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Analyzing the past to find some really confusing signs

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Alder, Sep 1, 2014.

  1. Alder

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    After two months of pretty intense questioning, and I'm much calmer now and more open to who I am and who I could find out I am.

    Once in a while I find myself thinking though.

    When looking into my past, there were virtually 0 signs of attractions to the same gender/sex (as far as I can remember- sometimes memories of stuff do come up at random times) in the earlier years (apart from one crush on a fourth grade teacher). I find this incredibly confusing, because past signs more or less indicated I was interested in the opposite sex. The feelings for the opposite sex weren't mind shatteringly strong, but they were most definitely there, in some way or another I suppose.

    I never thought very much about my sexuality for a dozen years. I only started realizing I liked girls when I became older. The signs only started showing themselves when I was in early teenage years. Or maybe they were there before, but I haven't really picked up on them.

    I'm not going to go into my whole novel-length story :lol:, just going to say that I had two epiphanies- one that made me realize I might like girls (when I started crushing big time long term on another girl), another that made me almost want to exclusively only like girls (that's not really brilliant phrasing of words, but I'm not sure exactly how to explain it). Both happened between the ages of 13-15.

    The thing is, shouldn't there have been more obvious signs from the start?

    There is this one thing that sort of confuses me as well. When I was younger (forgot when, I'd pin at around 12-14) another girl I met at this debating competition showed obvious interest in me. She wanted to hold my hand, she got pretty attached to me. When we held hands though, I didn't feel huge sparks or any epiphany like that. In fact, I felt...I wouldn't say uncomfortable. I'm not entirely sure what I felt, since it's such a blurry memory. I think one of the factors that played into that situation was the fact that it was so in public and there were so many people around us when it happened. I remember one guy even saying to me, "It's okay if you're gay, you know." I don't remember how I reacted, the thing is, I was put on the spot and I felt scared and uneasy.

    Has anyone else come across some pretty conflicting signs when thinking about their past? :confused: Obviously a lot of factors go into this sort of thing and it's not always straightforward, and that we can get pretty confused. I'm just pretty curious though as of now about why that is. Any insights?
     
    #1 Alder, Sep 1, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2014
  2. TheStormInside

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    If you don't mind my asking, how old are you now? And do you feel like you have exclusive attraction to women now? Or men too? And for how long have you felt that way?

    Excuse my bluntness, but it's a little crazy to me that so many people seem to believe you have to have "known" you were gay when you were 5 years old in order to be gay. Most people don't start developing sexual interest in the opposite or same sex until around puberty or a little earlier, right? So why would you know when you were five? I know some people realize very early, but many others do not.

    What signs did you have that you were drawn to the opposite sex earlier on? And do you still feel drawn to guys?

    Regarding the girl you held hands with, what were your feelings for her? Were you guys really close, or was she just an acquaintance? If you weren't particularly close to her I don't think I'd expect sparks, at least to my understanding straight women don't get sparks with every guy they touch, just the ones they are attracted to. Similarly lesbians are not going to get sparks with every woman they touch.
     
  3. Alder

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    Thanks for the answer:slight_smile: My post here might get a bit long, so apologies for that.

    I'm still pretty young now (well, younger than 20). So I suppose there's really no need to force myself into any conclusions, and I won't. I'll leave it more open for now.

    I'm not sure about the attraction part. I don't know if this is normal or not, but I don't get wildly attracted to a lot of people.
    I guess mostly now I notice and am interested in women more. There was a brief period of time in my questioning stage when I actively encouraged myself to check out women and sort of flirt with them to see how it goes and how it'd feel, and it felt pretty good :slight_smile:
    As for men, well, I've sort of found that my attraction to them as faded somewhat. I wouldn't say entirely, but it's less. :confused:

    But I know that I'm definitely more open to having sex with a woman rather than with a man now, and as for relationships I'm at least just as open if I were to date a girl than if I were to date a boy.

    When I had my initial feelings for a girl around 13 (and it was pretty intense), I had a brief crisis. I told myself, "okay so I might like girls...maybe?" and just left it for a very long time. In those years while I was crushing big time on her I wasn't exactly interested in any other girls nor was I actively checking out and having fantasies about girls. It was just her. Online and stuff I was still watching shows with attractive guys and finding them pretty attractive, I was still doing the whole fan adoration thing. I didn't think much about my sexuality, only that I was more or less okay with women and open to that possibility, but didn't exactly delve too deeply into that.

    I wasn't exactly focused on that much until something (and I forgot what, I think it might have been seeing a lesbian couple on Youtube and suddenly something sparked inside my mind), sent me into pretty deep introspective searching questioning. It was during that period of time that I spent ages and ages thinking and watching a lot of lesbian media. I was so sure, yet at the same time so ultimately unsure and scared, that I was into girls, a lot.

    I agree that the age we find out or begin to delve into our sexuality can be really varied. Some people don't really show signs or know about it until much much later, others from a really young age I guess. I was just wondering if my case was normal or not, I guess it isn't unheard of to not really show any signs until around teenage years :icon_wink

    My feelings to the opposite sex were fairly muddled. I'm fairly certain that I did not like any guy in primary school. However in primary school I was wildly fixated on this male celebrity to the point where it got unhealthy and made me really unhappy. It also happened, to a lesser extent, with a female celebrity too. In middle school/high school I had a range of random crushes on male teachers. I didn't even think they were physically attractive except for one of them who was pretty good looking, I just had weird fantasies that I cringe about now. I had a crush on this older boy in year 8 for a while, I didn't even know him but a lot of girls liked him and I thought he was pretty nice and good looking. I had what I thought was a crush on two guys around the time of prom. Even to this day I can't figure out if my feelings towards them were genuine (I know that one of them wasn't, it was definitely only platonic, not sure about the other one), or if they were just motivated by my insecure need to want to go with someone to prom. Anyways, my feelings for them didn't last very long, but they were there...in some way.

    As for opposite sex celebrities, well, I've had found some pretty attractive and had fantasies about one or two before, but presently I fantasize primarily about the same sex and rarely about the opposite. I mean, I guess I could fantasize about the opposite sex, but I just don't feel like thinking about the dick particularly much. It's all pretty confusing.

    I don't really feel that drawn to guys anymore. I mean, my feelings towards the opposite sex are still there in some form or another, it's just...sort of fading. On and off sort of thing. I'm not sure where it went, but... :S

    With the girl I held hands with, I barely knew her. I met her on the day and I suppose you're right- we weren't particularly close so I guess it's not unusual for there to not have been fireworks going off when we touched. It surprises me now thinking back, that it was such a short period of time yet she definitely showed interest in me. If only girls now have that type of reaction to me more :lol:

    Anyways, yeah I do admit I still get pretty confused about this. I've thought about mainly all the above so many times. Now I'm just being more open about it and letting things come naturally (I do think at the end of the day it's more simple than I'm making it). I mean, I could be gay, I could be bisexual, it could be another orientation all together and I'm okay with that. It's just that thinking about my past sometimes doesn't offer very many helpful or obvious hints :lol:
     
    #3 Alder, Sep 1, 2014
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2014
  4. FortunateSally

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    There is a really great essay by Adrienne Rich called "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" I'd recommend it to any woman with these questions in their mind. I found it very helpful for myself as I've been venturing through this journey in my mind.
     
  5. HTBO

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    thanks for the article suggestion FortunateSally. Looks interesting and I will definitely be reading it. I will add it to my already very long list :slight_smile:
     
  6. Alder

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    Thanks for the suggestion :slight_smile: I'll go take a look at the article too.