When did you realized it?

For me, I think people started teasing me or questioning me of my actions when I was in gradeschool, I had no clue. When I was in college though, I had an actual relationship with a girl. I think I started accepting it then, although I'm still closeted.

 

When I was four. It was a strong physical connection.

 

took me until 19 to realise, bullies at school seemed to know long before I did though! tried to deny it but to myself but couldn’t stop the urges and eventually was intimate with a guy whilst I had the chance to experiment when I started uni

 

I've known I was gay since around 15, which is then when I started telling people I was a lesbian. I went back to bi at 16, but to be honest, it's been multiple years and I'm still trying to figure out between the two.

 

I realized it about a couple of months ago after some therapy sessions. I've been questioning since 6th or 7th grade, and I'm a senior in high school now and I just recently came to terms with my sexuality.

 

I knew I liked a girl the same way I liked a boy at the age of about 10 or 11. But it totally freaked me out and I convinced myself I had same-sex attractions 'because lots of girls have them when they are young'. I thought I was in a bisexual phase until I was 34 years old. The combination of being attracted to a woman again (for the xth time) and being confronted with my male gay colleague (lots of LGBT subjects of course, it made hiding my same-sex attractions nearly impossible too, some things gave me away without me even realizing it) made me realize I was not in a phase (I mean who's in a phase that long, right?) but probably bisexual. It took me some self-investigation because I started doubting everything (am I straight, a lesbian, bisexual?) but my first thought was right: I am bisexual. That's probably the reason why I kept thinking I was in a phase, I'm like a 3 on the Kinsey Scale, I think it's easier to realize your sexual orientation when you are a 0 or a 6.

 

First of all I want to write that bi people are very diverse, put ten of us together in a meeting group and ten different stories is what you end up with.

So concerning myself, I actually have a similar type in men and women (preference for androgyny and feminity in both men and women, love high cheeckbones, not attracted to muscles and I don't like macho men or the female equivalent, it's the kind of behaviour that turns me off). Think of male celebrities like for example River Phoenix, a young Brett Anderson (Suede), Kurt Cobain and female celebrities like Erika Linder, Kristen Stewart, Mary Avgeropoulos.

BUT in real life it's personality that matters the most. I just love intelligent people with a lot of humor, people I can relate to, and talk with on the same level. They often have some physical traits that I mentioned above but that's often not why I am attracted to them in the first place.

Concerning the internalized homophobia (or better biphobia), oh yes, I had a lot of it (and still have some I guess, it's still a work in progress).
I thought I was "bicurious" during my "bisexual phase". On the one hand I kissed women, but never women I was attracted to, and on the other hand the women I was attracted to, I tried to avoid as to not be confronted with my feelings. For example, I ended a friendship because of it. When you are staying with your friend and at some point you want to push her against the wall and want to kiss her it is a clear sign that you are not straight but at that point I wasn't ready to admit that to myself (denial, denial, denial!). I was all shaken up and almost fled out of the appartment... And never visited her again. And ended the friendship shortly after it.

 

I'm 25 and I'm still figuring things out, but I've known I wasn't straight since 2013. I go back and forth between thinking I'm bisexual and thinking I'm lesbian. I never thought I were a lesbian because nobody ever seemed to think I'm one and because I thought I had crushes on men. I've certainly had a hard time to fantasize about men though, especially about full-blown intercourse with one.

Now I've had one relationship with a man but broke up and my anxiety about my sexual orientation certainly had to do with it, although the relationship was doomed for other reasons as well.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a bisexual in denial or a lesbian who is too scared of her feelings.

So there you go, you're not alone.

