Hey there. I know a lot of lgbt people but it seems like no one shares my "problem" and Idk, I'm just very confused? From my experience, people are usually romantically attracted to one or several genders (or none at all) and sexually attracted to the same or at least to some of them. Like, usually there's an overlap. I've heard of people being sexually attracted to gender a and romantically attracted to gender a and gender b. Or they were romantically attracted to several genders and sexually attracted to only one or non at all. You know what I mean? For me it's entirely different. I am sexually attracted to guys (or possibly just cis guys or generally people who have a penis; I'm not entirely sure yet). I do not have any interest in a romantic relationship with a guy though. Now the thing is, I do feel an aesthetic, emotional and maybe even romantic attraction to girls. I've never been in love, but I think what I'm experiencing would be descriped as platonic affection? I do feel zero sexual attraction to (cis?) girls though. So basically, I am sexually attracted to cis guys and emotionally/romantically attracted to cis girls (not sure about genders at this point. So my question is, how does this make any sense? I mean, there's no overlap between my sexual and romantic orientation at all. If I had to describe myself it would be grey homosexual demi hetero romantic. (I'm not entirely cis either, so if I take that into account it's simply impossible to put it into words.) Has anyone here experiences anything similar? Because I'm beyond lost at this point. Thank you for reading.
Hey, I don't have the most experience on this in the world but I think I do understand what you mean. I'm a gay guy, romantically and sexually attracted to guys and not so much to girls. But sexuality and romanticism can be two distinct things. Oftentimes they line up, I think a lot of people generate at least some feeling for the people they have sex with, or vice versa, they generate some physical feelings for the people they tend to be romantically attracted to. But of course it's possible for the two to be distinct. You say there's usually an overlap but everyone's different, and usually doesn't mean always. Human sexuality is amazingly complex. For me personally, before I was really old enough to understand sexual attraction and all the things attached to it, before the age of 12 kind of thing, I remember pretty much all my crushes in school being on girls. I know feelings as a kid and an adult are two different things, but for me I remember feeling an attraction, possibly a romantic attraction, that wasn't at all sexual. Maybe you feel something similar? Anyway to be honest I'm not the best person to ask, and more experienced people will give you answers better than me. I hesitate to say you're only seventeen from your profile and you might find your feelings change as you get older, while this may be true I also don't want to doubt the knowledge you have about yourself and your own feelings. There's nothing wrong with feeling this way at all though. I'm not sure how much experience you have, but as you start to think about relationships you will be automatically drawn to people, whether they be one gender or another. At least I think so, I could be wrong. But sometimes if you're unsure it can boil down to people, not regardless of their gender but a crush on a person may give you more insight into yourself and your sexuality than you realise. If you can analyse your feelings on an individual basis, I think you'll start to find out what you're comfortable with, who you're comfortable liking and what kind of relationships you want in your life =)
