These past few years have been a bit of a weird journey for me, and I've now arrived at what I feel is somewhat near the end. The problem is, instead of my sexuality solidifying itself, it's kind of melted into nothing. When I was at boarding school a few years ago, I was in a house full of girls. I fucking loved it. It was the best time of my life. It lasted 2 years. Both years were dotted with a generous helping of very obvious homosexual clues, that I didn't see at first, but began to freak me out. First year, I had my best friends in my house, loved them, it was all good. Then I met this girl. She was obsessed with me. We had an intense best friend...ship? But it was too intense. Other people picked up on it, as well as me. I always sensed something else going on. She had another friend. A slutty one. Having gushed about me to her, this new girl wanted to be pals as well. That was cool. At this point, I was new to the school, and although I had a solid base of awesome buddies, I was always ready for more. The homo undertones of this friendship, however, were not undertones at all. She constantly flirted with me, inviting me to threesomes with her boyfriend, feeling me up and all sorts. I loved the attention, I can't lie. But at this time, I thought I was straight. I had a crush on a guy in my Maths class already. Then one time, I remember, we were sat down in the lunch hall, me, her, and one of my roomates. And she asked me to kiss her. That was the first time she had really, explicitly outed the weird air we had. I didn't know what to do. I talked around the subject, I mentioned past girls that'd liked me, why I didn't do anything about it... I just couldn't face the question head on. But above all... I was really turned on. She'd never know that. Fast forward to next year - that same roommate who was the third party in that conversation, suddenly becomes hot. Ohhhh dear. This time, we become the bestest of best friends. And there's nothing weird about her. She's not obsessive, she's not a slut. She's beautiful. We hang out 24/7. Other people in my house, yet again, make 'couple' jokes. I had a hard time admitting it to myself, but one night, at one of the band practices, I say to myself, in my head... "yeah. That's just it. She's... sexy." School ends. She goes to university, I go on a gap year, to a remedial college. Obviously, we stay in touch. For some reason, I find it hard to make friends at this college, so our close friendship really doesn't have any competition on my end. However, there are some more hot girls at this college, and one beautiful guy. Once again, the guy crush is a jerk and makes fun of me, while I am actually friends with the hot girl. Weird romantic air happens again, comes to nothing because when she tries to get 'gay' out of me (I think) I knock it down once again. I don't know why, because at this stage I'm beginning to put two and two together from boarding school, paired with the fact that I've never really felt that chemistry with guys, and settling on a semi-answer. This semi-answer scares me, I nearly fuck up remedial college, and have to get 'homo-counselling' (sorry I use that term affectionately I promise... it just makes it a bit more special to me) I go on a rollercoaster of accepting myself, then meeting up with friends and falling back into the fake-straight trap. I had resolved to come right out once I get to university. The problem is, now, I'm actually at university. My 'homo-counsellor' is helping me still, but some of my close friends from boarding school and before are at my college, and the fear of coming out to them has made me weasel back into the closet. Of course, this is at odds with the discovery that I'm pretty butch and have a masculine face/demeanour, even though I'm skinny and wear female-specific clothes *shrug*. I even made friends with (shock horror) another hot girl on my course. To top it all off, I'm depressed. I don't like the people I live with, I'm not going along to many parties or society meet-ups, I'm no longer interested in things, and really I just want to watch movies, eat food and sleep. I tried to come out to one of my close friends... and I ended emphasising the disconnect with males.. thus sounding asexual. As freeing as it was for her to not expect 'straight girl' from me, I actually feel more asexual having said that to her. As if, saying it made it real. But it confuses me. All the things I found sexually.. well, sexual before, I just feel apathetic towards now. Plus my hot best friend got a boyfriend and for some reason that affects me... weirdly. I feel like all the lesbian feelings I've had for people have been a joke. A sham. A nothing. All the chemistry and companionship and... inexplicable complicity has been in my head. Maybe I'm not really lesbian. Just... uh... I dunno I really thought I was lesbian and ready to accept it. What's going on? I feel like I really want to burst out and come out and be comfortable with myself, but now I feel trapped, and unsure what I'm even coming out of or from...
Hey! The first thing I want to say is that you should try not to put a label on yourself...you are who you are and you don't need a term from the dictionary to tell you who that is. I haven't been able to tell anyone about my feelings yet, but if you feel you have a friend you can share that with then I encourage you to do so. There are so many smart and helpful people on this site that I'm sure someone will have a better answer than me lol ...hang in there!
