Did anyone not even know they were gay until young adulthood?

I'm bi, but :smilewave That would be me. I'm 25, and I just fully accepted myself this year. I started questioning at 18 too, though.

 

Feels nice to know I'm not the only one! I thought I was bi starting from around age twelve, but didn't come to terms with being fully gay until very recently (I'm twenty-two).

 

I came out of the closet a little bit at 20. 21 was when I really got it together and starting being as out as possible. I don't know if that qualifies because I'm not sure where the bounds of 'young adulthood' are but people coming out in their 20's isn't all that uncommon, really.

 

Hello sarahjohnson112, i've heard the 'always known' story but I don't really believe it myself, There is no age limit on discovering your sexuality.

I'm in my early 20's and I've been having feelings for guys since I was 20 and I was confused about it all (still am tbh).

Anyways I came on here saying pretty much exactly what the same thing as you said and I got good advice off people which I'll pass on to you, check out the LGBT later in life dept and also the resources tab at the top of the page there is a ton of advice which I found extremely helpful and hopefully you will as well.

Hope I've helped :icon_bigg

 

You can know and not know. Not know what those feelings mean, and then they get hijacked by received ideas about sex and love and romance. I don't think there is such a thing as too old. If I were your age, I'd still have almost 50 years before coming out.

 

I remember having both male and female crushes in elementary school, but it wasn't until I was about 16 that I discovered that the feelings I had for women were so shallow.

 

I didn't realise I was gay until I fell head over heels for a girl when I was 23. I'd had a couple of boyfriends before but never really felt anything much for them beyond friendship (I didn't know that wasn't normal...), but I'd never fancied any girls either. However, when I fell for my (now) girlfriend I was hit by so many new emotions and realised just what I'd always been missing out on.

I guess, in hindsight, I've had it very lucky. By not realising until 'later' life, I didn't have any stress as a teenager trying figure out my sexuality or worrying about what others may think. When I did realise, I was mature enough and confident enough in myself not to let it bother me. In fact if anything I was excited. And when I did realise I was gay, it was because I'd fallen for someone who I already knew was interested in women, so I didn't have to worry about whether or not she was gay too (although it was still scary enough telling her I was interested, just in case I got rejected!) - I needn't have worried though as we've now been together seven months

 

I didn't know I wasn't straight until I met my wife. I was 23 and was in a relationship with a man who I'd been with for 3 years when I figured it out. I had never dated a woman before, or even considered it. I'd had a few relationships with men, but didn't really date until college, so I hadn't had many.

Looking back on things now, had I been more open to the idea, I probably would have figured it out sooner, but lots of factors add in to when we figure it out, and I think it's fine to figure things out later. I think that probably some of my closest female friends later on in high school who I sort of idolized were actually girls I had crushes on, but I didn't even consider that because I had not been taught that as an option.

 

I second what DesertTorise said. It is possible to know and not know at the same time. In retrospect I realize I had questioned my attractions since I was around 11. I didn't come out to myself until I was 31. I first questioned my orientation in early high school (14 or 15), but then told myself I was being ridiculous and that I of course wasn't gay. Over the years the thought would pop up on occasion and I'd dismiss it. Over that time I would once in a while have feelings for another woman, but I did not realize that they were romantic/sexual feelings until I actually fully fell for a woman many years later (right before I came out).

So, yes, it is fully possibly to not know you're gay until early or even late adulthood. Even with everything I just told you about my questioning all that time I didn't know I was gay. I really didn't. It wasn't even that I knew and was closeted. I was only sure once I fell for that woman, or actually I even had doubts then. I was only positive I was gay after that woman broke my heart. I realized if I was straight she wouldn't have been able to break my heart like that. And only then was I positive that I was gay.

 

Absolutely true (except the 50 years part!).

I remember a girl in high school who was painfully thin, almost skeletal. Every now and then she would disappear for a week or two and we would hear that she had gotten too thin and went into the hospital as a result. That was 1976 or so; when I look back, I immediately think, "Duh, she was anorexic" without a second thought. But at the time, I had no concept of what an anorexic was. She was just a skinny, sickly girl.

Coming out, for me, and realizing I was always gay, was a lot like that. I was always comfortable being friends with girls and awkward dating them. I was always checking out guys' junk in the locker room. I was always either looking at guys and thinking how perfect they were, or looking at the girls with them and having strange emotions that I eventually figured out wer mostly envy at who they were with, although at the time I assumed it was strong feelings for the girls themselves. Should I have known I was gay? In theory. The signs were all there. But realistically, they weren't signs I was capable of understanding at the time.

 

I was thinking about this last night. I can't say it troubles me... but it continues to puzzle me, and can't find ways to answer the questions that satify me. I'm pretty sure that if one of the boys I played sexual games with had reciprocated--when I was between 11 and 13, I would have fallen in love, and known... but what would I have 'known?' In 1953? How would I have been able to deal with that? I was emotionally fragile and prone to depression. My parents? I can't imagine. I would have had to hide--believing I was hiding something terrible about myself. Maybe... if I had that one boyfriend to share with, we might have been able to handle it. But alone? I might have killed myself.

