This questioning-journey is starting to get more and more exhausting for me. I have moments when I'm so sure I'm gay, but then I have other moments when there is a mean internal voice in my head saying that I'm just pretending or imagining the whole thing trying to find the possibility of a happy life which might not be possible for me at all... In those moments of darkness and doubt, the idea that bothers me the most and makes me doubt myself is that I have never been actually in love with a woman. I'm not sure if I ever had crushes either. Thing is, I'm not sure if I've ever been in love with a man either, because I'm not sure if that was love what I felt - more like obsession. Usually lasted until the relationship started and then either I got bored or I felt good, like with a good friend, but sexually I always felt that something is not right, when having sex with men. I don't remember feeling sexually attracted to men in my teens, my first sexual feelings/ attraction was towards women (usually on television), and when I was eighteen I had this weird moment when talking to a female friend (a beautiful and amazing friend who I felt really close to), like the strongest feeling I've ever felt, I felt such a strong attraction, like I've been struck by lightning. But I got so afraid of this (I just couldn't be gay, never met someone who was gay, in the society I grew up it was considered more like some perversion :icon_sad: ) that I rationalized it away and developed some OCD type of sexual thoughts for a while after this.. I have always felt different than my female friends, I had a friend in high school who I couldn't look in the eyes because I felt this strong need to kiss her - so I used to look at her forehead and she was always asking me why am I looking at her forehead...:lol: I started looking for relationships with men, because that's what every girl was doing and I always had a male interest (obsession) but could never understand when other girls were talking about men as hot. My first kiss with a guy when I was 14 was kind of "meh" towards gross and when the guy started touching me it felt even more gross.. But convinced myself it was the guy, he wasn't the right one, so I continued to pursue relationships with guys, and thought I was in love a few occasions, but now in retrospect I'm not sure that was love...Anyway sexually something always felt off, I never understood when people were talking about how "sex feels differently with someone you love" or how amazing sex is. I'm a very sexual person but sex with men for me always felt more like a mutual masturbation... Anyways, I have never kissed or had sex with a woman but I'm very attracted to women. So, I just needed to put this out of my system, and maybe to see if anyone can relate to this in a way or another? The question that comes about fifty times a day to my mind is that if I really am gay how come I didn't realize it until now and this is driving me crazy. Though it was somehow always there in the corner of my mind like some kind of ghost, but why couldn't I just accept it like other people have?
Hi TeaTree, I have been able to relate to your experiences often when I come across your posts. I have also never been in love with a woman (although I wonder how my feelings towards certain women would have developed had I not been repressing my emotions and attractions), nor do I have a crush on any girls right now; however, I believed once that I was in love with a man and also believed I had crushes on men in the past. And yet, I just told my two closest friends that I think I am a lesbian. It does not seem to add up when you look at it that way, does it? But, when I first allowed myself to seriously consider the idea that I might be gay and began questioning (about a year and a half ago), interestingly I do not remember those aspects of my past figuring into it; I was just suddenly triggered to consider the idea because I recognized a moment when I was feeling physical attraction towards a woman, and suddenly all of these memories that I had tried to block out from my past when I had felt similarly came flooding in, and I realized I am attracted to women in a sexual way. At the same time, I realized I had never felt that way towards men, no matter how much I admired them or felt genuine affection towards them. I had known by then that I did not want to date men, and that I dreaded the very idea of it, particularly the sexual aspect of it, but I did not know why (or did not allow myself to understand why) until that moment. Of course, that moment lasted about two seconds, and then the doubts starting pouring in. I definitely have the "Well if you're gay then how come you didn't realize it before?" doubt, too. For me currently, though, the biggest one is "If you have never been with a woman, how do you really *know* you are feeling attracted to them? Maybe this isn't what attraction feels like either, maybe you won't end up liking the actual experience after all in reality, etc. etc." It was really interesting to me that when I came out to my friends I brought up these doubts to them as a way to kind of say, "I get why you might be surprised, I've been wondering these things, too," but they seemed to accept right away my explanations that I repressed my feelings before because I couldn't accept the idea of being gay, and that I know I'm gay because I felt attracted to girls. I think everyone has had feelings (just not necessarily about sexuality, but about other things or circumstances in life) that they have tried to repress, and also maybe even had attractions that they become aware of suddenly that they didn't recognize they had before. I was amazed by my friends' acceptance at first, but then I realized what I am going through is not so unique, really. But I digress.... Anyway, the doubting is something I am still struggling with. But I have found that my doubts are the strongest when I am feeling concerned about what others will think about my sexuality. There is some sort of shame about the idea of being gay that is buried inside of me, that I think comes from the way I was raised (my family is certainly not hateful towards gay people, but raised me in a conservative environment in which I felt being gay was not really an option for me, and the attitudes towards being gay/lesbian that were most prevalent in my school environment were very negative as well). Right after I came out to my two closest friends and they were so accepting, though, my doubts seemed to disappear completely for a while; I changed my label to "lesbian" on this site, bought a rainbow bracelet and wore it around town, and generally felt super confident about the whole thing. But on days when I have had a bad conversation with my parents about same sex marriage, for example, or when I have had to lie to avoid coming out to an acquaintance, or when I start to feel worried about my future and coming out to the people I work with, or begin to worry about how I will ever meet a girl, then I start to feel really doubtful of my orientation. It took a long time (and a number of sessions with my therapist) for me to recognize this pattern, but for me it is definitely the case that my doubts about my orientation are directly related to the amount of negative feelings I am having about it. The only thing that I have found that helps is to put myself in as many situations as possible where I can feel that I am not hiding or in the closet and where I feel okay being myself around other people (for example, talking to my friends and therapist who I am out to, or wearing my pride bracelet...that's really about it for now.) Anyway, sorry for writing a novel back to you! I have been wanting to post lately and your post inspired me. It sure helps me to read others' posts and know I am not alone in all of this!!!
