how or what made you realize you were gay/bi?

For me it was a bit of a "bolt from the blue", at least the first part. I was thinking about where I was going to go the rest of my life and just kinda relaxing. I was immediately struck with some fantasies about another guy, and it made me start to think about how much I'd suppressed these thoughts over so, so many years and how unhappy and buried I felt because of that.

Still, digging out of all of that has been a process for me, especially since I'd been married for 10 years at that point to someone I care about a lot. But so much made more sense, so I just kept going that direction. I'm happier overall, even with those struggles.

 

I'm an actor, I played a closeted lesbian in a film. That lead to a brief brief fling with someone I was working with. The role forced me to unveil my true orientation. If you're going to give a good performance, you have to open yourself up and be vulnerable in the moment..turned out I had waaay more in common with my character than I even suspected. Before that I kept a wall up/ was in denial about how much I wanted to be with women. Now I can't seem to go back.

 

I knew from the time I was a teenager that I was, at least, questioning. I chose to "not be gay." I found an interesting, beautiful, funny woman and I set out to build a life. Honestly, when I look back on it, it was like smoking, drugs, or alcohol - I thought that with the help of God, and through self-discipline, I could keep it in check. Denial is a powerful thing.

 

I think for me I had always liked men growing up in a house with all women, but puberty hit then it was all up:icon_wink

 

monogamous hetero relationship for 15 years, no kids.

i started developing romantic feelings for a girl. feelings that I'd never had before for anyone, male or female. desire quickly followed, but I still wasn't sure until we slept together. then i was sure. Definitely not straight.

 

I was always far, far more interested in guys than girls. But I came from a big family full of people that weren't at all visibly affectionate, although they married young and had a lot of kids, and I never really connected attraction and affection with love and family. I was naïve and assumed for a long time that all guys felt what I did, and by the time I realized that wasn't the case, I'd met a few gay men who were very stereotypical, and made me feel very inadequate because I wasn't. Then several beloved family members died in a short while, and I felt the need to create the family I felt I was quickly losing. Even at that, I may not have gotten married if I hadn't met a woman who I did have some interest in because of complicated circumstances. But in the end, I realized the marriage wasn't healthy and we were all miserable (although it took 20 years to figure that out). To be honest though, I feared being found out very soon into the marriage, even though I never cheated on her with anyone the while 20+ years.

 

For me it was falling in love with my best friend, and finally forming a relationship with her. Its amazing and has been an extremely overpowering experience for the past few months. WE are both married with kids tho, and our husbands tho they know about us, are fighting us tooth and nail so we have to wait for now to actually be together, and must keep our relationship a secret for now.

 

I fell in love with my best friend in high school. I did not know it was love then, but looking back on our connection now, it was definitely love. It was not an accepted form of love at the time it occurred, based on where we went to school, our religion and family backgrounds. Our relationship spanned 20 years of time, seven kids (between the two of us) and two marriages. To be honest I initially thought that my feelings for a woman were only for this particular woman, but after a recent experience with becoming close with another women and developing feelings, I finally admitted to myself that I love the person, male or female, I love who they are. Both men and women are attractive to me and I would welcome a relationship with either.

 

I thought a youtuber was cute:icon_redf

 

I feel like my realization came pretty much out of the blue and to be honest, I'm still questioning if I really am a lesbian. The biggest thing I can point to which I feel sounds stupid is my sister got me started watching OITNB and on the same day brought up something about how a friend of her's from high school that I knew as well, had started having a relationship with a female co-worker. I think both the thought of someone I knew pretty well having a homosexual relationship, as well as seeing a visual of this sort of (fictionalized) relationship and being very interested in it, led me to question it even further. I'm not trying to say that a TV show turned me, but it's made a lot of things make sense and like i've said I'm still not 100% sure.

 

I was never really attracted to girls from a partner standpoint. I thought it was just because I was introverted.

I've always had attraction towards guys. When I just sat down and thought about it, I realized that I would want to spend the rest of my life loving -- emotionally and physically -- a guy, not a woman.

This took a while for me though as I assumed I would just suppress these feelings for the rest of my life. At the moment, I know it's my truth (and I think I probably still have some internalized homophobia toward myself since I'm not out), so I'm just trying to make myself emotionally more comfortable with the acceptance. I'm close to coming out to family and don't think I would actually mind if they found out at this point. I'm actively hanging out with gay friends.

 

In college guys were checking me out and it gave me a funny feeling...but, I was naive. Later on I heard rumblings of "gay" this and "gay that" and it piqued my curiosity. When I was 24 I had my first experience with a guy and it blew my mind. After marrying we moved into a an apartment across from a guy who I guess was bi, possibly gay. While watching TV together when my wife was out of town we played footsie for a bit and ended up in a pile on his couch. Since that moment I've repressed the fact that I was very attracted to guys.

 

When I was younger I always felt different but I was also very shy/anxious so that was enough to convince me that's why. My first sexual attractions were towards girls in my teens, but I always freaked out about this and seen it as something wrong and was ashamed by it. So I started looking after guys, as this was the way to get into a relationship and I wanted that, in a way I felt something for them, though it wasn't usually sexual, more like an obsession. My first kiss with a guy was more or less gross, freaked out again, lied to myself that it's because he wasn't right or something.

