24-y.o. girl slowly realizing I'm maybe gay. Could use some insight on my feelings

Hi, I am a 24-year-old girl who has been slowly realizing, over the past few months, that I think I'm actually gay. I don't want to write a huge wall of text, so here are some individual points that all kind of have been clicking together recently. I would love to hear some interpretations or what not, or just help figuring this all out.

--With my girl best friends, I have a tendency to get very close emotionally. When I find a "kindred spirit" type friend who's a girl, I want to spend as much time as possible with her, preferably one on one, and I always hope that the friendship will stay close forever. There are the "firework" feelings, the sort of physical "gut feelings" in your chest that you get when you like someone. Whenever friendships like this ended due to one of us moving away, conflict, drifting apart, etc as a teenager, I used to be devastated and spend hours each night listening to depressing breakup ballads while pining for my BFF.

--Conversely, with guys I've dated, I've always had this fear of the relationship getting too close. I had ZERO interest in dating guys in high school, not even any crushes. Sometimes when friends were talking about crushes all the time, and I felt like I was 'supposed' to like someone, I'd pick a guy who is kind and fun and objectively attractive and sort of convince myself that I liked that person, but it never felt real. When I was in college (which for me was early due to skipping a grade, so ages 17-19), I had a 2-year-long relationship with a guy. I met him in a student group for a cause we both shared, so we were able to bond over having the same passions and interests, and we cared about each other a lot. Had some decent sex too. But, as college was ending, suddenly we were facing the fact that our relationship wasn't just about college dorm sex and watching TV shows anymore, but I was actually facing the prospect of setting down with a husband and children etc. This filled me with dread, claustrophobia, and the feeling that this was NOT the life I wanted. We broke up on good terms.

-- I've dated casually for a couple of years since then (average relationship being maybe a month each), and the main theme I've noticed is that I"m afraid of guys getting too close. Most girls, it seems, hope the guy they meet is "the one" and start wanting to think about the future and hoping that it will become serious. For me, it's the opposite. Even when I like the person due to shared interests or values, I start feeling really claustrophobic when I realize that their feelings are getting serious in a way that mine aren't. I start thinking "Ugh, what if he falls in love with me" and that thought makes me want to run for the hills.

--When I date guys, I don't get the "firework" feelings that I described above with my kindred spirit girl pals. I've had fun dating guys, but the positives are from things like flattery, people-pleasing pride that he enjoys me, etc. As soon as I feel like it's getting heavy, I feel stuck and uncomfortable and like I'm being expected to go down a path that's wrong for me. (And this does not come from things like the guys being jerks, or wanting to have 7 kids and move to a compound, or anything like that.)

-- I've always related on an emotional level to girls WAY more than guys. With girls, I can open up my heart and talk for hours and it's like we're sharing each other's souls. With guys, I can have fun hanging out, but that emotional closeness is never there.

--I've always felt very, very adverse to having a husband as my main lifetime/permanent relationship, mainly due to the fact that i've always felt much more emotional intimacy with my female friends, and I do not feel comfortable moving those friendships to the backseat while being expected to prioritize my "main" relationship with the husband.

--I"ve always felt repelled at the idea of spending every single day hanging out with a boyfriend/husband, at the expense of spending less time with my girlfriends. When I am dating a boyfriend, I keep the hangout time to 2-3 times a week tops, or else I feel like I'm being suffocated. But with my female best friends, I can hang out with the same girl every single day as my main social relationship and be fulfilled and happy.

-- I have a neighbor female best friend who I'm very close to. She is straight, and has a boyfriend, and there's also a big age gap between us (she's closer to my mom's age than to my own, but with a very "youthful" and fun vibe) so I've never specifically thought about her sexually. But, before she got her boyfriend, we did everything together---stuff like grocery shopping, laundry, working out, etc. This felt very natural, and I was happy with that level of "life-sharing" with another woman.

--I am grossed out by penises, balls, cum, pre-come, and every other aspect of male genitals. I can think that a guy is hot in terms of his face and fitness, when the clothes are on. But when I'm seeing a guy naked, I do not get excited by their dick, and in fact try to hide the fact that it grosses me out. I am terrible at blow jobs because I simply can't enjoy it, and everything about male ejaculate is a huge turn off to me. Seeing guys' asses makes me feel awkward. But, with a girl, I will totally look at pictures online of pretty naked girls, and the idea of giving oral to a girl does not gross me out at all. I made out with my best friend in college once and enjoyed it a lot.

--When I watch porn, I ignore the guy and just look at the girl. I actually prefer just looking at F/F porn.

--When I'm out in public, or watching a movie/show, with my friends or mom, often I'll get asked questions like "Which guy do you think is the cutest" and I simply have no answer to these questions. I just don't care.

