I came out as a lesbian several years ago because I get crushes on only girls. Now that I'm 16, however, I am becoming more sexually mature and even though I don't want a boyfriend I keep feeling attracted to boys. I absolutely hate it when I do because I'm happy being gay and want a girlfriend but whenever I joke with my friends and family about how gay I am I feel like I'm lying to them which feels even worse. I know that if I tell my mum (for example) I want to have sex with boys her reaction will be "so you aren't gay?" and it's so embarrassing to have people think I got it wrong or was lying for attention or something. :icon_redf I'm basically just terrified about what people will think but I want to talk to someone about it because keeping it all in is so tiring and stressful. :icon_sad: I don't know what to do and I need advice... should I wait until I'm more OK with it myself before I tell others? Do I need to come out at all or could I still just identify as gay then have sex with a guy if I feel like it? PS. I know this is a bit unrelated so you don't have to answer but does anyone have advice on how to date with my sexuality? Because surely theres nobody that I can have a satisfied relationship with and that thought makes me feel lonely :icon_sad:
Hey, when I was your age, I was noticing a lot of the same sort of things. I noticed that I could fall head over heels for girls but wasn't interested in sex with them, so honestly I just didn't date. Conversely to you, I didn't actually recognize that I what I wanted was to date girls! My family wasn't the best at modeling what a healthy loving relationship ought to be so I honestly just thought I wasn't interested in dating boys because I hadn't met 'the one'. (*disclaimer: this is my experience, probably doesn't apply directly to you*) Hm. Since then I've recognized that a big portion of the lack of attraction sexually to girls was partially because I sit somewhere on the demi-aro/ace spectrum (where I lean demiaro with men, and demiace with women and other genderqueer people) so naturally I wasn't feeling sexual attraction to women because I wasn't dating them in the first place. Another, YIKES, revelation: I am genderfluid... and part of why I have been more sexually attracted to men is because I want to learn more and present better as a transman when I swing in that direction. Have you ever heard of the dating problem, "I dated the person I wanted to be"? Yeah. Yikes. But I'm really glad that I got to explore that part of my gender and sexuality because I learned a lot about who I am. Lastly: consider the combo of being told your whole life that bi, pan, and lesbian female presenting relationships aren't gay, they are 'gal pals!' with being demiace. Even after I knew that kind of portrayal was BULLSHIT, I didn't actually call it on myself! I did consider labeling myself homoromantic and heterosexual because I didn't want to date women while living in an unsafe situation. So my advice to you would be just give yourself some time and room to grow. Please go out and explore your sexuality and date and have safe sex with whoever you please. Who you identify as is definitely giving you some new information, now that you are becoming sexually mature, and I think your labels make a lot of sense. Before you come out, go ahead and put them to the test and experiment a little bit. If you need to come out to do that, maybe tell your family that you are experimenting with bisexuality at the moment (and then you can cross the bridge of more complicated sexual and romantic labels later on.)
Honesty, you should take life one day at a time. Don't overthink your sexuality. Eventually, you'll reach a point in which you will figure things out. During the teenage years, it is common to question your sexuality. Give it some time. You could be bisexual. you could be questioning. It is really up to you to figure things out. But don't rush into everything turning out okay.