Later on I managed to get in various relationships with men, always felt weird around women but didn't realize why. In my mid-twenties I got through some depression, eating disorder, self-harming, still didn't tell even my therapist about my feelings for women. Kind of denied them from myself at this point though it was always there.

Then I met my current boyfriend, I was desperate for some human connection and for someone to save me from myself I guess, I had no real romantic feelings for him, but this very deep and close friendship. I still remember the most "romantic" moments with him around seven years ago when I had that strong feeling that something is missing. So strong and disturbing but I decided to forget about it. We were like two children against the mean world, it was addictive and comfortable.

About three years ago I had this very strong realization that I was gay but couldn't handle it, I was still too afraid to do this, so I read about HOCD and I told myself I have that.

This year I started to be depressed again, everybody wanted me to get married to my bf but I just couldn't do it and asked myself everyday what is wrong with me.
About two months ago I started watching a lot of LGBT related stuff on Youtube and all over the internet, and I think there was the moment after I watched "The Hours" when I admitted to myself that I could actually be gay.

 

I had been in love with a woman for about a year before I even realized it!

Then, about a month ago, I was texting her and she said that her idea of a "type" had gotten thrown out over the years---now personality mattered most to her in men and women.

Out of the blue came the thought: I have a chance with her! It was so clear and so obvious it was like I was shouting it in my mind.

After that, I could not deny that I wanted her as more than a friend. A host of other sexual thoughts about her (and a few other women) followed, including some revelations about my past crushes.

I don't question if I'm gay, however. I still love having sex with my husband, and think guys are hot. That didn't change with my revelation.

(Alas, my friend will likely never know my attraction for her, as I'm also faithful.)

 

here; http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/133972-self-relivation.html

 

There were so many things that I ignored that on reflection are such obvious indicators of my my same-sex attraction:

1. When I was 13 I saw a naked guy's body in a film and got a huge erection.

2. When I was 13 I was getting changed after gym and saw a class mate's huge donger by accident and thought to myself, "that looks nice," and got flustered, quickly looked away, and got changed.

3. When I was 15/16 I finally had my first wank and I realised I was thinking about a boy.

4. When I was 15/16 I had my first wet dream and it was about having sex with a man.

5. Most of my sexual fantasies while at school involved older men.

6. When I was 18/19 I got with this very attractive girl, who I was totally in to, two weekends in a row, and when we got naked I only got semi-aroused on both occasions and couldn't get "it in." Needless to say the girl didn't think we should see each other like "that" anymore.

7. When I was 21 I had my first girlfriend, and we had sex quite a bit, but I always felt a kind of detachment while having sex, a kind of sex-by-rote, which my g/f must've cottoned onto because one time when I was pumping ambivalently, glacially away, halfway through, about 2 mins into the deed, she said, "can you get off me now?" :lol: I was pissed off at the time but really had little cause for complaint. She broke it off with me soon after. What a surprise, ay?

8. When I was 21 I fell in love for the first time with a work friend called Guy who was about 30, and who was openly gay. Of course I was so repressed that I denied the feelings until I changed jobs.

9. Throughout my 20's I had a few flings with girls making sure I was very drunk and surprisingly I had troubles performing. Which I could plausibly blame on the booze.

10. When I was 29 I traveled overseas by myself for the first time. I decided to teach Gay Me a lesson about how straight I was by having sex with 2 (female) sex-workers, 1 in Amsterdam and 1 in Prague. The experiences mirrored each other. After furiously performing oral on me without the slightest hint my tiny member was reacting, on each occasion, Gay Me taught me a lesson by saying, "Mate, I'm gonna let you come, but I'm only going to get the least amount of arousal out of your Mini Me as possible to allow a smidgen of ejaculate to release and it's gonna happen all in one motion. You're embarrassing us both so now I'm gonna embarrass you only." Gay Me was true to his word. Bastard!

11. I signed up to a gay-dating site while working in London but after getting quite a few responses told myself that this was just an experiment to show myself that I could be attractive to others.

12. Back in Australia I spent much of my early to mid 30's periodically signing up to gay dating sites and organising hook-ups only to back out at the last minute every single time.

13. Two years ago, completely sick of this psychological torment that I was putting myself through I sought therapy (again I might add) but this time I was determined to be honest about the root cause of my angst. I went to a brilliant therapist. She was kind, and caring, and loving (in a totally professional manner), and for the first time ever I told a real person that I was gay. I cried. She gave me a hug. After a few sessions the enormity of coming out became too much and I stupidly stopped seeing her.

14. Since then I've been on this site 3 times (this is the 3rd) under different aliases seeking understanding from our kind.

Did someone say deNIal? It's true. My journey has had a kind of tragic funny quality to it though. And this time I'm gonna see it through. We shouldn't torture ourselves, and be so brutal to ourselves, when there is nothing wrong with us being queer peeps. So, I say I'm gay(ish) because 99/100 people I'm sexually attracted to are men, and 1/100 are women, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life ignoring the 99% of men I might find a lover/partner from for the 1% of women I might find likewise from. I can't keep ignoring those odds, hot diggedy!