Share your stories?

My story's pretty boring. I'm lucky because I never questioned my sexuality, I was never bothered by it so I let it be what it is and never cared for a label until pretty recently.

Basically, when I was 11 or 12 I started finding people attractive. Mostly boys, but some girls, too. Over time, I started finding more girls attractive, and then eventually, my attraction to boys faded away to almost nothing. That was basically it. It never concerned me, so I was never trying to put a label on it or figure it out, it didn't bother me. Eventually I identified as bisexual, and then pretty recently, like a few months ago, I decided that gay is a better fit for me, because I'm only physically attracted to some guys, but not on any other level, and nor do I want a relationship with a guy, so gay felt like a better label for me.

 

I was raised in a conservative, old-fashioned environment. Since i learnt there are gay ppl in the world i also knew that all gay ppl are drug users, sick, criminals, freaks, have mental disorders, hiv positive and all of them should die. Thats how my family and my environment presented it to me. I was a good girl. I was programmed pretty good too. My program was to study in school, than university, than date a guy, marry him and have kids together. Till the age of 17 i have never even questioned my orientation. Of course i was straight, i was totally normal, of course i was against gay ppl. Its like if you are being told from your childhood that if you eat a tomato you will immediately die. And you believe in it and you never think about tomatoes and you never wish to try.
Then i entered the age when girls start to be curious about guys, start to have secret crushes on their classmates or football players. At some point all my girl friends started to be in relationships, started flirting with guys, but not me. I just didnt feel attracted to guys. I didnt want to kiss, didnt want to touch, didnt want to hold hands in the cinema. But still i was perfectly straight. As the time passed i realized i have to have a boyfriend as it just gets weird ( not in means of questioning my orientation but in means of being freak\not popular\not attractive around my environment).
To make a long story short - i dated several guys. I was never in love, i never enjoyed sex, i felt nothing when having sex. At some point the only reason i continued to date with guys was that i HAD to date guys as i was almost in the age when my family expected me to get married and pregnant (my 20ies). So the only thing i did to entertain myself was mind games with guys. Like make them cry, make them nervous, make them afraid ill break up with them, pretend im depressed and suicidal. I just played a role of a girlfriend. I never was a real girlfriend. When i gave advices and supported them i just played a role of caring girl, in bed i played a role of pornstar, with my bf parents i played the role of a perfect future wife and polite and quiet girl who looks with all respect to their son.
I have to stress that in my country - man is always the head of the family, man is always a smart one, woman is always dependent. But i never felt it is right. When i was out with a guy i always felt uncomfortable, felt humble, i felt that im just a guy's property, nobody sees us equal, nobody sees me as a unique individual, but only a dependent woman that guy fucks. I dont mean that ppl actually saw us like this, thought about us like this. I mean that this is how i always felt and i couldnt get over it. I knew if i got married id always feel like this. Id never trust my husband, id always think how he gossips about me behind my back, boasts about sex we have.
At some point i understood i cannot live like this. I dont want to feel like this. Relationships are not supposed to be like this. I cannot play those stupid roles anymore. I stopped dating with guys and couldnt understand whats going on. Also at this point i grew up enough to get my own opinion, to become tolerant and sympathetic to gay ppl but still never questioned my orientation.
I dont know how i understood im gay. That period was wild and weird for me. I still cannot analyze how i came to the point where i am now.
The main thing is that now im in a stable long term relationship, which i finally feel right, where i finally feel equal and respected. At the same time i dont feel any different about myself. Im same as when i considered myself to be straight. I dont feel freak or unnatural or like i have something to hide. I felt much more unnatural dating guys. Thats why i hate labels. Why would somebody call me names? Im just normal, regular person like everybody else. Thats my messed up story)

 

I am pretty new to this as well. I'm 29 and started questioning being straight maybe a month ago for real. But I have questioned it a few times before, every time very briefly before slapping the thought down again. I think I wasn't ready to face it due to a very strict Christian upbringing so for me I think it took some emotional distance from that to be open with myself about it.

