How did you know?

pwew, those are a lot of questions! my experience is different from yours, but i’ll try my best to answer them to the extent i can, and feel free to ask if there’s something you relate to and what to know more about

i always sort of instinctively knew i wasn’t into men. i’m not sure if i realised this at the time, but from i was a preteen onwards i was always very clear in that i didn’t want a boyfriend (although when prompted to write a story about my future when i was 11, it did include a perfect nuclear family). never grew out of that phase, and when i was 14 or so i started calling myself queer online but didn’t actively seek to define that any further because all i knew was that i had never liked a boy and no desire to get one either. i didn’t feel like i needed to use the label offline because since i did not think i was into girls i was not super bothered by the assumption that i was straight. and because i was so clear about never wanting a boyfriend, after a while people stopped questioning it and i wasn’t forced to question it myself anymore, either. i should add that them no longer questioning meant that they accepted i wanted to stay single forever (though i am sure they still pretended it was a phase in their heads), NOT that i could be gay, i don’t think that is anything that crossed their mind. and it still doesn’t: just yesterday my mother was on the phone and said she had “two regular kids, one who never wants a relationship, and one who i’m not sure is even into the opposite gender” ... and that last one wasn’t me but my brother who is 16 and never had a girlfriend. by extension, i never thought of that possibility either because it wasn’t talked about so i just assumed i was probably asexual when i was in my mid teens but didn’t bother to actually get attached to the label, i figured i had time anyway.

only when i was 21 did i REALLY start questioning my sexuality (after questioning my gender and not understanding why i had so many issues with being female and having the body i had, but also didn’t feel like anything else, and really addressing that for myself - turns out my gender issue was the expectation of heterosexuality and having to be attractive to men!) i think i needed to work through some of those gender issues before i could even allow myself to think about sexuality. from there on... it’s really been a mess. and i sometimes wish i could back to pre-questioning days because it was so much easier... i’m from an accepting country, my hometown is a bit close minded but i know my family is ok and would probably be okay with it, my friends would all be okay with me being gay, i’m sure, and i keep thinking /i/ would be okay with it too, but still the past three years have been a MESS and i still doubt my identity until today. am i interpreting my attractions right or just making them up? how can i know if i have no solid experience? do i really not experience attraction to men or am i just denying it just like i repressed my feelings for women all these years? what wouldother people think if they knew?

there have been times and ocassionally there still are times that these thoughts drive me to despair and get in the way of everything. even though i always thought i would be okay with being gay, i still catch internalised homophobic thoughts: when i think of a girl i feel dirty and i feel like i’m violating her (even though she’d never know and surely lots of people do this, this goes for people i know and strangers like celebs/porn alike), even if it’s just thinking about touching her arm or kissing her. just earlier today i was talking to a girl i met on a dating app and felt warm and giddy and caught myself thinking “ew ezra, not ok” even though the whole point of dating apps is to make you find someone who makes you feel that way!! i really have to force myself to do those things, and it’s definitely a process i have had to work through to stop feeling dirty or ashamed about... but a necessary one because the other option is forever repressing everything and never really understanding who i am and what i want.

these things defintely control my mood, they can really throw me off sometimes. on days that i feel confident about who i am, my mood is boosted positively. on days i doubt myself (which unfortunatelt still is the majority of the time) it can bring be really, really down, to the point where i never want to face anyone anymore because then at least i won’t have to know my sexuality to feel like i can function the way other people do. god, sometimes it would be so easy to just go into hiding and cry forever and never have to face any reality... but the knowledge that one day i might know for sure who i am, regardless of which label it is, and feel comfortable with that is worth it to keep going. i was just 21 when i actively started questioning, i’m almost 24 now, and i do know i’ve learned a lot about myself since then that i would never have known if i’d ignored it like i’d done the many years before.

 

I can't really address what you wrote because I have never related to it, but I'll answer your questions and hopefully that will help in some way. I suspect you're pretty young, though, and...I know most people don't like hearing/reading this, but it just takes time for some people to know what their orientation is--especially if you've never dated anybody. It's frustrating, but it does make some sense to be confused if you're young and inexperienced.

I've always known that. I just haven't always known I was a lesbian. I used to be confused about whether or not I liked guys, but I've always known I like women.

Crushes on female friends when I was a kid and paying more attention to attractive actresses on TV than attractive actors.

To myself? I guess you could kind of say that. I'll answer this when addressing another of your questions.

