I feel like I am in the minority here. I am not married, and yet I am almost 35 and "still" questioning my sexuality. I feel like I will NEVER know for sure if I am gay or bi or straight. I have never had sex, and when I did date (in HS/college), I never went past a certain point, sexually. The anxiety was too great, and then I just stopped trying to date altogether after I graduated college. My senior year of college, a friend and I got extremely close, and were inseperable. She slept over a bunch after parties in my bed, though we just basically passed out. We ocassionally danced together (wasted) at the bar, and sometimes held hands as we walked home from the bar. I thought nothing of it, and I was always hammered when these things happened. One night she kissed me and I was like "Ummm....I like you as a friend, but I am straight." Fast forward to that summer. I graduated, fell apart, realized *maybe* I liked her more than a friend? Told her, but also said "I can't deal with that right now." UGH. I HATE myself for saying that! It ended our friendship, and she's now married to a man. I literally was going through a massive depressive episode and didn't know it, and just couldn't handle any more stress than what I was dealing with. 12 years later, and the loss of that friendship still makes me sad. And confused. I've basically isolated my life into: "Go to work. Come home. Feed Cat. Watch Tv. Go to sleep." Rinse and Repeat for the past 12 years. I have 1 friend and that is it. So, how does one figure it out on their own? When I am out in public, I really don't check anyone out or notice who is attractive or not. I used to notice cute guys and think "Oh, he's cute," but never much past that. Back when I used to party, I danced with guys at bars, but thats all it was--dancing. I might have kissed some of them (wasted, clearly), but never wanted to take any of them home. But, I also never was like "Oh that girl is cute! Lets dance with her!" So am I supposed to have some amazing revelation, because I don't think it will happen.
This could be a good question for Dan Savage or you could listen to his podcast and you might pick up some of the advice he gives to others in similar situations. One tactic would just be to plain 'ol get laid. It may not be for you but at least to stamp out any anxiety about lack of experience. I think a different scene could also be good for you. Bars and clubs, while wasted, are probably the worst places to meet people. Check out your local PFLAG, they might have events or resources suited to you. Or volunteer after work, take a class, join a progressive church just something to get yourself around other people.
Are you wondering which label to affix to yourself? If you are, why? You are you. In a way, you already are where you need to be, at least in terms of pure sexuality. Why bother trying to figure out which artificial category in which to place yourself?
Perhaps it comes down to one question: can you live with ambiguity? Is there a place that you can settle where the answers are "good enough". Life is short, and life very, very, rarely gives anyone absolute certainty about anything, this means that one has to accept a certain amount of risk, just the kind of risk you would take in the choice of a job, a mate or even where you would be willing to live.
Because if I don't have some sort of label or something to go by, I stay perpetually stuck in my isolated bubble, and will continue to feel worse and worse. Yeah, risk...I definitely avoid it. I really am over living with the ambiguity.
I sadly don't know what to tell you; but I knew I was bisexual(or heteroflexible, Something under the bisexual umbrella) after thinking about it for only a few months, but I really thought about it, and I said I like girls, and I can picture myself having a relationship with a girl. Its kind of hard to explain haha.
I started seeing signs of being gay at age 5/6. Indirectly knew for sure at age 10, but denied/ignored/repressed my natural urge until a few months ago at age 30. Hope you find your answer!
Never say never... it will come eventually. Try not to dwell on past losses, maybe try to contact your lady friend and simply catch up? If you want, let her know that you missed her for those 12 years.
I'm no professional, but based on what you are describing I think you might have a lot of emotions, including sexuality-related buried deep down somewhere and for some reason you have disconnected yourself from them. We usually (I guess subconsciously) do this to protect our nicely shaped image about our self, which a lot of time might cause pain, but somehow we think that protecting that image is more important (again, on the subconscious level). I have done something similar loads of times in my life. You feel numb, depressed and don't know why. That was my experience several times, it lasted years sometimes. I don't come from a family of people who know how to deal with emotions and we kind of ignored them when I was a child, which sucked for someone so emotional and sensitive as I was, but still, I learned my lesson and managed to disconnect from my emotions. Apparently so well that I couldn't locate the gay side of myself until not long ago. And this is another thing. When in a numb state I wasn't checking out girls either. I didn't care. I went on autopilot mode which works with social programming - so I was checking out guys, though I kind of knew I'm not really interested in them. Even if I convinced myself I was, usually never was interested enough about the sexual part. But I did it, a lot of times, and it was like self-violation, a lot of times. So maybe it's better not to do it in this case. So what I'm saying here is that is very possible that at some point you (subconsciously) decided that you are better off disconnecting yourself from your emotions. But they are definitely there and I believe you can reconnect with them. As for advises, I can't say much, but I'll tell you what my friend is always telling me (the only one who I came out to ). Try to break the routine, try to do new stuff, doesn't matter what. Going to the cinema, some event (where you don't have to be active if you don't want to), short trip, gym, swimming, just checking out a part of the city you never visited before, doing something after work you are usually not doing. I know it's freaking hard when you're caught in the routine, but believe me, it works wonders! I believe it can help reconnect with our spontaneous side which possibly you (and also I) were ignoring for so long. Hope this helps a bit, and don't give up, you are not in a bubble, you are you and you are amazing, please don't forget that (*hug*)
Don't think like that. You can figure this out if you let yourself. I was like you. I never checked out anybody in public. At all. I didn't even have a real live person cause me to start questioning. Mine was after I watched a tv show with a lesbian couple storyline where I found myself being drawn to it and starting to wonder if there was more to my appreciation of these two than met the eye. Once I started reading here and watching more movies and shows with lesbian storylines, I started to realize that, yes, there was something more here. I began to gaze around me while I was out and about. I didn't particularly get attracted to anyone but I definitely started to feel first that all the women must be gay (haha, not so) and then I began to work on differentiating gay from straight. And the gay ones are pretty attractive. I think you just need to give yourself permission to let you eye and mind wander so your conscious can get to know what your subconscious already knows. Don't berate yourself for your feelings, whatever they are, because you're hurting absolutely nobody with them.
Yeah not going to happen. She ended our friendship abruptly, and we haven't spoken in 12 years. She is now married and has a life of her own. Yes, times a million to the bolded parts. My therapist has mentioned that I am very disconnected, to the world and to myself. Except I don't know how to become connected? It seems very foreign to me, and also horrifying. Feelings are gross and messy. I told my therapist recently that I am about 75% robot. 25% goes to the children I work with, and my cat. I also can't stand that I am numb and depressed for no particular reason I can point out. I am really struggling with this right now in therapy. I don't feel I deserve to be "helped" if I don' thave some big "thing" to point to why I feel so crappy.
I believe that experiences are the surest way to "connect with myself." One could sit in a quiet room and meditate or wait for an epiphany. It is unlikely that you will learn much. I truly believe that you have to do something. Preferably something outside of the familiar comfortable world. If it turns out that you don't like it then you do something else.
