Not sure if I'm gay/bi because I "like" men or because I'm "fitting" into a "role" (bear with me)

Ok, so, I know it probably sounds ridiculous and dumb but bear with me for the next 5 or so minutes.

Also this might be slightly TMI. I'm not sure what's considered TMI/not TMI in here (Very new). Anyway, don't say I didn't warn you.

Anyway, so, when I was in what Americans would call the end of elementary school/start of middle school (in Denmark elementary school and middle school are combined into one "peoples school", and maybe high school too I'm not quite sure. Currently I'm either in the end of middle school or start of highschool idk American school system is confusing) I was called gay a lot (It should be noted this was mostly from friends, like, "teasing" or something). The biggest cause of that probably being that I was a somewhat feminine elementary/middle schooler.

After years or months (I'm not sure my memory and perception of time is wack of this (being called gay)) I eventually started thinking about what that meant, and after thinking about it on-and-off for, like, a little under a week, I think. I thought, "yeah men can be pretty hot yadayada, so I guess they were right". And so I came out (which, in hindsight was way way too early) to one of the girls in my friend group. Nothing happened socially from that other than her calling me gay less often, since I told her to not tell anyone. And not much after that I also told my close family

Although at the time, every single "crush" I had had was a girl. Although by "crush" I don't mean someone I actually wanted to be in a relationship with (which is good because 90% of the people I had a crush on as a elementary schooler were insufferable), because I was, like, 10 or 12, I had no idea what that actually means. By "crush" I just mean someone attractive, that wasn't in a "relationship", who I would answer with if I accidently fucked myself into the social situation of having to answer the steterotypical elementary school question "Who do you like?". I specifically remember "scanning" through the girls in the classroom (like, when I was 6 or 7 or 8) to find the person that I "like" the most. "Who do you like" "culture" was very big in my school in the lower grades, as I think they are in every school in the lower grades.

Anyway not much after that (telling the girl I was gay) I changed schools (unrelated reasons) and then I changed again (again, unrelated reasons) to the one I am at now, anyway I have this "crush" of a guy, let's call him David (not his actual name, I'm just sneaky like that). David is smart, charming, funny, kind, attractive, tall, all that good shit. All around a very good guy, but I'm not sure if I actually like him or if I just subconciously think "I'm gay, he's all that good shit, therefore I must like him", and then that is making me hyperfocus on his qualities and overexagerate them. AND much like when i was 6 or 7 or 8, I specifically remember "scanning" through the boys in the classroom to find the person that I "like" the most (although this time with more consideration than just who was the most conventinally attractive and well-percieved), still when I think back on it ("scanning" the classroom) I feel like I haven't moved past the "crushing on X person because it is what is expected from me" kind of thinking. Maybe I don't actually want to be "with" David, I just want to close friends (or be David, that would be pretty awesome too)

Actually, I've never felt a "romantic" attraction to a girl (and by that I mean, like fantasised about a relationship beyond sexual stuff, or fantasised about non-sexual initmacy/closeness, like cuddling, or eating breakfast together, or something like that), like I have with guys, although I don't know if that is because I'm gay or because "romantic" attraction is just a naturally developing part of sexuality and I just happened to "trick myself into being gay" around the same time of this development

(And this below is the TMI part)
Anyway, so lately I've been worried about this whole thing this thread is about (hence why I'm here, duh), and so I wanted to kinda "measure" my sexuality, as much as I now could. To do this I would go from a place of "unhorniness", like, when not thinking of horny stuff at the start of the experiment, so as not to interfere with the results. Put up a picture of a naked dude or woman, stare at it, and measure how long it took before I got hard (SCIENCE!!!), and in the vast mayority of cases, the woman made it happen faster (it should be noted that this could possibly be because of the higher quality of the women pictures than the dude pictures, probably due to the bigger market in their production). Which also aligns with my experiences when fantasising about girls/dudes; the amount of time and "thought power" I need to put into fantasising before I get hard, is a lot less with girls than with dudes. Maybe the getting hard from thinking/seeing naked dudes, is just a natural part of seeing/thinking about naked people. All this varies a lot, sometimes dudes don't seem attractive at all, and other times they are the hottest thing on earth, although what I described previously is the vast norm.