--I can specifically think of a handful of girls who i've meet during my teen/college/recent years who have still left an impression on me. I still find myself thinking about how vibrant their souls were, how pretty they were, etc. and sometimes stalk them on facebook to see how they're doing (nothing creepy, just the occasional looking) and I sort of "miss" them. I never do this with guys.

--When I was growing up, when homophobic family members and other people would make negative comments about gay people, it always really angered me although I never knew why.

--When I was growing up, my mom fished about the subject several times. She said things like "You know, if you were gay, I'd totally knit a rainbow scarf for you." Once I was in a bad mood about something that I can't remember now, and she asked "Do you wish you had a boyfriend?" and I was like "NO" and she then went "Do you wish you had a girlfriend?" Not accusatory, but in a 'it wouldn't surprise me' kind of way. On several occasions, I would get very excited about hanging out with a new female friend, and she'd ask questions like "How would you feel if she wanted a relationship with you?" because of how warm-and-fuzzy I was acting about it.

--I have never, not once in my life, seriously pined over not having a boyfriend, or wanting to meet a husband, etc. However, if I'm in a place in life (like when I was new to my city) where I don't have a close female BFF, I get existentially very upset and it feels like being in a black hole.

--When I have sex with men, I have a really hard time getting wet, and the mere act of sex with a guy is not enough to arouse me. If a guy is going down on me, I often have to close my eyes and imagine that I'm in a scenario with a girl. No specific girl, just a generic imaginary girl, but that's what it takes to make it more arousing for me.

-Whenever I masturbate, the fantasies that cause me to get wet and come involve scenarios with other girls--like getting spanked by another girl, having another girl do bondage stuff to me, etc. Fantasies about having sex with a hot guy simply don't do it for me, much. Occasionally I'll read erotica stories that are M/F, but instead of thinking about the guy's body, I think about the girl and her reactions to everything.


I've only been putting this together over the past few months, and it's feeling stronger and stronger the more I think about it. When I think about the future, being married with a man just doesn't feel right, but I also don't want to be single forever (not that there's anything wrong with that). But when I think about finding a girl who's a kindred spirit, being long-term-committed with her, getting a house together, adopting a couple of foster kids, sharing our passions and dreams, that feels just right.

Until recently, I used to do a lot of what I now feel like are mental gymnastics. Things like "I'm straight, but just more friend-oriented than romance-oriented," or "i'm straight but my fantasies just always involve girls." But now, recently, all the pieces are clicking together and I"m like "wait a minute..."


Could I please get some thoughts and input from some of you wise people??

 

Re: 24-y.o. girl slowly realizing I'm maybe gay. Could use some insight on my feeling

Also, I don't see an edit button, but I wanted to add one more thing. When I'm in a social situation like a party or bar with a female friend, and guys come up and talk to her, I get irritated. But it's not jealousy like "I wish the guy was talking to me instead" -- it's more like "go away and stop taking my friend from me." And my friends and I are all generally equal in attractiveness, and I get approached by men just as often (sometimes more) as my friends do, so there is no jealousy on that front. Also, when I go clubbing, I go to enjoy dancing with the girls I went with, not to have an agenda to pick up guys during the night.

 

Re: 24-y.o. girl slowly realizing I'm maybe gay. Could use some insight on my feeling

Thank you for responding, Penny. I think you're probably right. It just feels so weird and mind-blowing making such huge realization about myself, you know?

 

Re: 24-y.o. girl slowly realizing I'm maybe gay. Could use some insight on my feeling

Thank you for the responses and support. You're both very right.

My city's local Comic Con is coming up, and since I'm a creative type (writer with a lot of geeky interests, but like to do social stuff too), I am really hoping I can meet a girlfriend at their LGBT speed-dating event. I really want a girlfriend, who I can connect with and hopefully move toward a future with. I don't want to just hook up with other girls in bars and have a casual lifestyle forever, not that there's anything wrong with that for others, but I want that "kindred spirit" type of girlfriend who I can find stability with.

I understand that it can sometimes take time to find the right person, especially when you're gay since the dating pool gets smaller. I know that you can't rush these things, but I also really want to find that special girl who I can connect with emotionally and mentally and have the "sparks" with, and also have enough in common for our future goals that we can find stability together the way that straight people do when they find their serious partners.

I feel like I'm rambling at this point, but I'm irrationally really scared that I'll never find my girl. Or that all the events I go to will only have ultra-casual people or 18-year-old experimenters or people who are way way too old for me, or something. I'm scared I'll never find my lesbian peers and "my people." Aaaggh.

 

Re: 24-y.o. girl slowly realizing I'm maybe gay. Could use some insight on my feeling

Thank you!