Hey. I'm not sure how much advice I can offer, I'm still a mish-mash of feelings myself, but I just wanted to say that from what I've experienced and from conversations with friends, this kind of confusion is very common. For me I think it was to do with having always assumed I was straight, and therefore having romantic fantasies about men for a long time. It took me a while to distinguish between these and the more sexual thoughts I had about women. With women there was the added complication of these thoughts being about friends and so I wasn't sure if it was just that I was emotionally closer to more women and therefore could imagine being more intimate with them. I still haven't completely resolved these issues (my biggest crush is on a lesbian friend of mine who I will probably never tell) but I've come to accept that it doesn't have to be black and white. As I'm more often than not attracted to women I've come out as a lesbian. But my closer friends know its not as clear cut. I still get feelings for men occassionally and havent yet figured out if that is due to my socialisation or genuine bisexuality. I guess the only advice I can offer is to look past the gender issue, I realised I was gay by recognising a very deep crush on a female friend. But if I ever have that intense a feeling towards a man, then I'll probably come out again as bisexual. I'd say just don't try to force it either way, let your feelings guide you, if you meet someone you're attracted to just follow that. If the next person you're attracted to is of a different gender, then that's fine too! It doesn't make the feelings any less real. Good luck with it all
Thanks fluidity. I may as well bring in what I posted somewhere else too. That thing about not really having any boundaries in my attraction towards girls is really beginning to fuck up my friendships. At university, I am feeling really down, unsure of myself, and I feel like everything I feel and may be is being kept a secret, toned down. There are thoughts in my head that I kept inside... about girls. I haven't even seen that many hot girls here. I just can't stop myself feeding off of the sexual attraction I feel to some girls.. just the vibe.. the atmosphere, I can't explain it. Those are the only people I make friends with now, and they all think I'm straight. I think maybe they just find me funny, or interesting, meanwhile I am making some kind of quasi-romantic bond with them. And because I'm not even out of the closet to people, I feel this will make me so confused. This is making me think "Yeah. I should come out. This is weird. It's not okay if they don't know what's going on in my head." But... I don't have the confidence. I don't have the solid base of friends who reassure me that I'll be okay. I don't have anything. The only close friends I have are more intensified versions of this quasi-romantic bond thing! I can't get away from it! And my counsellor back home said it's best to come out to someone who you feel completely platonic about. I don't have anyone close to me that I'm comfortable coming out to that fits that description. The hell am I gonna do?
Yes I think coming out to someone you only feel platonic towards is probably sensible. The first person i came out to was my gay male best friend, there was obviously no attraction there and he was always going to be supportive. I don't think necessarily it needs to be a close friend, if you genuinally feel you have no purely platonic close friendships then maybe you could go to an LGBT group and just get some sense of being open there to get used to it. If the issue is with letting these girls know, then maybe try something more subtle, so it doesn't turn into something of. a confession of feelings towards them. For example, I joined an LGBT book club a while back, and if I want to drop sexuality into conversation without it being a big deal I just talk about that. Some people assume I'm gay, others just assume I'm very open minded and usually just let me know that they are too. If they seem more awkward about it I just tall about books, very neutral!! There are lots of LGBT groups for different hobbies, so you could start going without mentioning that it is lgbt and then drop that in if you want someone to know.
Okay, thanks for that. Haha, I'm having parallel convos on both threads now. But this has been invaluably helpful. I'm gonna try to get going with the groups first, and then move back into the situation of my other friends.
Okay, okay. Two more things. (I'm sorry guys, I just wanna get it all out of my system so that I can get up tomorrow and feel alright for once... so tired of feeling a weight on my chest, and constantly worrying...) Number one. I'm scared of how little I have in common with 98% of the people around me. I'm sure this'd pretty much be the same if I was straight. My old friends, the ones I cherish, I cherish because I now realise how odd my interests are, and how difficult it's going to be finding new people like that :/ It would help if all the societies in my university had gay versions, but they don't. And unfortunately a lot of my interests are shared by a lot of straight, homophobic and sometimes religious people (Hip-Hop culture, and afro-caribbean culture on the whole, case and point). For this reason, I am extra clingy to my old friendships and just don't want to come out and ruin some of them (which, in some cases, I REALLY know I will) Number two. The people I live with at university couldn't be more of that 98% if they tried. I have to make a fair bit of effort with them, which would be okay if I wasn't going through some big internal issue. It's making me really withdrawn and aloof with people, and frankly it's fucking up my 'freshman' year. I really want to make friends with people, and settle in to each others' lives, but at the moment, they're all so involved with each other and all talk about each other that the minute I come out I know it'll be a thing. I'm not confident enough to stand up to that thing yet, so I'm using it as a reason to distance myself from everyone. It's really frustrating me, but I can't really think of any other way to do it This means I'm gonna be really stuck for close friends for a while...