No, none of that. I have never seen anything wrong with how I felt or myself.

Although I always knew I liked women, part of me used to question whether or not I could actually date one and have sex with one. I had my first girlfriend at 17 and thought maybe it was just her. We were on and off for 3 years. Then I liked another girl in college and started hanging out in lesbian chat rooms, chatting with lesbians and bi girls, and just had zero interest in talking to/dating guys during the time I liked this other girl. So, around 21-22 I pretty much had to fully admit, "Okay, I like girls, I want to date girls, I want to be physical with girls." I still wasn't comfortable with the "lesbian" label, though.

Being physically vulnerable if I'm out. I'm hyper-concerned about my physical safety, almost like an OCD. It's bad enough being a woman and having to worry about my physical safety because of that. I literally never feel safe just for being a woman, let alone my race or sexual orientation. And then coming out, I have to worry even more about being physically attacked because of that. That's still really the scariest thing to me. I know for other LGB people, they're more so scared of coming out to family. But for me, it's like, "I don't want to be beaten, raped and/or killed because I'm a lesbian." This is the main reason I never come out to guys who ask me out. A lot of men act crazy enough when you reject them without throwing that into the mix.

Nope. Never had a relationship with a guy.

Yes, but more because I don't usually fit in with women than because of sexual orientation.

I think, for me, it affected actions and thoughts in a very normal way. For example, going into the chat rooms was a way to try to figure out what my orientation was exactly. I read books, blogs, watched movies, watched the gay/les shows that were coming on TV (or most of them), went to LGBT meetings. It was not obsessive, constantly worrying, feeling self-hatred and stuff like that. I did try to make LGBT friends in person, and it just never worked for me. I find that I tend not to relate to LGBT people very much...which, honestly, I probably only relate to .000001% of the world's population. But I still somehow relate to straight people more often because I'm not stereotypical enough for LGBT people I come across, and, kind of like the questions you're asking, I just don't let being a lesbian get to me and never have. I feel like it's a very small part of my life and who I am--really, to me, it's about nothing but who I want to date and be with--and I just think to most other LGBT people it's such a big deal to them to be LGBT (and I'm not saying anything is wrong with that, just that I can't fathom being that way) and they assume we're all like that and don't understand if you say you're not like that. This especially seems to be true with LG & T. So, I kept my straight friends and kept making straight friends.

I don't think so.

 

To answer some of your questions, I think the first time the thought of being gay crossed my mind, I was in sixth grade. From ages 8-12 I stared at women the way straight 8-12 year old boys stare at women, and I never thought that it was wrong, or made me "not straight," and I definitely did not realize how unsubtle I was when I stared at them. I thought I was staring at them because I wanted to be like them. People started calling me a lesbian in sixth grade because I was staring at the girls in our class so much, and as it was a public middle school in Texas, they were not sincerely questioning my identity, they meant to ridicule me. I knew so few gay people, and I really didn't completely understand what it meant to be gay, I just knew that it was a bad thing, and if people thought I was that bad thing, I'd be ridiculed like I was back then. I didn't think people were actually gay in real life, so I didn't think I was either, and that all I had to do in the future, to avoid being called something as awful as a lesbian, was to make more of an effort to not look at women so much. So I feel like if the circumstances had been different, I could have let myself explore what I was feeling for women, and maybe I would have known at that time in my life instead of rejecting any notion that I might be gay. I started becoming very aware of how I acted around girls. I knew that I liked getting attention from boys, so I thought that meant I liked boys, which meant I could not be a lesbian. For a long time, that was enough for me, and I didn't feel like I had to actively repress anything. Occasionally I would catch myself having very intense feelings of what I thought was platonic admiration for women, and I would tell myself whatever I had to in order to forget about it (mostly just that I really wanted to be her friend, or be like her, etc.) Being in denial was not particularly painful once I got past what happened to me in sixth grade, I was pretty much blissfully unaware. Then I went to college and finally admitted to myself that I liked girls, but I thought I was only a little bit bi, and that I definitely liked boys still. That was the second, and stronger, phase of denial I went through. I guess what scared me was the thought of publicly dating a girl. Like, the thought of telling my friends and family that I had a girlfriend was too much for me, so I focused on what I thought I could feel for boys. I finally recognized how much I liked girls a year ago when I developed an undeniable crush on a girl. I knew she was gay when I started liking her, and I think I needed to know that to make myself understand how deep my feelings for girls are. Since then, I've been analyzing basically every thought I've ever had, and I understand now that I have always liked girls, even when I didn't realize it, or hoped that I didn't, and that I've only had feelings for boys because I liked feeling validated.

