I am quite paranoid about being bi. I want to identify as gay, but I sometimes feel like I might be attracted to guys. I just can't tell anxiety apart from real sexual attraction. I really don't want to identify as bi or pan. Both of those identities seem to clash with who I want to be. What makes me even more paranoid is that no one thinks I look or seem gay. Some people even think I look bi or pan. My step dad even thinks that I'm bi or pan. This just makes me so paranoid. Not just because I don't want to be bi, but because I don't want other people to know me better than I know myself.
Don't let other people's opinion about you make you question your self. Is there a reason you don't want to be bi?
Because it erases my experiences. I grew up not feeling attracted to guys. I felt like I was missing something that the other girls had. I do remember feeling attracted to girls, but I never really thought those feelings were real. When I was fourteen I started identifying as gay. I was so happy. I no longer felt like I was missing out on something. I felt like a full person. When I tried to come out no one believed me. That made me obsessed with proving that I was gay and not attracted to guys. If I am attracted to guys I get that feeling that I'm missing out or behind in my development. It's just a horrible feeling. I sometimes feel scared that I was wrong all along and that I'm just straight and emotionally behind.
Other people don't know you better than you know yourself. Just because you "look bi or pan" doesn't mean you are. People swear I'm straight, but I'm not. So don't worry. If you know you're gay, then you're gay. How you look doesn't influence your sexual orientation. It's possible that people just don't want to accept that you like girls and not guys. If it's predominantly guys who are saying you look bi rather than gay, it could very possibly be because they're interested in you and don't want to give up. So maybe you're gay, maybe you're bi or pan. Only you really know, so whatever anyone else thinks is irrelevant. I don't think you have to worry about being "emotionally behind" or anything like that either. I was always attracted to girls up until my freshman year of high school, and then I started being attracted to guys. So it could be very possible that you're in the same situation, just reverse the orientation. If you're just now developing an attraction to guys, there could be various reasons for it. Or the feelings may have been there all along, and you just didn't realize it. Being a confused teenager sucks sometimes, doesn't it?
hmmm....Maybe you aren't really sexually attracted to guys and are just partially attracted to them during certain periods of time? But even if you are, I don't think you need to be ashamed. If you are bi, it sounds like you still preference girls anyway, so I don't think you are straight and emotionally behind.