Looking back I've never had much interest in boys. The girls in my class suddenly were all fawning over the boys: this came completely out of the blue for me and because they kept insisting, I pretended to be interested in boys as well, but it was more peer pressure than anything else and it also wasn't nearly as intense on my part. I did always like girls. Admired their beauty, wanted to be close to them, but I thought that it was hero worshipping older girls and a longing for more and closer friends.

Sex as a taboo subject has not really helped me in this respect. I thought I was just being a 'good girl' (no sex before marriage) by not being that forward or into men and keeping them at a distance and so I did not question my actual interest in them. I am now beginning to understand that I am much more drawn to women and that it was therefore not that difficult for me to not give into temptation but I saw that it was for other girls and again couldn't really understand that...

When I was 20 or so I had this close friend and at one moment I was staring into her eyes and thought: I love you. That so freaked me out that I immediately began rationalizing it away: I loved her as a friend, she was very nice, I didn't have many friends etc. whereas now I think I simply thought what I really felt. I was in love but didn't want to be. Looking back at some friendships over the years I think I may have been in love in some of them without realizing it.

I also discovered that I disliked a few guys who were married to very nice beautiful women and couldn't grasp why I didn't like them as they were perfectly nice: now I figure that I was simply jealous... So it has opened my eyes somewhat and answered questions like why am/was I different? Why do/did I feel the way that I do?

A few months ago I was discussing being in love with my younger brother and I said to him that I wasn't sure if I'd ever really been in love. Because I tended to fall for whichever guy was nice to me, simply because they were nice and friendly, but it wasn't such a strong feeling and did not usually last all that long either. This made me feel pretty down because I thought that perhaps I was a really cold person, or unable to fall in love or something (and I don't consider myself to be cold so that was strange as well). That conversation probably triggered something inside me, making me wonder why I couldn't seem to fall in love and it brought the old question about perhaps being a lesbian back.

It turned out to be a long post... sorry about that, I guess I needed to vent a bit..

 

I figured out when I was 14. It was during those dreadful middle school years... you know, the years that almost nobody looks back upon and says, "Those were great!"

I remember trying to ease myself into the straight dating world, and by ease I mean confess my love to a girl and then get rejected.
Whoops.
Then that year, I started noticing guys getting a bit more... fit. I noticed them more and more and then started questioning why I noticed guys so easily, whereas I had to force myself to pay attention to girls.

I started paying attention to what caught my eye, realized that it was all men, and then slowly started to accept myself. At first, I told myself that I was bisexual. A year later I realized that I was gay. I had had time to cope with the idea of it, I'd grown up in an accepting household, and I acknowledged that I was gay.

Knowing that I'm gay and then looking back on my actions before I knew embarrasses me ever so slightly. But those were the years! Middle school. That SUCKED haha.

 

I have been recently analyzing this and I think that a have been into guys from the very first moment I felt any kind of sexual attraction. I probably just avoided having to face it by a combination of convincing myself that the “right girl” was yet to come (one that I felt attracted to) and focusing on other aspects of my life to avoid facing the truth (like hobbies or studies). In part due to my religious background I guess.

I even tried to be straight by having a relationship with a girl but the physical attraction was not there and we didn’t last long as boyfriend/girlfriend.

A few years ago I got an enormous crush on a straight friend and I realized (with his help) that I was just making myself miserable and that “the right girl” was not going to appear and that I needed to accept it, clean up the mess created by many years in the closet, and go for the right guy.

To be honest, for me it has been more like a journey towards self-acceptance than towards actually realizing I liked men and not women. I guess it’s logical due to the absence of openly gay people during my teen years and my religious background but It is still kind of sad at the same time.

