I'm a 23 year old guy who continues to identify as straight but is continuing to question my sexuality. I guess I should start from the beginning: I come from a progressive, non religious, very accepting family, with no serious family issues. My father was a fireman. Because of this, I was primarily raised by my mother [and older sister] - and felt I naturally formed stronger relationships with women. As young as pre-school, I've always had more friendships/relationships with females. From elementary, to the start of high school I had both female and male friends - but was always significantly closer with females which is when the "gay" remarks started. When I look back at those times, it seems as if calling someone gay in elementary/middle school was the ULTIMATE diss to another male. I was a good looking kid, had a lot of friends, and usually just brushed off these comments because I had never FELT significantly attracted to men to the point of thinking I was gay nor did I fully understand what being gay even meant. Come high school, our group of guy friends went separate ways, I continued to grow my social circle of mostly females. By this time I had completely isolated myself from having any males as friends- to the point to where I was almost awkward when interacting with them- which also brought on gay remarks. This mostly stemmed from me feeling that my connections with my females put any male friendship to shame. With my female friends I felt as if I could talk about ANYTHING and fully be myself. With guys, there is/was this 'hyper-masculine, we're only going to talk about sports and girls, no support system, no feelings,always judging relationship. I held no value in male friendships because what I saw around me seemed shallow and artificial from what I was used to/wanted out of future friendships. I didn't relate to guys on multiple levels. In high school and the beginning of college I had 2 significant straight relationships (a 1 year, and a 4 year) which I felt COMPLETELY emotionally and sexually involved in. This is where I began to get confused [latter part of high school]. For starters, I was a late bloomer. In high school I was skinny, had a high pitched voice, had no facial hair etc. I felt as if I was constantly reminded of how pre-pubescent I was and naturally began to constantly compare myself to other guys my age. I started comparing myself to other guys around me, then started looking at other guys online, to the point of me comparing myself sexually to online sites [mostly looking at solo nude shots of other men] ALL while in a straight relationship. At the time, I honestly just felt so comfortable with my sexuality in my straight relationship that I didn't think twice about it. Fast forward, my relationship ended and I have been single ever since [about two years]. My body/physique has developed more to where I'm not as self conscious about my 'comparisons' to other guys my age, yet I continued/increasingly watched gay porn [but can never bring myself to watch anal?] - in addition to equal amounts of straight porn. I continued to justify this as me just being hyper sexual to both men and women. I'm only emotionally attracted to women - never had an emotional connection with a man. I'm sexually attracted to both men and women BUT whenever I think about actually fooling around with a guy I'm kinda grossed out by it. I've accepted that IM NOT completely straight, but now I just want to start the process of figuring out who I am. Increasingly I've had strangers, acquaintances, and random gay guys ask if I was gay. The thing is, I've gotten this since I was 8. And STILL I feel that I don't want OR feel romantically close enough with men to have a romantic relationship with a guy. I have a few gay friends too and after seeing "their world", I just can't really see myself being part of that either. I feel like I fit this 'gay stereotype' that society has pre-determined me as gay- yet I still feel like I'm straight - and want to be straight. I cant determine whether I'm in just extreme denial (don't know why I would be other than societal pressures?) or if I'm just a product of myself and my upbringing - I'm a mature, emotionally in touch, personable, effeminate, well put together guy. This is who I've always been. I've been through so much in previous relationships that I'm very selective when it comes to women - just haven't met THAT girl. Simultaneously I think some girls may be deterred by my lack of super masculine traits - which makes them not interested either. Result: I'm single and now in a confusing state of "Am I gay?!" Part of me wants to experiment with a guy just to see if some clarity comes from it. I feel stuck between straight and gay. I'm fine with bi-curiosity and totally believe the sliding scale, but when it comes to getting in a relationship with a women, or a gay man, I feel like you would need to decide in order to be in that relationship. I just want to find myself and find my sexuality so I can begin living that life - whatever that life is. How to do I start this process? Thoughts?
First off, welcome to EC! As your probably already know, no one can really tell what your sexuality is so we might be able to give you some guidance, but its really all up to you at the very end. With that in mind, based on your post it sounds like you could very well be bisexual and leaning more towards girl. Have you ever heard of the Kinsey scale? While it isn't perfect by any means, it is a cool tool to use in order to understand that sexuality is a spectrum and its not nearly as white and black as people want it to be. It might also be a helpful tool to sort of start giving yourself a label, which seems like what most people are sort of after. This I'm interested in. What do you mean by their world? What do you think it entails to be gay or be in the "gay world"? The only thing I will say about this is that sexual orientation is beyond complex. We know very little about it and we don't really understand how it works, so coming up with an answer that will satisfy you 100% is going to be very hard. To me, the most important is not to have a definite answer, but to be honest with whoever you get into a relationship with. You can explain, in due time, your confusion if you want. When I first started my frist relationship with a guy that's exactly what I did. I told him, listen I think I might be gay, but not entirely sure. He just accepted that and we had some really good 9 months together where I learned A LOT about myself. I think you are in the right path. Keep asking questions, talk to people and hear people's stories. Chances are that either someone is right there with you or has been in a similar place as you.
