because he's unhappy, and Dan posts for comments, and I advise self-reflection and voice my suspicions. That's not wrong, an accusation, judgmental or creepy. It could be in a different context, like outside an advice column. And in that different context, I agree to each, his own.