 

One day, a long time ago, probably when i was about 12, i discovered that i had a crush on a boy~ i thought i was just being silly and waved it off until i was 13/14 when i found that boys were good to look at, i thought then that maybe i was soightly bisexual, i carry on with normal life until not long ago my friend imvites me to the cinema.

I knew he was bisexual and i told him that i thought i was too, when we are watching the film i lean into him and he puts his arm around me and i realised that i loved this, much better than when i cuddled with my ex girlfriend~ I then started playing with his other hand and he stroked my hair and i was relly really enjoying it, we stayed like this until the end of the film and then we went home and i realised, that is so much more than being straight! Ever since then i dream of boys and look at boys and in all honesty, for me to like a girl they have to be exactly my type~

I guess then i just accepted that i might be gay and left it there ^^

 

I was raised as a Muslim in a 3rd world country, go figure. For most of my youth, I was sure that eventually I'll get married to a woman and we will build a family together. But then I read a lot of things and I've decided I don't have to be like everybody else. I began to be truthful to myself that although I find some women visually pleasing, I am only attracted to men. How about you? Have you tried to clear your mind off of all the brainwashing done by society and try to focus on what you really want?

 

I guess I've always known there was something different in me compared to my friends. I always felt like an outsider when my friends were talking about boys, even at a very young age. I remember when I started school aged 6 and I was very curious about one girl five years older than me - she always made my day whenever I saw her at school. I never thought it was a big deal though. First time I ever had an idea of liking girls was at the age of 13 when my friend asked about it. I had a little thing later with her - like held hands and that kind of cuteness cause we were so shy lol. I didnt find it problematic cause I thought it was completely natural and I thought I might be bisexual.

After that I was on my own with my thoughts for a long time, until at the age of 18 I came out as a bisexual to my closest friends. They all told me they saw it coming - all my idols had been women or very feminine men. It was easier that way, kind of a process to me. I had always preferred women, but it felt like a 'safe' option for myself to think I found men attractive too. After I met my first girl friend I realised Im a lesbian all the way

 

It's not a simple question to answer. I always knew a cute guy when I saw one and always knew when I was attracted to a girl. I didn't find guys sexually attractive until I hit maybe 12 or 13, but always felt terribly guilty of it and would dismiss it after the thought/climax. I denied it for a long time. I slightly accepted it later on in my teens as a fleeting thought. I only fully accepted it in the last two years with the help of my understanding wife. Now I am fine with the fact that I lean more towards guys. The attraction I have for women will never diminish though. Therefore I am bi, probably between the 4 and 5 on the kinsey scale.

 

I always knew I fancied guys, and of course payed attention to those feelings because they were "normal"... but I had fantasies about girls and feelings and stuff which I completely ignored and denied, letting myself believe that it was just a momentary lapse of concentration or sanity or something.

It was only when this new girl came to my school and we were both in the school production, and the first time I properly looked at her she was on stage. And suddenly it hit me really hard... I really, really fancied her.

And even then I didn't twig!!! Typical me... I guess I didn't really think being attracted to both sexes was an option...

It wasn't until, for some really weird reason, after a sexual education lesson (and I still can't remember why) that I realised. I remember walking out the class and then i... finally... put two and two together.

But it still took a few weeks before I actually started associating and accepting myself with the term bisexual

 

Being asexual, I had absolutely no idea what sexual feelings were, so when I got my sex ed in grade 5 I started mistaking nonsexual liking for crushes. At first, I only did this when I liked boys my own age, because of course I had to be straight.

When I started being homeschooled, I kind of lost interest in my 'sexuality', and completely stopped having pseudo-crushes for awhile. I got interested in autism instead, and ended up realizing I'm actually on the autism spectrum, and then eventually got an official diagnosis. I came across asexuality as something some autistic people experience, but it didn't occur to me that it might describe me.

