I'm a 22-year old male. Ever since I was 10 or 11, I had crushes on guys. I figured this was some weird phase/hormone thing. I was always different from the other guys my age-- artistic, sensitive, not into sports-- and part of me thought that I was just convincing myself that I had feelings for guys because it was make more sense if I were gay. On top of all this, my mother, from an early age, kept telling me how she knew I wasn't gay, and that lots of sensitive straight guys question their sexuality (I think she was always afraid I might be gay; she told me that when I was young, my best friend's mom was very worried that her son was gay, and I suspect my mom felt the same way). While all this was happening, I had crushes on other girls, too. At least I thought I did. But I still kept getting crushes on guys. At the start of college, I told my sister I thought I was gay. She told my mother, who sat me down, and had a conversation where she told me that she knew I'm not gay, and that it's perfectly natural for me to question my sexuality, since I was a sensitive straight guy. After that, I was pretty convinced I was straight. The thing is, the past six months, I've been increasingly convinced I'm gay, and since considering that possibility, I haven't been attracted to another woman, just guys (although there are some girls I think are really pretty). So I think I might be gay. I have some questions: first, I am TERRIFIED to come out because I'm worried that maybe I'm not actually gay and if I come out, then I'll fall in love with a girl and then I'll have to explain to everyone that I was wrong. What if the reason I haven't had a crush on a girl in about a year is because I was convincing myself I was gay, and suppressing my actual feelings? Also, there's another gay guy I know at work, and he's pretty involved in the gay community. He's constantly posting photos of facebook of him at various pride events, and it's a lot of photos of him and a bunch of other guys wearing very, very little. This makes me very uncomfortable. Is is abnormal for me to find that really off-putting? Is this a sign that I'm not really gay? Finally, every guy I've ever liked is straight, fairly good-looking, and athletic. I'm not athletic, and while I think I'm decent-looking, I'm not stopping traffic. So I worry that I won't be able to find a boyfriend who's kind and interested in me, whom I'm attracted to. Are any of these feelings normal?
What is normal? Truth is that there isn't normal. There are loads of people like you (myself included) that questioned their sexuality. This is normal; it's a sign that you're growing up. When I was 10/11, I never felt attracted to boys my age, but I did find myself looking at dominant male teachers. I'm not sure what that means right now, but I'm still looking into it. Like you, I had crushes on other girls, or at least I thought I did. I'm not sure if it was crushes, but that feeling wasn't apparent in guys in general (including male teachers). The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that it could work. Maybe I'm just desperate for a partner, who knows. I may be suppressing my feelings towards females as well. As I pondered over the fact that I could be exclusively gay, my attraction to females slowly subsided because of this overwhelming possibility that I never knew myself. I never liked eating pickles, but over time as I ate them with burgers I developed a liking towards it. It's good that you're using reality as a way to find out what pulls and pushes you. But please don't use pornography as an indicator of sexual orientation. If there's anything porn will do, it makes it harder for you discover who you are truly attracted to. I mean sure, physical attraction is with no doubt a contributing factor to whom you may be with in the future, but if relationships were all about sex then you wouldn't have people getting married because relationships aren't just about sex.
