How Did You Know?

I have known for a long time, and struggled with being bi for as long as I have known.

I suppose my light click was having gay sex for the first time, followed by straight sex for the first time. Both were not outstandingly awesome and both were a little awkward, but still enjoyable enough to form an opinion of liking it.

There was a great deal more stigma attached to it when I was trying to figure it out. And growing up in a very conservative state didn't help. Still more to face since being a bi guy is almost worse in people's minds than just gay. I'm not saying that is the case for everyone, just my own personal experience.

I will say it isn't something you need to rush and nail down. At least you have the benefit of sites like this one to look for information. Knowledge will help you understand yourself and you will see lots of people just like you.

 

i first knew when i accidently found pictures of naked men on google when i was like 10, every since then,

 

Well, looking back I had always had small crushes on guys; but I pushed those away because I also had crushes on girls, and didn't really know bisexuality existed until I was a teen. It all clicked when I feel in love with a guy, but I had felt the same way about a girl before, so what was wrong with me? Then looking up articles on sexuality I heard a definition of bisexuality, and even though I didn't want to connect to it I did, and knew immediately that it explained how I felt perfectly.

 

Two things:

1. Discovering porn and quickly drifting away from anything involving a female.
2. I had a girlfriend, and it became pretty clear that we could be physical if I asked. I slowly realized I would never ask.

 

I saw a photo of two men kissing each other. It took me a long time to deduce my strange feelings towards the photo, but I realized later that I wanted to be in a relationship like that. As a man, with a man.
Sounds simple but it was really effing confusing tbh

 

It was quite a few years of frustration and confusion that culminated in the realization that I was bisexual. After that, it was a slower and more relaxed transition into realizing I was just a lesbian, since I knew I obviously wasn't straight.

There were clues here and there. I thought I couldn't talk to certain popular and pretty girls, I was nervous every time a pretty girl talked to me and when friends kissed me on the cheek, things liked that. Eventually I put two and two together, realized I thought of girls in a romantic context, and went from there.

I'm still questioning my attraction to guys every now and then, but in all honesty, it's hardly there, so I try not to worry about it. It's okay to be a little confused, since I know what I want out of life now, and that's to live happily with a wife and a couple of kids someday.

 

In grade six, there was a really cute girl in my class and I tried flirting with her. I didn't know what LGBT was when I was that age. But I guess I really knew when I was in grade 8. (Came out then too, in grade 8)
It took more than a couple months for me.

 

I knew a gay man when I was younger but I didn't really understand that he had a boyfriend but I didn't question it.
In 3rd grade I liked this girl and it didn't really know what it meant so I stayed up all night to fid her favorite song just so I could tell her about it at recess.
Then after that, even after all my crushes, it didn't cross my mind that maybe, just maybe there were people who liked their gender until I was in 8th grade when I found out there WAS a group for people who liked their gender and I was probably apart of it.

 

I was about 14 or 15 with a boyfriend who was also my best friend and when we kissed I noticed that I didn't enjoy it, so I thought I was asexual after researching. Than I noticed that I looked at girls at school and guys from video games, so I thought I might be bisexual or pansexual. But than I noticed that the only guys I liked were girly looking so I thought I might be lesbian. I have settled on the fact that I'm attracted to someone as long as they look female and are not very hairy. So I don't actually know what that would be called and I say i'm lesbian, because it's easier than explaining all of that.

 

i attended a religious school and also knew very little about the LGBT Q+ community.

i didn't realise my feelings until i had a super intense crush on a girl i worked with at age 18ish, even then it took me a few months of thinking about her everyday, unconsciously flirting , meeting her girlfriend and getting twinges of jealousy to realise it was a crush and it was a her.

i wouldn't say i considered myself gay/bi then - i had a boyfriend. i never wanted to sleep with him, or spend time with him but i still had a bf. i didn't reply to his texts at work and my crush asked my why , and i was just like 'i dont feel any emotional connection with him, and she said that is how she had felt. and the question popped in my head...could i be gay too? (i suppose that was kind of my o shit moment)

i then looked over my history and realised id never been interested in guys seriously. and there were clues id liked girls but not acknowledged it. saying that i am not putting too much weighting on my past as a sign i am gay (i think who i am now is the truth rather than x years of weak memories and trying to make them fit) .

i spent 2 years questioning, but ultimately i could not deny that what i was feeling for that girl was totally intense and unlike anything i had felt before. and i would (given the option) spend the rest of my life with he. i let myself think of women and i began to see i also like the broader female population (it was not like i suddenly started staring at peoples breast, but to me with girls i feel this unexplainable deeper emotional connection that just makes me want them in every way (to be cliche "i want her soul to sit next to mine", and i started to allow myself to feel that) .