Then, when I was 14 or 15, I noticed that I sometimes liked children. My brother (8 years younger) and I had two friends around his age, and I would intermittently feel this strong emotional bond between me and one of his friends. I took my mother aside and told her that I was afraid I might be a pedophile. (As a sexual abuse survivor, this really freaked me out. I've been paranoid about being an abuser for a long time.) My Mom asked me some blunt questions about how I was feeling (ie, was I feeling any physical reaction in my genital region?) and then concluded that I was not sexually attracted to kids, I just wanted to be their friend.

After this, I realized I'd never felt any kind of genital reaction to other people, or pretty much to anything at all. And I began thinking I was 'probably' asexual. But I'd heard of some autistic people who didn't really start feeling sexual feelings until their 20s, so I thought I could be a late bloomer. I decided to wait and see how I felt when I got older.

Around 18 or 19, I kind of decided that I probably wasn't going to develop a sexuality any time soon. I based this on the fact that I not only wasn't attracted to anyone, but also had no desire to masturbate and felt no pleasure on the couple occasions that I tried masturbating. I would occasionally get a physiological reaction of rhythmic twitching of my abdomen, but this wasn't enjoyable at all. (More like getting an eyelid twitch or something.) I didn't know for sure, but I kind of surmised that since prepubertal kids sometimes masturbate, delayed maturation probably wouldn't explain an inability to masturbate. So I started calling myself asexual, keeping in mind that I could change my label if situations changed.

Just recently, I've discovered demisexuality, and realized that if I ever do stop being asexual, most likely I'll turn out to be demisexual instead. Many demisexuals don't feel a desire to masturbate until they meet the right person, so I can't rule out being demisexual for certain. But until I get clear evidence to the contrary, I'm calling myself asexual, because it fits the best.

 

Well, I always knew something about me was different, but couldn't place what exactly it was. When I was little, I noticed this weird divide between boys and girls at my school. The two groups hardly mixed, and I didn't really understand why. Sure, I knew that there was a huge difference between the two, but I always just considered them to be people, nothing else. Later, I realized my friends felt awkward around guys because they had crushes. I didn't get my first crush until the third grade, on a guy in my class who later thought I was a total weirdo.

At the same time, I always found myself nervous around both genders. Talking to attractive guys was the same as talking to a pretty, popular girl. To make things worse, I was constantly told the phrase "It's okay because we're all girls." When it came to things like changing in front of others, kisses on the cheek, and making flirty jokes, I always felt uncomfortable even if the room was full of girls. You could say that it was just me being shy, but even those who were shy didn't seem to care all that much. There was just something else about it that made it really awkward for me.

When I was in sixth and seventh grade, I finally started asking myself about those feelings. I wondered why I was the only one who got nervous when talking to pretty girls, just because they were pretty. Eventually, while confronting these thoughts, I met a girl named Paige. She was popular, drop dead gorgeous, and wonderful to talk to. I sat near her in a few of my classes, and every day I hoped she would talk to me. I didn't know why she was so special, there was just something about her that was different than the other popular girls. A year later, when I found myself constantly looking for her in the halls, while running away or looking down hoping she wouldn't see me, I realized I had a crush on her. I can even remember one night, where I watched a video involving a love story between two girls, and I said to myself "I don't care who a person is, if they could fall in love with me like that, nothing would matter." I don't think I realized what I was really saying to myself though. A little while later, I decided I clearly wasn't straight.

Finally, I went through the phase of determining if I was bi or gay. I wanted to be sure before I told someone, despite the fact it only made things harder. It was confusing to go it alone, especially when I'd never told anyone I'd been questioning for a while. Eventually, I realized I could see myself with a guy or girl, in every way. Once I accepted bisexuality, everything made sense, and it felt natural. I finally knew what I'd been feeling all these years.

So... that's my story. Hopefully it helps!