I think it's important to note that if you don't feel any urge to engage in sexual or romantic relations with the same gender, it's true that that could be your mind playing tricks on you, but it also could honestly be that you don't actually feel anything for women. I know when your questioning yourself, it can feel like you don't know yourself at all, and you feel like you have no idea which feelings are real and which are expected of you, but if there is absolutely no part of you that feels attracted to women, it may be worth considering that you aren't actually attracted to women. Of course, you're the only one who can figure that out. Did something happen that made you start to feel like you might like girls?

 

Not asking you to. And I/we don't need it.

Everyone's experience is different. Just because I experienced being a lesbian one way doesn't mean most other lesbians, bi women and pan women have the same experience. Hopefully, the different answers you get will kind of demonstrate that, and really reading different posts on this site definitely will. And I can tell you don't want to hear/read this, but just because you've never liked another girl doesn't mean you're not bi, pan or a lesbian.

It's not really misogynistic; it's more so homophobic. The way you react to women--or, really, the reasons why--and your repeated "I have never liked a girl, I have never liked a girl" statements ring more of homophobia than anything else. Even saying you're "afraid" points more to homophobia. You don't want to be gay/not straight. I get it, even though, as I said, I have never really related to it. But plenty of other people here do feel the same or have felt the same or have some other level of internalized homophobia.

And...if you run from girls, then of course you've never liked one. It really sounds like you know the possibility for it is there, and that's why you run and don't want to be around a lot of girls.

 

When I dated boys, it never felt wrong, but I can't say it felt right. I never felt repulsed by men. I think my feelings for men range from apathetic to lukewarm. Maybe, slightly warmer than lukewarm if I really put in the effort. There was one boy I dated who I had a deep emotional, but platonic, connection with, and although I felt closer to him than the others, I still found myself wondering if something was missing. I was just never aware of the fact that I was so bored with men. I genuinely thought that was as good as things could get, so I never questioned it. Almost every other guy I've "liked" or dated, I always had to make myself like them, or they were unavailable in some way, like they lived in another state or something, and I could just live out our imaginary relationship in my head without actually having to be with them. I didn't realize I was trying to avoid being with men.

I think I should emphasize that I always thought I liked boys. Even after I admitted to myself that I liked girls, I just assumed that I liked boys, because I had gone my whole life believing I did, and because I was too afraid to really understand my feelings for girls. If I'm completely honest, even though I'm trying to see how it feels calling myself a lesbian, I still sometimes wonder if I could like boys, and maybe I just haven't found the right one. That's something I'm personally trying to make sense of though. But yes, I think it is possible to experience unconscious denial. That's exactly how I would describe my experience. I was blissfully unaware of my feelings for women and I thought if I waited it out long enough, I could find a boy I'd fall completely in love with. I mean, I knew that I liked staring at girls, but I was entirely convinced that it was just casual admiration. It was only when I caught myself having deep feelings for a confidently gay girl in college that I finally decided to confront my feelings for women. Upon realizing that I was much further up on the Kinsey scale than I thought before, I finally had the courage to question my attraction to men, and realized that I don't find myself drawn to men the way I am, and unknowingly always have been, with women.

It's a good thing that you're willing to question yourself, a lot of people are too afraid to do even that, so give yourself some credit. I think I should also mention that nobody on this site, or anywhere else, can tell you what your sexual orientation is, or whether or not you're in denial. I know that when you're unsure of your sexual orientation, especially if you've assumed you were straight for most of your life, just the thought of being attracted to the same sex can send you into a panic, and it sounds like that may be where you're at right now. The truth is that we don't have a say in who we find ourselves drawn to, so you are right to say that it feels like you have no choice in who you like anymore. With patience and self acceptance, you may find that you are attracted to women, or you may realize otherwise. There's unfortunately no shortcut to finding that out. Try not to test yourself so much. It sounds like you like boys, so if you find yourself having feelings for a boy, let it happen. If you realize later on that your feelings for boys aren't what you thought they were, there's nothing wrong with re-evaluating yourself. Don't overthink it. If you find yourself catching feelings for a girl, don't panic or force it, just breathe and know that there's nothing wrong with being attracted to her. There's nothing predatory or shameful about liking girls that way, and if that is part of your sexual orientation, you won't be able to outrun it. Surrounding yourself with LGBT positivity (tumblr, youtubers, musicians, books, etc.) can be helpful in coming to terms with this. Focus on what you know you feel, not what you think you could feel or might feel, or what you think you should feel. I hope that's at least somewhat helpful for you, I know this is confusing. All I can say is to give yourself time.

