I want to date girls, but I'm afraid I'm faking it

I don't think you can convince yourself you're gay if you're not. You could tell yourself that but there won't be the emotional response to relationships or the emotional and possibly physical attraction. Some people date before they find out for sure.

 

I think the feeling you felt was butterflies, like you got nervous.

 

Yeah, perhaps you were just nervous. I know from my own experience being hit on by men I often find myself saying "Eww...no." in my head. (Just to be polite) But if it's the right guy then the reaction is different. So maybe just give yourself time to feel it out. You don't have to "come out" if you don't want to. You don't have to tell the world to go on a date.

 

You sound like you got really anxious. Were you worried you could be faking it before this event happened? It's completely normal to get nervous, even anxious, when getting asked out. However, if you were worried before about being fake this situation could have thrown all your fears into your face and overwhelmed you into a panic. If that's the case, I think it's a reflection of your worries not your sexuality.

A ton of gay people date the opposite sex without knowing their sexuality, are they bad for not knowing? It's okay to date and not know what you want. Dating is about seeing if you are compatible after all and it doesn't always work out one way or another. Dating is just a trial period. People can get hurt in dating, and as much we dont want to hurt others, pain is part of life. We all have to learn to deal with rejection and loss. Even if you are gay, you could still break up for other reasons. Hurt can't be avoided without not living.

You could always communicate with the girl you like and tell her you're wanting to date but unsure about your sexuality. That way she knows what she's getting into.

Sometimes we don't know if we're straight or gay until we have some relationship experience. I wasn't sure about my sexuality until there was enough evidence. The big thing for me was cuddling (not very platonic cuddling btw) with a friend and all the things I felt and new desires that came out of that. I wouldn't have known unless I did that.

 

I've been questioning myself too and talked to a friend about it the other day. She said, "I don't think straight women spend time thinking and worrying about whether they like women or not." So, I decided I'm at least not straight.

 

Ah, I relate to this post so much it hurts. To maybe assuage some of your fears, when I first started actually casually going out with a few women, I had to learn to distinguish between panic, butterflies, and anxiety (for me, anxiety and panic are two different things since anxiety often related to the women. Panic related to me). I found myself over thinking talking to them, going out, everything. It was awful so I stopped the little bit of dating I was trying to do and have been on a break. I realized that I am attracted to a very particular type of woman (in personality and looks) and that if she comes along, she will, and it will happen naturally. Every once in a while, I see someone who gives me little butterflies and I just enjoy those feelings since I get them so rarely! It's nice, it's okay! I've come to worry less about identity (for myself personally) and more about what I want in a person.

Also, more and more I like this site for my LGBT community. Where I live is really clickish (some places are-- where I used to live wasn't so clickish) so I tend to hang out with my equestrian people and friends and less with gay folks. I have, like, one gay friend at work. Don't feel like you have to hang out with gay people to be gay.

 

I relate to the OP a lot. I have never dated a girl and I also do sometimes get nervous about it. I think it's normal because the idea is new. I haven't really ever gone out with a guy either, except once or twice and that was kinda a friend thing. But even if you haven't done that we've been exposed to media our whole lives of women going out with men and so the idea is familiar to us and not as threatening. But dating a girl is untrod territory and so it feels scary. Especially because you might have never seen two girls go out together on a date. I only recently have met one girl who is currently with another girl. One, in my entire life! But I know tons of girls with boyfriends. So I really think it is an exposure thing. If it makes you feel any better, I have been able to get over this fear by thinking about how easy it is for me to go somewhere with a girl as a friend. IMHO, for me this has always been easier to do since I grew up only really having female friends, and I actually am even MORE nervous going out with a guy. There is something about going out with the same gender that just seems easier to me. Hopefully that helps.

 

This exactly. You say things like, "I just really wanted to be able to go out with girls" and "I really love the idea of going out with a girl and going on cute dates and getting old together and stuff like that". Now I can't say if you are gay/bi/pan/etc. but the fact that you think these things probably means that you have an attraction to women, explore it! There are definitely people out there that are okay with partners who are maybe unsure of their sexuality/questioning if they open up about it!

This could be the reason you have trouble interpreting your feelings when girls ask you out. Try watching romantic shows or movies with lesbian couples and see how it makes you feel to be in their position. This helped me interpret and contextualise my feelings towards wlw and lesbians and helped me realise that a female partner is something I prefer.

 

Gosh, this this this! Thank you for posting this.

I'm 23, have PLENTY of experience but I still worry that I'm faking it for attention. I love women but when it comes to thinking about the nitty gritty I get so fixated on what I should be feeling that I suppose it's a bit like performance anxiety? Constantly monitoring/policing myself and worrying that I'm not bi enough.

I worry that I'm just trying to persuade myself that I like girls because it makes me feel special (mostly I just feel conspicuous and insecure). It makes it really hard when people with probably good intentions say "sexuality is spectrum" when I come out because it just feels like they think being bi isn't solid enough to merit telling people. I've been with women and I loved it! I've even had that doorstep kiss goodbye that leaves you with an unstoppable grin. But sooner or later that little questioning voice pops up again :/ I don't want to ignore it because doing that feels irresponsible - I want to prove it wrong but nothing is good enough for it apparently! If I constantly questioned weather or not I was attracted to men I'd probably feel the same, nothing takes the fun out of romance like turning it into a test, but that's not the world we grew up in I guess

I reaaaaally hope that's true because my anxious ass has spent a LOT of time worrying (p.s. sorry for long post, it was just so nice to know I wasn't alone in this)

 

God, I relate to this. I had essentially the same thing happen. I never became attracted to guys, so I kept assuming I was just a "late bloomer" or something, but at some point I noticed that my subconscious would flare up at the thought of lesbians, like if I saw a gay couple on TV or heard a girl refer to an "ex-girlfriend" or even misheard song lyrics or anything like that. At first, I shrugged it off, but eventually, I had to kind of face it. I remember very clearly thinking "Either I really want to kiss girls, or I have a really weird and inexplicable obsession with girls who do," and frankly the first one would make a lot more sense, so I tentatively started exploring those thoughts.

In the same way as you, I loved the thought of having a girlfriend and someday a wife, and I would fantasize about it in a way that I never fantasized about a boyfriend or husband. But when it came to the reality of trying to date a real life girl, I got terrified. And the more I liked a girl, the more terrified I was. I remember making a big elaborate first date with a girl I super duper liked as a person, and I spent like half of it in the bathroom with crippling anxiety. I eventually managed to calm down and ended up having a good time, but it wasn't a great start. We ended up dating for several months, but I was still scared and awkward about kissing or touching. But it was also my first ever real relationship, which most straight people have when they're, like, 12, so looking back, I think it was actually perfectly understandable and normal. Finding someone to date is hard when you're gay, and it's scary when you're inexperienced, but being scared isn't the same thing as being uninterested. Sometimes the scariest thing in life is the thought of getting exactly what you want.

My advice is to take it slow. If someone you're interested in asks you out, say yes, but feel free to tell them that you're nervous. Date online if you want to ease into it. Or join an LGBT social group if you're near a bigger city. Talk to LGBT people and make LGBT friends, even if you don't want to date them. A lot of them went through the same thing, or something similar. Process your feelings as they come. Things will get better.