Anyway, I think that was all, to summerize/TL;DR: When I was a child (like under 12) I was called gay a lot, which made me think that I was gay (right now I don't know if I am or not) and also come out as gay to some friends and family, when I was super young (like under 10ish) if I had a crush or not on somebody was determined primarily by who was the most expected of me to like, and not by love or infatuation for the other person, I "fear" that this is still how I operate, semi-subconsciously, and that I don't actually "like" guys, I just think I do because thats what it means to be gay. I cannot remember any girl where I wanted/fantasised about any non-sexual intimacy, like cuddling or eating breakfast together, unlike with dudes where I do this rather often. I have "tested" myself to see how long it takes before I get hard when I think about/look at pictures of men/women, and women make it happen faster than men for the most part.

It's going to take some time before I respond if you answer close to when I create this thread, because it's 2 AM and Wednesday (well, technically it was Wednesday a little over 2 hours ago). So I need sleep, now.

Sorry if my English is horrible, I'm Danish, dumb, tired, and my spellcheck is set to Danish and I can't be bothered to change it

Also sorry if I forgot something and have to explain further later, I am so tired it's actually insane.

Anyway, bye. Cya in, like, 14 hours, hopefully.

 

Oops, sorry, I thought Emptyclosets showed my age since there is that ticked box in profile settings about if it should show age to other users: I'm 16, which, after googling a small bit, I think is about what equates to in the middle of highschool.

It's not so much about labels, I don't really care what word fits me best in the end, at least not when it comes to describing myself to myself, what I worry about is that the "label" (or idea is maybe a better word) I and others have of me is molding the way I think and act to conform to that label/idea, i.e. I worry it doesn't go "I like men -> I am gay/someone that likes men" and instead "I am gay/someone that likes men -> I like men". I worry that the idea came before the attraction, due to my leap into considering myself someone that likes men without much forthought, and without any men I had previously found attractive, if that makes sense. I can try to explain it better but I am horrible at explaining things in general. The seed for this doubt being my greater sexual attraction to women, and the most often rather "minimal" sexual attraction I have to men, which I worry might not be an attraction to men, specifically, but instead just a natural (and by that I mean, like, something "normal", straight people do/have)

I know.

 

Should be corrected to

 

Well, that is very nice to know Makes me feel not insane.

I don't think I do, but I am not sure. However, I do have Aspergers (or autism or whatever it's supposed to be called). I don't know if that has an effect or is relevant, I just thought I would mention it since we're talking about mental disorders and whatnot.

I think, maybe. It's a bit hard to remember my exact internal "thought process" from almost 10 years ago

And that is the question I am trying to find an answer to. Unless by that you mean "Do you ever experience sexual and/or emotional fantasies about other guys without the conscious choice of testing yourself", in which case the answer is yes, I have thought about other guys without consciously thinking "I am gay, therefore I like him". But what I worry about is that this happens subconciously (or some other psychology "nonsense" like that), like, for example, it could be that my infutuation with a guy (example: David guy) started from me semi-consciously thinking how "I'm gay and this guy has a lot of a good qualities therefore it would only make sense for me to like him", resulting in me overexaggerating/"ideolising" his qualities, and then now not actually liking him because gay but liking him because the subconscious idea I have of him is "god-like"... Maybe, that explaination is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think/hope you get the general gist of what I'm trying to say.

I'm gonna answer them in the hope that at some later time someone will use them and ascend like an angel to fix all of my problems

 

Thank you. Yes, it has alleviated some of my concerns, or made me feel more at ease, or something like that. So thank you, stranger. I appreciate it.