Now, after I'm pretty much out to myself but less out to other people I just cannot stand when a guy wants to get closer, with obvious pick-up lines and such. It just fuels my anger and my anxiety and I just want to shout in his face that I'm gay, so please, don't try anymore. It's like feeling even more fake than I already do. Yeah, I know it's a journey, I know I should be patient.... But now I realize that I basically never enjoyed when guys were obvious about wanting something more than friendship. Well, 99% of the cases. I felt this uncomfortable feeling of unease. Anyway, now it's worse from this point of view. I have a male colleague who is trying to get closer, actually more than one and yay, maybe I should be happy but I just feel it just shoves me deeper into the proverbial closet...
Male advances actually repulse me now, so I know what you mean. I realize it's more of an issue in me than it is with them. But to me it's more confirmation that I'm not bi, I'm 110% gay.
I don't think I'm bi either. I'm just keeping that there because I'm telling to myself that I somehow am "not allowed" to say I'm a lesbian until I have some real life experience. Also I'm theoretically still in a relationship with my bf and that is taking away all my energy and distroying me gradually... especially after I came out to him. Living together and sleeping in the same bed. While being distant, cold and weird with each other day after day...And it creates a vicious circle from which I cannot get out yet, to actually make a move and leave...
For me, it's possible to separate my reaction to insensitive guys from my inclination toward women. There are SO many reasons to dislike a man aggressively coming on to you or being insensitive to signals you send. It's a sign of male privilege, it's annoying, it's threatening physically sometimes. It's also often a signal that he is non very intelligent or has not been socialized in an egalitarian manner. I never liked that, even when I was straight. Those guys were always off-putting! As well they should be: they're jerks. (Actually any person, regardless of gender, who acted like that would also get a big thumbs down from me.) TeaTree, I don't think that anyone who was in a relationship that was dead would be happy about the situation, but perhaps that is separable from your being gay. You'd be unhappy in a dead relationship regardless of whether you are bi or lesbian. (This is not to say that you are NOT lesbian, of course! Just to suggest that maybe this feeling that because you are unhappy you must be one thing or another is actually causing you more pain on top of everything else and to be gentle with yourself.) -- However, I TOTALLY get the visceral annoyance with people just assuming you are straight. It's like, no fool! I'm not! Fuck you!
Would you insist that a 13 year old kid have more life experience before saying he/she was bi or gay? Probably not. You might know in the back of your head from your more experienced point that it's possible that will change at some point in time, but likely, you would be polite enough to say something like, "Thanks for sharing that with me. I appreciate that you trust me with that information and I love you." Say those things to yourself, and allow yourself the time and space to heal from your still ending relationship without the pressure to prove that you are likely a lesbian. You can decide you are slightly bi or lesbian somewhere down the road. For now, you know that you like women. WAY more than you like men. Maybe exclusively. Time will tell. Be kind to yourself. (*hug*)
Hey TeaTree, I understand it makes you uncomfortable but looking from the bigger perspective I found all these small incidents actually kind of useful. At least they were for me. Imagine it like a rubber band. Every time something like that happens it makes you pull one side tighter than the other, makes you stretch the rubber band more, and then one day when you lose all your resistance and release it it'll launch you quickly in the opposite direction. :icon_wink
A bit later yesterday I also had a longer discussion with another male colleague, with whom I can feel some kind of connection, he is very interesting to talk to and I can relate to a lot he is talking about. He is very mild, calm and friendly. In these cases I have the issue that I feel like I should be attracted to him and start automatically behaving like so. But when I catch myself doing that it hits me that I don't want to get closer to him in that sense. Like I can't differentiate between getting close to soneone as a friend and being attracted to them. I think I confused myself so much about this up until now that I don't know the difference. Because otherwise why would have most (basically all) my "attractions" to men ended up in boring, cold, disconnected sex, which later continued in feeling depressed, sometimes grossed out and confused in the relationship. And definitely feeling like not myself, feeling like I somehow abandoned "my powers". But I used to think it's just anxiety and I'm just like that, weeker and more unhappy with life by default setup, than other people. My attraction to women is different, now that I'm allowing it consciously I can say that when it happens it feels more "flowing", usually don't feel anxiety around it, it constantly throws me into this nice, warm, euphoric-like feeling. There is no effort around it, well, until I start being concerned about how to actually make some moves... :icon_bigg
I can relate to this for sure. I think for a long time I just assumed that people who were really close friends were/could be sexually involved. Then, when I shut those feelings down when monogamy came into our relationship around 19, I can't always tell where one set of feelings ends and the other begins if I get close enough to someone. Possibly why I tend to put up walls. Also possibly evidence that I might just be one of those people who is cut out to be poly... that's up for debate (in my head) right now.