 

I'm not pretty sure when it all started but I think that was when I was still in first grade. I felt funny when I got mesmerized by this girl - the same age I was. Well, I don't have any idea what I felt. At first, I thought it was normal because the two of us were really close. She was a daughter of one of my mom's friends. We hang out a lot at their house, usually when my mom's group of friends get together. And then, that afternoon, we were playing barbie. IDK, but I wanted to be Ken! (God, what da hell?!) She was like, "No, you can't. Ur a girl." And then I kissed her on the cheeks and then she slapped me, it happened so fast. The next thing I know is that I was crying and she told her mom what happened. I was so embarrassed. (I think my mom was too.) We directly went home. After that awful incident, I tried not to think about it ever. Until my feelings started to fade, or not?

Then I got to high school, I started to get attracted to boys physically, but never emotionally. (I don't even know why) Gosh, I was confused. I went out with a couple of guys but it never really worked out well. Life sucked by then. During sophomore year, I joined the school's theater club and I met this girl who's a year older than me. She was pretty cool. We became friends fast. We were really comfortable with each other until I started to fall for her. Well, yeah, stupid as I was, I told her how I felt because I was a really honest person(or just totally dumb?) and with a bit of a shocker, she told me she was confused and felt the same thing. The only bad thing was she already had a boyfriend who was a really good guy that she doesn't have the guts to leave him which left me brokenhearted, although we still stayed as friends. I never really dated anyone after that. I started to think I was hopeless.

Senior year, I got back in the game. I went out with this guy in my year, he was the first guy that I felt connected to but not the same way I did with girls. Yeah, something was really missing, like I wanted to leave him because it wasn't enough. God, I really felt awful. I just waited until we graduated and drifted off to college then I broke up with him. Right now, college is heaven. I finally got to meet the love of my life - my girlfriend. I'm totally in love. Though, I'm not so sure about my sexuality. I'm pretty sure I'm attracted to both genders physically, but when it comes to the emotional aspect, I don't really know. It's hard to find a guy I can really feel connected to(I have guy best friends, but its totally different),with girls, it's like a breeze - like I don't have to try really hard for the relationship to work out. I don't know, I'm still questioning too, honestly.

 

I'm still young and figuring stuff out, but basically I always knew I was a little different. There was this girl in my fourth grade class, and she smelled good and her hair was cute and I thought she was the coolest. I'd get 'crushes' on guys, but it was only really things like hee hee he's CUUUTE haha. But being lesbian was NEVER an option for me until I discovered youtube! I though lesbian was a bad word, that's how isolated I was. I felt a little tingle of it in sixth grade, but I shoved it back in my mind and then it came roaring back just now. I'm currently drowning in emotions over one girl ughhh.
But yeah. I just kind of let my mind open up through the wonderful youtube community and it happened. I let it loose.

 

I started discovering my sexuality when a guy hit on me in a locker room shower in college. I was 19. Prior to that I simply didn't think of sex as having anything to do with me. Sure, there was masturbation, but that was just taking care of physical need, little different from eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom. I had no desire to be married and generally find children to the worlds best argument for birth control - have never wanted a kid.

Anyway, this guy started hitting on me in the locker room. For weeks, since I had no clue what he was doing. He started out pretty blatant and then just got more so. Finally, one day he talked to me about meeting me out front or something. I still had no clue and wondered why a complete stranger was talking to me. Left by another exit and was on my way to class when the light bulb finally went on.

So the next time I saw him in the locker room, I took him up on his offer. Didn't really think about it much, just was in the moment. We hooked up several times and then I sort of woke up to the idea that this sort of thing could lead to relationships, which was a complication I didn't want in my life. So took a break for about a year, during which I got various issues (not relating to sexuality) figured out. Shortly after that, I took steps to hook up with a guy. We got together a couple times and while he was driving me home from the second time, I basically started thinking about the situation.

I had knowingly and actively arranged to contact, meet, and have sex with a guy (twice). I had never had any interest in women in any way. I really enjoyed the experience with the guys I'd been with. So I could either accept that I was gay or keep playing a mind game with myself that I was just 'experimenting'. And I have little to no patience with mind games. So I figured I was gay and accepted it all in the same moment. Then I wondered what to have for dinner All this took place in the 30 minutes or so it took to drive home.

