When did you realise you were gay? or have you always known?

Not an easy answer for me. Raised Catholic i tried stuffing, denying, hiding, regretting, shame-ing etc my attraction to guys. I do recall fantasizing about guys when I masturbated during my early high school years. Prolly didn't crush on a guy until college. just now, after some 20 years of heterosexual marriage, i am working to affirm the person i was created to be. I'm so jealous of those of you that began getting your feet under you by the time you were 20 or half that even.

 

I always have known but it took me ages to come to terms that I really shouldn't hide and shy away from my self and should be who I am! That took years mind.

 

Around the age of thirteen. I denied it for the next two years, though... but beneath the denial, I knew, just wouldn't admit it to myself.

 

I knew something wasn't quite "right" when I was 16, while I was with the guys. They'd boggle the girls, i'd be boggling the guys. xD I didn't know what to call it, but I knew that I was attracted to guys at point.

 

I've probably known since I was about 13 but looking back I was definitely born gay. Little things from my childhood make so much sense to me now now (like kissing a guy friend of mine when I was about 7 during a play-fighting game [he wasn't happy lol] and always being fascinated by mens bodies in the changing rooms when I used to go swimming.)

When I hit puberty, I just naturally started fantasising about guys. I always thought eventually I'd move onto girls but never felt any urge to. Then when I got to about 17 I realised that there was a reason I always watched gay porn and never had any interest in girls. I finally accepted it when I was about 18.

 

Around 12-13


Toward the end of the school year it was summer time and this guy in my class had a really nice tan and after playing outside he took his shirt off and had a wife beater on and he looked really attractive. And i noticed how attractive he look and during the summer i had my own computer and i started watching gay porn and during the next grade i had a huge crush on this guy in my art class. I was in denial until a friend came on to me and we messed around

I also thought i would grow out of this and married a women.

 

When I was younger I really didn't know what to call it but when I came out my grandmother told me she knew I was since I was like 3 lol

 

It's kinda hard to pin-point when I first had an attraction to men. I think the first signs began around age ten. I remember really liking to look at the men on packages of underwear, and I wanted to hang one of those pictures on my bedroom wall. I didn't know why, I just knew I liked it. I also had a crush on the character Aladdin around that time. Shirtless men also fascinated me around that time, and I do remember liking it when my best friend took his shirt off. I never understood any of this at that time. Then way back in 2000 when I was around 13 going on 14 (the dark ages as I call it) I found gay porn sites, and loved them. Of course this scared the shit out of me, so I put any same-sex attraction completely out of my mind because I "had to be straight." And there it stayed until 2004 when I was 17,and every single one of those feelings came back with a vengeance. I thought I might be bisexual since I found women attractive to a certain degree, plus it made it easier to deal with the fact that I really liked men. I also never told a soul that I liked men, and I vowed that I never would. Anyway, fast forward to late 2007, when I at long last had the epiphany of "Well, I'm not particularly attracted to women, but I'm definitely attracted to men. Oh who the hell am I kidding? I'm just gay!" And then the coming-out process began. So that's my story in a nutshell.

 

I was in second grade... 6 or 7 years old.
Me and another boy were in a couch... we were kinda dry humping each other (there was a huge pillow between us so it wasn't obvious)
And in third grade I remember having crush on guys.
I never questioned my sexuality or thought it was wrong. If someone would ask me I would say "idk, i'm exploring" etc. etc. Now I accept it more than ever and if people ask (and I trust them) I say that I am gay.

 

When I was 19. I just kind of had an epiphany. Though the signs were there from earlier. I didn't start actually coming out until a couple years after that.

 

Thought I was bi at 14/15, figured out I was gay at 16, a week before my 17th bday in fact lol. Done.

 

I remember the exact moment when it clicked when I was 15. I was in my bedroom doing homework and I had distracted myself by staring in the mirror and not thinking about my English assignment. I remember thinking to myself "Well, I've only really had a desire to look at pictures of guys online. I've been doing it for the last 2 years. I'm gay." I then told myself while staring at myself in the mirror. However, that's when all the mind games of denial started as well, which are no fun at all.

