Before I came out as bi and did not acknowledge how it factored into me as a person, I found life very droll, boring, and just like I was in a dead end, stuck where I was. After I came out and began acknowledging the impacts of it, everything just feels different again. It's weird, I feel like I did when I was a teenager going through the phase of figuring out my identity. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, it actually feels refreshing compared to feeling like I'm just stuck in the mud. It feels even more like I did when I was younger, since I'm still living with my parents. Before, I kind of stopped paying a bit of attention to how I dressed or any of that stuff. Now that I have this new "identity", I'm starting to pay attention to how I'm dressed/expressing myself again. I'm even discovering new things to do as a result of acknowledging my sexuality that I would have never in a million years considered before. I painted my nails dark, almost blackish blue the other day, and it was interesting how I was doing this totally new thing that I enjoyed. I haven't experienced that type of feeling in months before I acknowledged my sexuality. When I was younger though, I would have never considered painting my nails anything just thinking it was a "gay" thing to do. It was funny when my parents said that I could do that while I'm still here with them, it was almost like I was when I was a teenager asking if I could wear some sort of new thing and hearing the hoped for answer of yes. There have been other things too, like when I sexual fantasies involving the same sex, sometimes it feels like when I was younger first exploring my opposite sex fantasies. It has kind of a new, foreign, and interesting feel to it. It's interesting though, because it doesn't have the same hormone-driven, uncontrolled quality of the opposite sex fantasies I had when I was younger (and still have in a more controlled, non-hormone driven sort of way). It's more of a controlled, kind of feminine sort of fantasy, and I don't feel like there's a driving force to act on it despite the fantasies themselves often being very intense (kind of like when I was first learning about my opposite sex attractions). It's interesting how I am discovering this totally new "identity" even though my chronological age is well beyond adolescence. It's really a pretty cool new opportunity that I'm glad has happened
For those of us who post in the later in life forum, a second adolescence at midlife is quite common as we begin to accept our attractions to the same sex. The behavior includes the sense of having a second chance at adolescence, teenage-like crushes, and the desire to explore this previously forbidden fruit. So what you are describing is quite natural for someone who discovered his interest in guys well beyond adolescence