It probably helped be raised by a rather...unique family that put a lot of emphasis on personal happiness before almost anything else, including the approval of the family. And being an atheist eliminate any religion issues.

So that was my experience.

Todd

 

I liked girls at a young age, but I wasn't so well aware. When I was 8 I wanted to kiss one of my favorite female singers lol
I mainly believed I was straight until the age of 14, which I identified as bisexual. I was still in my anime weeaboo stage at this age and had a crush on a video game character- my first female crush. After that it lead to real people, and me eventually realizing I didn't even like guys at all.

 

his name was "josh". it was a summer in the mid 80s and i was away at summer day camp. i was headed to 4th grade and he must have been a year older than me. he was very popular in camp and all the girls had a crush on him. he had blonde hair and as i remember a nice tan. i was shy but i loved arts and crafts and so did he. i remembered that he would sing a song i hadn't heard before "i want to hold your hand...." by the Beatles. He would sing this to me and reach out and hold my hand. He did this often and after a while i let him do it sometimes. I knew this was "gay" without really knowing the right word for it. i felt so bashful. i officially had a crush on the hottest boy in summer camp. one day we were alone in the sand tunnel. we were talking about some girl that liked him and i was asking him if he was going to be her boyfriend. he said he did not know. i was trying to fix him up with her. all along, he was probably interested in me. nothing happened in the tunnel but i knew i wanted him to be my boyfriend. that's when i knew i was gay and i didn't tell anybody and lived in agony every since. i wonder what happened to him a lot.

 

I realize this thread is a few days old now but I stumbled onto it and because you said you wanted to hear about people figuring this out in their twenties and that describes me, also I'm new to EC so this will be a good chance to share my own perspective. Apologies in advance if this turns into an epic :icon_bigg

I suppose on some level I always knew I was attracted to woman and looking back on it now it seems so obvious but it's only really been in the past year (I'm 28 now) that it's started to make more sense. The first crush I ever had was on a girl in my class when I was about 6 years old. I remember just wanting to look at her all the time and wondering what it would be like to touch her cheek or kiss her because I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. At the time this never struck me as odd because I was too young to understand orientation and besides I'd never thought of myself as a girl or boy anyway (always been androgynous). Then when I was 9 I had a male friend who we shall call S. He became my boyfriend because it just seemed like a logical progression as we were hanging out all the time. Although at that age it was just things like holding hands so that didn't tell me much. But even then I remember he used to talk about getting married and having kids which completely freaked me out. I didn't understand why then but the idea of being married to a male just sounded like a death sentence to me.

During my teenage years I dated a few boys but never went any further than kissing because I just couldn't bring myself to do anything else. Any excitement I felt was just the rush of trying something strange and new but even then it was fairly unpleasant. This perplexed me as in general my libido was very strong, I was easily aroused by thinking about sex and could masturbate to orgasm quickly but in my fantasies I was always the outsider watching, I couldn't imagine myself in the female role having sex with a male. I also dated the boy S again for a couple of months when I was 14 after we bumped into each other and got talking. Once again it just seemed like something that happened rather than something I wanted. Only this time it was far more obvious, to me anyway, that we were not well suited. I felt guilty when I couldn't return his affection.

I was aware by this time that I was sexually aroused by looking at some women but because I didn't have many female friends I didn't have opportunities for much physical contact like hugs and such. I did wonder if I might be bisexual but fell into the trap of believing various ideas about female sexuality that float around popular culture like: 'all teenage girls have a curious phase' or 'all women are naturally bi but they always go back to men in the end.' Part of my confusion came from the fact that I actually COULD be attracted to males...if they had long hair. And wore make up. And looked or behaved so feminine that they could actually pass as girls in dim light :rolle: . But as soon as anything in their looks or behavior reminded me they were male I was immediately put off. I convinced myself that I just had a very specific type and when I met a man like this I would be able to have sex with him.