 

Glad to hear about the "long-term relationship" Martin. You deserve to be happy! (*hug*)

 

Another late bloomer here.
Uttered the words "I'm pretty sure I'm bi" when I was 22, still hoping it was a phase.
Only realized the phase was no phase at all at 32.
In hindsight, all the signs were there from the age of 7-8, but as I didn't know there was such a thing as being bisexual, it didn't click. As Filip said, I also didn't connect the dots and I did not see my over the top interests in girls as being gay. I was attracted to guys as well, so surely there was something wrong with me. How can you like both? And indeed the handful of (Belgian) sex ed classes I had, told me that me liking girls was most probably a phase. They hardly touched on the topic of being gay and I never heard the word bisexual at all.
I have always felt different, but only a few years ago did I realize it was a good kind of different.

 

whoo i loved naomily on skins

i definitely have had some big crushes on girls but then i just started liking guys... i never fancied a guy before i 'switched' though, if that makes sense

 

Growing up I never was attracted to girls. I had lots of friends who were girls but there was never any attraction there at all. In middle school I noticed that I like the way guys looked and that I wanted "more" out of my relationships with my guy friends but didn't really know what that was. During high school I though these feelings would go away but instead they kept getting stronger and stronger. At the age of 17 I admitted to myself that I was gay and that it was just who I was.

 

I think on some level I always knew that I was gay but it wasn't until I was about 14 or 15 when I began to think about it and it wasn't until after I finished high school that I began to come to terms with it. At the moment I'm still trying to figure through it three years later.

 

I pretty much always liked guys. not sexually until puberty but I loved having boys around me and what not. I first kissed a boy when I was 10 and I was like this is for me not girls. I came out like 2 days later lol. (yea early but I was positive and I still am) The only non-family girl I have ever kissed was my best friend and I love her but only as a firend

 

For me everything kinda started at an early age. My sex drive got started at a really young age (6 or 7) due to some events that happened (don't really want to talk about it). I have had sexual fantasies for as long as I can remember and they were about girls (up until about 6th grade). When I think back on it now I realize that there was always another guy in the fantasy, but I never really thought about it.

Just after Christmas when I was in 5th grade (I think) we stopped at a family friends house on the way back from my grandparents, and I decided I wanted to stay up all night so that I would sleep well on the way home in the morning. To keep myself awake I got on the computer and played some games and stuff until I got bored. I'm not sure how I got to the point but eventually I was looking at pictures naked guys (not really porn, just guys with their cloths off, not having sex).

I honestly didn't even think about being gay (or that event for that matter) until one day I went over to my best friends house and his mom was watching an episode of Opera where a mother was worried about her son being gay because of all of these reasons. At that moment everything came crashing down on me. For about two weeks after that day I layed on the couch in the living room crying and throwing up claiming that I was sick (Sick with guilt and anxiety. It was the worst time of my life).

I kept telling myself I wasn't gay and would go out of my way to try and avoid situations where I would see any hot guys. I was terrified of the idea because for my whole life, my parents had told me "being gay is a sin, and anyone who is gay is going to hell!".

Eventually I became a little more accepting of the idea (in spurts) although I would spend most my time freaking out because of it. I didn't really accept myself until I met my friends Chris (nintenfreak19) and he introduced my to this site (YAY EC!!).

Let's just say my story was really dramatic...

 

I think I always knew, deep down at least
My brother never wanted to take me down to play with his friends, because they always told him how girlish i was D I hated it at the time tough...
I always fell in love with girls, but never felt any sexual attraction towards them though.

I wanted to kiss girls, I thought sexual attraction would build up eventually. Then as I started watching porn, I realised I was concentrating on the guys, and watched only the movies with hot guys. At that time I explained this to myself by thinking (off: omg is there no easier expression for that? this just feels so un-english to meD /off)
that I just like 'classy' movies better.
Then I realised that I didn't care at all about the women in the movies and started watching gay movies. At first I didn't like them, esp. the anal parts, but then got to LOVE them
Of course I had the denial-periods, I didn't want to be homo at all, I thought it might just be a phase and would eventually outgrow it (even tho I always knew I would never )
Until one day I looked into the eyes of one of my classmates whom I always suspected of being homo, and thats when I started having the biggest ever crush, but for the first time, on a guy. With the crush came the accepting of being who I am, and I have to say I am at peace with myself ever since then.
Although I still dunno if he's straight or bi or gay..I thought he would fall for me too soon, then I had to watch him kiss a girl right next to me at a party, which kinda shattered my delusions I still keep on getting mixed signals from him which kinda drives me crazy 24/7 but that's another story and has nothing to do with my realisation of being gay. So I guess that's my story.