 

Well, I sort of always knew, but hear me out...it was not like I knew the terms like "bisexual" or "gay" when I was as young as four, I just knew I wasn't monosexual, I never got its concept. That was the beginning.
I liked guys with long lashes and rosy cheeks and bad-boy persona. Used to cut my hair short into a pixie and when my mom put me into polo shirts and baggy jeans, I didn't complain because I liked it. I knew I liked guys but I also used to feel an alien feeling for girls too but it wasn't that strong.
Girls loved the way I carried myself like a guy but sometimes I caught myself thinking "would they like me if I was girly?"
I couldn't hug my female friends after we all hit puberty, sleepovers made me feel weird, and the weirder thing is that nobody else felt like me, they easily undressed in front of each other and did other friendly-intimate stuff, but I just felt strange doing those to a friend because to me it was supposed to be done with somebody closer, no matter guy or girl. I couldn't sit with girls in a crowded SUV, I couldn't see women belly dancing on TV. While my female cousins commented on the dancer's body and compared it to their's, I just felt so wrong (now I know I was just turned on, but didn't wanna admit it).
I felt "special feelings" for a girl around 14. I just thought I wanted to be friends with her, now I know it was more than appreciation, it would develop into love if she stayed in my class longer. And then again fell for a girl around 17. I dressed up for her, felt giddy by her thought and obviously no straight women could feel this way. I like girls the way I like guys, plain and simple, no amount of crying could change this truth.

 

What an interesting topic!

So recognizable!

This! I didn't compare myself with other girls, I was checking them out. I was never jealous when my boyfriend was checking other girls out. Why would I be jealous? I was checking them out too! (I was jealous in other circumstances though, like when I knew he would meet a girl that was into him.)

I had a similar thing with a girl during a camp. I fell asleep with her in her bed and woke up with my breasts against her back. What I felt then instantly made me move as far as possible from her as I could in the bed. I knew I should wake her and get out of the bed (it was in the middle of the night) or otherwise we could be found together in the morning but I didn't, I wanted to stay with her in her bed, and hoped we would hear the one who had to wake us coming. But we didn't so he found us in the bed together and made a fuss out of it (two young teenage girls together in a bed you know, he was I think 20 years old). End result: she avoided me for practically the whole two weeks of the camp. The way I felt about her was way more intense than for other girls. The emotions I felt. Oh, I was so sad.

At some point I really tried to fight it in myself (even after I realized I was bisexual) but then in the end if you fight it or not, you are who you are anyway, so you can better accept it, the fighting is useless in the end.

 

I knew since I was 15. I was lusting after my English teacher (older gent with a furry chest), my band instructor, the principal, and another English teacher. At first I was questioning myself, and kept questioning myself since then. By about senior year, I considered I was Bi, as I had a few girlfriends (though those didn't last past a month). But in my 20s, going through school, working, etc. I observed I was developing very lustful crushes on older guys. It was about 29 or 30 when I experimented, and thus fell in love with my first guy. I came out as Gay since then.

And beyond that, I've had my share of relationships and encounters. And have not been with a woman since, and don't want to be.
Though, OTOH, I can say when a woman is attractive too. It's not me wanting to sleep with them or have a relationship with them, I'm just calling it as I see it.

 

The things I've put in bold are the ones I can relate to the most. Honestly during my teens I thought something was terribly wrong with me, because I didn't care about relationships the way my female friends did. I was bored and even annoyed when they gushed about their current boyfriend or favorite actor, mostly because I didn't have one and I wanted to be normal but couldn't. I mean I had a celebrity crush and some crushes on boys here and there but nothing making me to lose sleep over. For some reason, hearing my classmates talking about that last party where Maria kissed Helen or something made my heart beat faster, and I listened with what I then considered to be an inappropriate perversion all the details of such encounters.

DUH I couldn't see belly dancers on TV either and I chuckled awkwardly when some girl undressed. My throat closed, my hands became sweaty and I had to force myself not to gaze on the parts her underwear covered. In the end, when I did not selectively erase this feeling from my brain I would scold myself and ask what is wrong with me. I was obviously aroused in all cases.

However it didn't occur to me I'm anything more than straight until I became 20 and even then I didn't take my attraction to women all that seriously. I thought it was something of a society conditioning because women are sexualized in most contexts, I thought I'd never want to really act on it and that it was all a nice fantasy because I haven't met the right guy.