Then at 19 something happened that sent alarm bells ringing. I was sitting on a sofa in someone's house when this girl I didn't know very well or had even really looked at until then happened to drape herself rather casually across my lap on her belly to see something someone else was doing (it was a perfectly innocent gesture, she just was quite a physical person and didn't think anything of it) and she had rather large breasts which were then pressed right down onto my thighs. I had to actually hold back a squeak that wanted to come out of my throat because the arousal I felt was so strong and instantaneous. This came as a big shock to me because I never had felt any arousal at all with boys, boys I knew well and liked, when we'd had physical contact like kissing and light groping and yet here I was getting turned on by incidental contact with an almost stranger!
After this I began to question more seriously my interest in women. But unfortunately due to circumstances I wasn't able to explore it any further. I'd had health problems since childhood and these became more serious and constant at this age, it also coincided with my mother developing similar problems due to her own disabilities so from then on my focus was entirely on looking after both of us. I had to move her in with me and for the past few years I have been so exhausted just from doing essential things like paying bills and getting food that I've become very isolated and my social life has been practically non-existent. I have a small handful of loyal friends who have stuck by me even though I cannot go out to have fun with them very often and a relationship just wasn't even an option, it wouldn't be fair on me or the other person.

I suppose in a way this 'pause' on my personal life allowed me to ignore the questions about my sexuality for a long time but of course you can't ignore it forever. In the past year I've found myself being deeply sexually attracted to women and now when I try to focus on the feminine males I used to be able to like back when I was full of teenage hormones I find it is very hard to feel attraction for them. I don't know if my sexuality has shifted or if I'm just being more honest with myself. One thing that has changed is that now I'm older I'm starting to think more realistically about what having a long term relationship with someone would be like rather than just focusing on sexual attraction. If I try to imagine myself with a man (that is, a biological male who also identifies as male and has those behavioral traits) I realize that no matter how ideal he was it would never work, I just couldn't stand to be more than friends. But when I (for the first time in my life) allow myself to think about a relationship with a woman...suddenly everything seems right. I could do that and be happy. I can even imagine MARRYING a woman, something which is a huge shock because I always felt scared to the point of sick when I considered marriage before (to a man).

What's more when I allow myself to think about having sex with a woman there is nothing much that puts me off, their bodies are amazing in a way I never saw with males. I even get turned on by the idea of going down on a woman, something which I could never bare to think about doing with men. I didn't even want to touch their parts let alone put them in my mouth!

My reactions to certain things are a clue as well. For example I recently found out that the boy S who I used to date got married at 16 to a lovely girl and they now have 4 children and are very happy together. When I found out I was overjoyed, not just because I was happy that he'd got the things he'd always wanted but also I was hugely relieved. It sounds silly but I'd had this fear in the back of my mind that because he'd said I was the girl he'd marry he might not have met someone to settle down with and then one day our paths would cross again and he'd want to go out with me again. When I told my mum the good news she was puzzled as to why I was happy, she pointed out that surely this should make me feel at least a bit sad. (She doesn't know about my sexuality yet, although I have said certain things and I think she suspects.)

Apologies again for how long this will likely turn out when I click Submit Reply but if reading about my experience helps you or anyone else with their own journey then it will be worth it. Best of luck (*hug*)

 

i was a late bloomer on practically everything. i think i was about 12 or 13 when i realized i liked girls. before that i didn't like girls at all. i remember it started with a crush here and there but that was it. i didn't start dating until i was 16. i kissed a girl for the first time when i was 15 at a party but i never dated her. i was just a late bloomer on it all. oh and i also went through a brief stage where i got a little curious about what it would be like with a another guy. but yeah so i was around 12 or 13 when i first noticed i liked girls.