Hi everyone. I'm a woman, and I'm in a happy and healthy same-sex relationship. Over the past years, I've spent hours torturing myself to try to know the answer: what is my sexuality? I don't know if a lot of people are feeling the same, but the fact that you can't seem to put a word down which encapsulate your feelings is so frustrating. I should mention that I have a generalized anxiety disorder, and that my obsession to figure out my sexuality strikes again at time where im rlly f anxious and self-conscient. My feelings can't seem to make sense. Basically, I've built myself sexually and romantically around girls. I know that girls give me the strongest, warmest feeling. I'm with one right now as I mentioned and it feels so damn right. But, I've never seem to understand what I'm feeling (or not) for men. I know that I find some men real attractive; I appreciate masculinity very much. However, my feelings toward them never seemed strong nor genuine. I've experimented with some dudes, maybe not to much but after accumulating experience where from the very beginning I thought to myself: 'I know I won't like it', I was like fuck it, I want to be with a woman, and it made me feel so good. But there are those periods of doubt where I'm thinking to myself "am I restraining my feelings for guys? Blocking them?" like for instance I will find a guy really cute online and immediately think "does that mean im attracted to him?" and feel a great level of confusion and discomfort. Identifying myself as bi is weird to me like I know it feels wrong but sometimes I feel totally attracted less if it makes sense like I was preventing myself from attractions, including for men . But when someone is telling me "you're gay" or "you're a lesbian" I always feel a certain level of satisfaction even if I immediately say "im not". Saying im bi makes me uncomfortable af but maybe if I did I would embrace this little part of me thats into guys. I've never fantasize about a guy seriously (or maybe when I was 8 lol) and never felt anything while kissing one. Idk what to think.
Seems to me like you have some hangups when it comes to sexuality, and there are strong indications that what you're feeling could be socially conditioned. For example, you said you take pride in being referred to as "gay" or "a lesbian," but bisexual is a label that makes you uncomfortable. Although I don't know you well enough to say for sure, this sure sounds like the product of society's binary views on sexuality: You're either gay or straight because there's nothing in-between. Or worse yet, that bisexual people are simply individuals trying to have it both ways. This might seem like a very backward way of thinking, but it would make sense given how you feel about possibly being labeled as bisexual and why you're so averse to bisexuality. The fact that you've mentioned being attracted to women and that being in a relationship with a woman "feels right" is basically all the answer you should need. I get the impression that you're very unsure of yourself. Do you tend to second-guess your decisions in day-to-day life? I think that's probably what's happening here. You don't have to be heterosexual to find men attractive. Even straight men (who aren't insecure in their heterosexuality) can point to another man and say, "Yep, that's a good-looking fella." Based on your post, I'm not getting a strong indication that your attraction towards these men is sexual or romantic in nature. To me, it sounds similar to a straight man being able to identify attractiveness in another man. It seems that another concern you have is that you might've unintentionally sabotaged your "experimentation" with men by telling yourself you won't like it from the get-go. In my experience, that's not really how sexual orientation works. Either you're into it or you're not, and it's usually very clear when you are. If you had sexual feelings toward men, you would've known in those instances. The fact that you got out of those encounters and actively decided to pursue relationships with women is, again, very telling. Unfortunately, the only person on this forum who can answer this question for you is you. Experimenting with men is probably what a lot of people here might've suggested if you had never been with men before and wanted to see if you might be bisexual, but since you've already been with men in the past, then in theory, you should have all the experience you need to come to a conclusion. That's why I'm inclined to believe that you're someone who second-guesses your decisions a lot. Hopefully this helps.
Thank you so much for your answer, you've clearly get what I was trying to say and that's really nice. To respond about the part concerning bisexuality, it's true that I may have been influenced by my surrounding ; I've heard countless times "bisexuality is not real", "he's just gay" but of course that I believe that it is a real sexuality; and that's another reason why I wonder if I'm not bi sometimes, but influenced by some bad opinions about bisexuality. However, as you said: It's true that my feelings always revolved around women and practically never around men, and if so it would very brief, the same way that a straight girl/guy can feel sometimes about the same sex before realizing that it was not real attraction but some kind of admiration etc. Like when my girl friends say stuff like "she's so hot" or "girls are so prettier than guys" I was always kind of phased but when would I ask them, they would say to me that it doesn't have anything to do with their sexuality but aesthetic appreciation. I think I feel the same about guys. And yeah, I second guess each of my actions in my day to day life, due to anxiety (ppl who have anxiety disorder know how it feels to not trust your thoughts and yourself). And that's why I've tried like maybe 4 or 5 times to have romantic or sexual bound with guys, just to "make sure" that I could have a level of attraction to them, even if I had no real envy at all. I'm still uncomfortable with calling myself a lesbian tho, but I guess it takes time; and I would say that even if I believe that love is beautiful and that its the bound that matters, in terms of sexual and romantic preferences I barely felt anything in my whole life towards guys and I don't think it would really happen, but who knows. Thank you again