Five years later, I find this desire haven't gone anywhere and has only increased. I don't know what to make of the experiences of infatuation I had with guys in the past, maybe that was indeed a desperate mind play out of social conditioning. I don't know.

 

I have memories of doubt going back to when I was around 12 and full on questions around 15 when I first kissed someone and it was girl (as am I). But I didn't actually know. I was reeeeaally convinced I was straight or at most just a little bi. It took me until 19, almost 20 for it to really hit me just how much I loooove girls and just how comfortable I feel with them compared to guys. I'm still debating what to call myself because it has never been black and white for me but all I know now is that I imagine my future with a woman and nothing has ever felt so right!

 

We all have our own feelings and our own stories and nobody can know for sure what / where a person is in their self-discovery. Do they know exactly who they are? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I’ll tell you my story though.

I called myself bi because it was WAY easier than having to accept I was gay. I do appreciate the female body, it’s attractive and sex is enjoyable. But never emotionally passionate, only physically passionate. I could never imagine myself cuddling with a man because I wouldn’t ALLOW myself to imagine it. Like you I’m not questioning anyone’s attractions that identifies as bi, not in the slightest. Everyone is different. I’m just saying that for me, calling myself bi was just a way to not have to accept that I was gay. That if I let my guard down, just to myself in my tiny little brain, I could indeed see myself cuddling with a man, and more importantly, that’s EXACTLY who I wanted to be cuddling with, but never had. A guy was a form and whole bag of mannerisms that lit something inside of me, and a female form was attractive but a true physical spark was never there. I just told myself it was, and was so convincing to myself I thought surely I’m bi... I’m way to awesome to be gay. With a woman I felt an attraction of sorts and I could get it up and get business done. That was all a big fat denial that I was actually gay.

For me it’s everything opposite of a woman that I find attractive about a man. Masculinity, mannerisms, the smell of a man, his smile, facial hair, the walk, the talk, and imagining his hands on me (sexually and the simple unassuming touch)... it was everything that wasn’t feminine. And that makes it all the more ridiculous in my situation that I called myself bi, when the women I took to bed and the men I wanted to take to bed had no traits in common. It wasn’t just physical touch with a man that excited me. Once I allowed myself, I could see it was the whole man package (as well as his actual package. lol).

Again this is just me. My ah-ha moment was just standing in front of a mirror a few weeks ago and saying aloud “I’m gay”. If you would’ve caught me even a month ago, I never would’ve said that even in the privacy of my own home, or written what I just wrote, even anonymously. For me it was a huge denial. I wasn’t bi.

Think it over. Maybe just maybe you’re not bi and by accepting you’re gay you could get on with life, even if only getting on with life in your own mind’s acceptance.

Or... maybe you’re bi. Does that help? Lol

 

@Silveroot

Me too, but for another reason. I was always wondering what my mother saw in my father (my father is a masculine man) and what my friends saw in those though acting boys at school. I really didn't understand it and I actually didn't get that my taste in boys and men could be considered as not in the norm contrary to their taste. It actually took me to understand that until I had a talk concerning male celebrities with my male gay colleague who asked me if I liked androgynous guys... He noticed the link I had been missing my whole life.

@fvpa01

For lots of people but not for all people.

I just want to clarify, this is not a sign on itself that someone is not bisexual. There are bisexuals out there who like feminine women and masculine men. So the not having traits in common on itself doesn't mean anything.

What helped for me was taking time to think it over and consider ALL options. I think that's important: daring to ask yourself also the question and to open up to whatever answer comes to the question "am I gay?, am I bi?, am I straight?". And sometimes you need time and experiences in real life to figure it out.

 

I am 38 now and I realised something was up when I was about 15... and going to a single-sex school (boys only) didn't help. I only came out at 25 ... but... sadly I have had to go back in the closet. I still find some days I am confused about my sexuality and sometimes wonder if I shouldn't try dating a woman. I don't have gay friends where I live so I can't talk to anyone about how I feel.
Take time to figure things out. You're 30.. young... it will eventually come together.