 

I've always liked to say that I denied my sexuality, was in denial, etc. until my mid to late teenage years. The more I reflect though I feel as if it's more of I wasn't informed and educated on the subject at the time of early youth to even recognize it in myself. I would say I 100% fully recognized this is myself around the age of 15 or 16, and this was after better educating myself about it, after this was the point in which I was denial for a few years.

What led me to educating myself on the LGBT subject was the fact that I was just not experiencing things and feelings that friends and other girls my age seemed to be experiencing. Other girls were dating boys, lusting over boys, and constantly talking about boys, I however dated nor wanted to date any boys, found no boys attractive, and felt odd and left out in conversations about boys. After many conversations and being around so many straight girls for so long I realized that all these feelings and thoughts they'd been having towards boys were in fact feelings and thoughts I'd been feeling as well, except towards females. This led to years of questioning and educating myself on what it meant to be gay/lesbian and sure enough this was me. After realizing I was a lesbian I didn't want anyone to know, this then led me to relationships with boys in which I had no mutual feelings and denying I was a lesbian, the denial mostly was directed towards others, I didn't want anyone to know. I was so afraid of admitting to another human that I was a lesbian, what would they think? Would they suddenly not like me anymore? Would I be made fun of? etc. I mean besides at the time I nor anyone else didn't really seem to know any gay people. Really would they even know what it meant when I said it? It was all so scary. Eventually I did come out to a couple close friends and then a few more. After entering my first lesbian relationship I came out to everyone, it just felt easier to do with the support of someone so close.

So for me I would say lack of knowledge and lack of lgbt people in my presence were the main factors for me.

 

see, i’ve actually come to learn that overanalysing isn’t going to be successful, so i’ve let go and decided i would just live life, explore things, figure it out. i solve most questions when i don’t actively seek the answers to them. currently, it’s time and an open mind that i need, and i’m positive i’ll figure it out one day - one step at a time.

i do want to point out one thing in what you said... to look at a girl pretending to be a heterosexual man is not at all the same as looking at one as a lesbian. the male gaze is fuelled by gender hierarchy and power relations while being gay, by default, goes against the way gender hierarchies are constructed (most of the structures holding it in place are built on the assumption of heterosexuality). and while i definitely don’t mean every man looks at girls as if he wants to dominate her or whatever, men are taught from a very early age to regard girls in certain ways — whereas women are never taught to look at girls beyond friendship so there’s an entirely different background to the types of attraction (opposite sex attraction is norm-reinforcing; same sex gender attraction is norm-defying).
i don’t necessarily mean you “did it wrong” but i just wanted to point out that flaw in your thinking/formulation. i’d never want to look at a girl the way a heterosexual man would

 

Well, the first time I ever had the thought that I was anything other than straight was 6th grade. It was the year the song "Same Love" came out, and when I first listened to the lyrics, like REALLY listened, I felt a connection to the song, something I had never felt about anything in my life. I then proceeded to push down those feelings and thoughts for about a year, until I developed strong feelings for a girl in my grade. By then, I had actually forgotten about my whole thing with the song lyrics, and was basically bombarded with a crap ton of confusion and self-rejection. I did my best to tell myself that this was a one time thing, but by 8th grade I started to accept that I wasn't straight. This came mostly from falling in love with a girl who I had thought had a crush on me. But that was also super hard, because I had never really seen or been around anyone who wasn't straight, or at least consciously out. I had never heard what my mom's feelings were regarding the LGBT+ community, so I stuffed my feelings down and away, and I also did my best to convince myself from 7th-9th grade that I still liked guys. But especially as I slowly got through my first year of high school and was around so many people with so many different identities, I started to accept myself and learned that IT IS OKAY TO BE DIFFERENT. I sort of cannonballed out of the closet at school in the beginning of 10th grade, and it instantly brought me tons of new friends that were like me, and also helped me become much more confident. Granted, it has been insanely difficult, especially with so little insight, but time has definitely helped make it all better and worthwhile.