In Jr High, I went out for football. Discovered something that I'd never felt before--that I had physical courage. It was like my sissy kid self, the one who was always getting beat up on the way home from school, vanished. I was a guy with guys and my sexual interest focused on girls. That's the part I keep coming back to... the question I can't answer.

What I was thinking last night--it was noticing an atractive young woman--short hair, boyish figure, when I remembered my aunt saying to me, "you're attracted to the tom boys aren't you?" Which I vigorously denied, with pretty revealing passion. Yes, I was. And in thinking back--wondering if my romanticism--which is always about some ideal or fantasy, not the object of your passion--whether behind the mask of my enfatuations, I had replaced the girls, and later, the women, I was enfatuated with, with residual memories of boys from my early adolescence.

This seems a bit of a stretch, but even so, feels more right to me than anything I've come up with before. The only relationship I had where the sexual interest lasted more than a few months, and that was only 6 months before we broke up... OMG! It just occured to me--this was really a deep, passionate heavy duty affair--that what had hooked me, was her huge, black Italian eyes and black wavy hair... and that she was small "petite'... like those boys, and eyes and hair...that was the childhood friend who died in April... and I had been in love with! .... holy shit

This is getting too long... there are other parts to the puzzle that fit this picture, but I think my 50 minutes are up! Thank you Dr. EC! This has been a really good session!

---------- Post added 14th Oct 2013 at 08:58 AM ----------

To add one more thought--the problem of how I could have been attracted to women if I'm really gay, pales beside the questions I'd have to answer if I wanted to think of myself as NOT queer... like, why do I really really like kissing men! And and and... all that stuff, and have these fantasies about men, and yes, I've had sex and really liked it and want more... how would I reconcile THAT with NOT being queer!?!
We are really complicated fucked up monkeys, fer sure.

 

It took me 24 years to realize that my experience is different from straight people: their crushes were more substantial, their curiosity about the body of the opposite gender was stronger. And they never had to "test" themselves to see if they were straight. I didn't realize that I was living a different experience, and thought I was fitting in fine. I equated being straight with fitting in, with being normal, and so I patted myself on the back for being straight. All this made it easier to ignore that I wasn't.

 

I am 39. I fell hard for a woman at work. I am married in the process of initiating divorce mediation. I never considered being gay. That was not an option for an Irish catholic girl. Looking back..I do remember admiring naked and semi naked bodies of girls from the time I was 9 (I went to an all girls school). I also know that I have always been friends with gay people. I have always been fascinated ( for lack of a better word) with lesbians. I wanted to be their friend- weirdo. That being said I was never repulsed by heterosexual sex-- it just involved a lot of fantasy during the act. Then I fell in love with a woman. I slept with her and it was so amazing. The first time we slept together I didn't fully climax even-- and I would still consider it one of the most sexually satisfying events of my life. This is how I know it. I am gay. However, I still have that nagging question ' am I sure?-- are these feelings real' which are exacerbated when I read about others who knew with certainty and hid it for years. So I don't know if that helps, but I know I would love to be questioning 15 years ago rather than now-- but now rather than never. Best xx

 

I didn't know anything other than someday I would meet a nice girl until something finally clicked when I was about 23. Sad but true.

 

I was 19 when a guy hit on me for the first time (I took him up on it) and 21 before I initiated something with a guy and concluded I was gay.

Prior to age 19, I basically had no interest in either men or women that I was aware of. Sex was just something like eating or drinking that you took care of then then didn't pay any attention to otherwise.

Todd

 

Trust me, it can be a LOT later than young adulthood in the right setting, or should I say the WRONG setting. It is much easier to explore and talk and think about what certain feelings MEAN today; 50 years ago, these things weren't even verbalizable; there were no ways to talk about these things with anyone casually like we are doing right now, reaching around the world to find someone with similar experiences, in private, and effectively anonymously, at whatever time of day we get the urge. It was all face to face, with a hostile world waiting to jump on you and throw you in jail if you said the wrong thing at the wrong time. So, feelings got repressed, "normal" curiosity got hidden or delayed, and sometimes wedding bells rang before alarm bells. People weren't different then, but times certainly were. Be happy that you are in a relative Golden Age of communication, tolerance, and exploration compared to what we grew up with in the 1950s, even though there are still toads out there who can make life miserable for individuals in certain states and settings. If you happen to be a citizen of Russia right now though, it can be every bit as bad as it was 50 years ago, or worse.

 

I'm 32 and came out this year. I've always been blind to my attraction to women. I found it so hard to date guys, felt really awkward and shy - but with women, I can be myself and my confidence has gone up and I'm more happier this way. I'm just upset that I didn't realise it earlier. It's now hard for my family and relatives to believe me when I tell them. That's the worst part of it I find...

 

I'm 28 took me till now to work out I was gay so ur not alone xxx