Hi freeapril and TeaTree, I empathize with both of your sentiments. I've recently (1+ year) began exploring my sexuality and what it all means, but haven't had a physical relationship with a woman yet. I've generally been attracted to men on a physical level, but have never allowed myself to explore my feelings towards women even though I know they're there. I too grew up in a conservative household where those sort of feelings were not allowed, leading me to repress them and ignore them throughout childhood and adolescence; although, I can certainly point out moments when I've felt an affinity to women, at times greater than men because my attraction extends to an emotional connection. I wish I knew what to tell you, TeaTree. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Moments of doubt tend to creep in when I'm uncomfortable with my sexuality or exploring it. For me, it's because it's new territory and I'm scared. The uncertainty is discomforting, but sexuality is fluid, so I'm not sure it really matters how I'll identify in the future so long as I learn or we can learn to be comfortable with ourselves in the present. That's the battle, I guess. I'm sure the doubt also has to do with shame, because of my culture. But it is nice to know that I'm not the only one who is going through this, as freeapril has stated.
Hey Freeapril and idkidk, thanks for your replies. Since I started posting here on EC a lot of people reacted the same way, that they can relate to what I'm going through, and I was really surprised in a way to see how many people are going through this too... Freeapril, I also read some of your previous threads and I've seen you made such a huge progress, from questioning at the beginning to coming out to your friends and most importantly to yourself I guess. I think I've found that questioning somehow creates more questioning. I mean the more engaged I become in this process, the more confused I get. The more answers I find for my questions the more new questions I get. So I'm trying to find some kind of middle way, also juggling with my current relationship with my bf, in which I feel like the self-designated villain right now. You hit the nail on the head with this one, I started noticing the same pattern myself, but, as you say, it can be very subtle and difficult to recognize. I also noticed how irrational my "expectations" from myself are, like I'm trying to prove to some great jury that I'm gay and I'm so terrified if they will find even a tiny evidence which would suggest otherwise. What helps me the most is when I allow myself to be whoever I am in that moment, without labeling, without jumping in after every reaction to overanalize - but I'm very guilty of overanalizing lately, it happens automatically already. But when I manage to let it go and just enjoy for example a discussion with a female colleague who is really pretty it feels amazing to just be there and be myself. When I don't ask myself every second if I am attracted to her. By the way, I think I started developing a mild (to intense) crush on the above mentioned colleague, I was kind of playing with fire and have been hanging out with her outside work a lot lately. It's pretty crazy because I'm more than sure she is straight, very feminine-girly-sensitive type. So probably I'm throwing myself into the pit here, but I wasn't intending to crush on her just for testing purposes, to prove myself I'm not straight, I just wanted to hang out, and not to be around my bf so much. Of course my inner torturer started telling me that I am doing this on purpose, that I'm pushing my feelings. Or in case there is a moment I don't feel like I want to hug her and kiss her (which I do feel a lot), my inner observer is there again to tell me I am otherwise just imagining the whole thing. So yeah, I think questioning can become addictive, we probably already know the freaking answer, just continue the torture because... well, not sure why. The difference between me and a straight person is that once they felt attracted to the opposite sex they didn't start testing it out again and again. Otherwise, they would have gone through similar experiences - "omg, I didn't want to jump on every attractive guy today, I'm probably not straight..." I think the fact that I got to this phase of questioning is already enough evidence that there is something. I was not questioning before because I was in such a deep denial paired with fear of rejection, but all my life since I first felt the attraction to women it was there. And there are all kinds of memories from every period of my life related to this. I just stored them carefully, rationalized them away. Just to mention one, at the beginning of my 20s I think I told myself that I cannot be so screwed up emotionally, with such a low self esteem and anxiety issues and to be gay in the same time. That has never happened, I have never heard of a gay person like that, so I am definitely not gay. And so I created stories in my head to calm myself down when the thought of being gay appeared in my head, again and again. Later it appeared less, until three years ago when I had a nervous breakdown with the revelation I wasn't ready to accept... But now I think I'm ready, I want to finally allow myself to be myself Regardeless if I'm 100% gay or only 60...Don't think it's less I think the most freeing would be to be able to accept that my sexuality might change later on, to be okay with that too. Not sure if that would happen, but I realized that one of the big scary things for me is that what if I'll come out as a lesbian and later on realize I won't feel like one. Or I'll be in a relationship with a woman to realize I wan't to be with a man again. Though in this moment I can't imagine wanting to be with men again, to be honest. Okay, this got long, but I feel like I have some clarity now, after writing things down And thanks again, it so good to know I'm not alone with this (*hug*)