i still had many questions , moments where i thought i was crazy and waves of doubt but i was sure i was not straight. i got myself professional support and started working on myself. now I'm pretty sure i am gay but still have these waves of doubt, just because i think too much and feel like i don't know myself that well, so to those couple i have come out to i explained i was not straight.

i plan to come out more in the future, but rather than the conventional "i'm gay/bi", i will say "i am not straight, and i am finding it hard to deal with (because i am) and *insert feelings here*" and then rather than giving someone information, i am asking for support.

my advice would be:
find your sources of support: e.g.
-EC
- LGBT youtubers (always used to comfort me somehow)
- keep a diary (offloads feelings)
- find the person/people you can let into the closet, this doesn't mean coming out but maybe express you are questioning (when you feel ready) to a safe person...wether that be professional, an LGBT friend, a supportive friend, an LGBT group ect.
don't feel you have to tell anybody immediately but in my head i had like a (very short) list of safe people that if things got to much i could express my questioning and it would be worth the fear. because there were some very lonely moments, where i just needed some comfort and a cuddle...i wish i had told someone earlier.

ultimately this is your process and it will be uniquely yours, don't let others stories invalidate your own ( not everyone grows up knowing of their LGBTQ+ness...i mean people get married and have kids and then realise), and also try not to get too caught up in labels ( i know it is hard, i am guilty of it) but let yourself feel and be you and do not judge yourself for it.

good luck!

 

So.. I had some straight relations until my mid 20's and they were just ok. Then i had, related to work, to go to an hospital to prepare things for an pacient leaving the hospital. i was waiting for the head nurse and then.... oh my.. and then she came and i was almost incapable to speak, think and all... at the same time i was afraid... it was the first time i thought "what the hell is this?". then i tried to not think about it but a few mounths later i started questionning and a couple of years i embraced my first lesbian relationship...

 

There were a couple of factors. Eg:
• By the time I'd discovered sexual attraction existed, most people had already experienced it many times in their life (I was 16)
• By the time I realised what a crush was, most people already had significant others, and my classmate had already gone through five girlfriends
• I tried watching porn on three separate occasions. Each time, I quickly got bored and went back to doing my homework. (Idk man, but all porn is either really icky or really boring?)
• You know how people gush about their crushes or talk about their sexual experiences? Yeah, I've kind of never connected with any of that, and I most definitely don't understand how people just decide "oh I think I want to have sex/a relationship with you"
• So far, I still haven't wanted to have sex with anything or anyone, so I'm keeping the asexual label until it happens (which is probably never, but the future is uncertain)

There wasn't a click or anything of the sort. I just decides that the label fit my identity and decided to adopt it.

 

When I had my first gay crush, I got very confused and took me years to finally accept that as homosexuality. I wasn't very confident on it because I felt attracted to guys too. I knew bisexuality existed, but I only began to accept this as my sexual orientation after changing my views on men and reading a very good article about bi erasure in the Everyday Feminism website. It described exactly my feelings of never belonging to the straight or the lesbian community. I was very draw to bisexual fanfiction though... Yep, that makes a lot of sense now.

 

I knew when an Internet friend came out to me as bisexual. I did get into the lgbt+ community before that, considering myself a straight ally, but bisexuality never seemed like an option before. In that moment, I kind of started to think and it all started to make sense. All the confusion I had in my teenage years (I wondered if I was a lesbian very often but that never seemed to be true), all the thoughts I considered as normal for a straight girl - just everything was suddenly clear.
I did not entirely stop questioning since then. Even now I think that I might be pan, but I feel more confident using the label bi and it was the first label that actually made sense. So I guess I'll stick with it and I am quite happy with that.

 

When I realised that my crushes were on my female friends. I don't think it just happened but it took a little while for me to realise what it meant. Once I did I realised that I was happier with myself.

 

I was 11 and noticed that my friends and my big brothers friends got me more excited than the girls at school. Then I went on-line and saw the differences and knew that it was guys I liked. At 12 my parents enrolled me in an all boys school not knowing. Now I wonder if they regret that choice? :icon_wink I sure don't!

 

I've liked males since I could remember, but only once I got very close to them. After a certain threshold I just found them attractive and I wanted to do something with them, but I was too young to know exactly what that "something" was. XD When I was about 16 I had my first actual female friend (before that point I never really got on with girls), and I ended up developing feelings for her as well after a couple of years. Since then I've realised that I can find pretty much anyone attractive cause I work more off of personality than appearance or gender.

 

It was a very gradual realization that had many causes, but basically I realized that I wasn't attracted to guys, only girls. I was completely girlcrazy and boys pretty much never came to mind, so it seemed like a logical conclusion that I was gay.

It took from 10-14 years old to be certain of my orientation. So, about four years.

 

It's actually kinda a funny story. I was watching The X Files, and then it just hit me. I was attracted to Gillian Anderson.