ive always thought of myself as straight until about a year ago when i started questioning it when my friend jokingly called me gay when we were reeeally high. ive literally been obsessing for about a year trying to figure out what i am. ive been diagnosed with "hocd", but this still doesnt mean im definitely not attracted to guys. ive thought back at many situations and wondered what was really going on. sorry for the long essay by the way. the basic question i have is am i just not letting myself be gay/bi? when i was younger i used to call a lot of things "gay", cause they were stupid, not cause i hated gay poeple. basically everyone around me did, and being gay was known as a "bad" thing, and ive always wanted to fit in, so idk if i have some internalized homophobia or not. also i barely know any gay people, and i kind of get nervous when im around them. i dont mind that theyre gay, its all good by me, but i just get uneasy for some reason. ive never been close with any. maybe its because im afraid they can tell that im gay. recently i fapped to a guy for the first time and it surprisingly felt good, but idk if ill ever do it again. ive tried before and it felt weird every time, but this time i just let it happen and it was good, which is weirding me out. also i wanna say i get really nervous around both girls and guys, especially attractive ones, which is sort of a new thing for me since going to college. ive always been a nervous person, but now ive gotten some pretty bad social anxiety, but its recently been getting better. one thing that makes me think i want guys is that i can tell which ones are attractive and which are not. this started a little over a year ago. i had some really low self esteem, and in my quest to find out how attractive i was compared to other guys, i would check their hairlines/dimples/face shapes to get a good idea of where i was. now its like ive studied so much that i can just look and see now. so i had this best friend a couple years ago in high school for many years who ended up becoming better friends with another kid, and i basically ended up getting left out, which made me pretty jealous of the kid. then i had a different best friend this year and the same thing happened, with the same kid who stole my last best friend. i got very jealous this time. and i mean very jealous. is this because i wanted to bang him? ive never had any fantasies about either of these kids and it feels weird when i try to, but i dunno if this is just cause im not letting myself be gay. but on the other hand, ive always been a jealous person, sometimes to an unhealthy extent. i liked this girl earlier this year and when she would talk to different guys when i was with her or if i ever felt like another guy was getting close to her, i would become soooo jealous and angry. i know its totally wrong for me to feel that way so i try to keep my feelings under control, but i feel like they show through sometimes anyway. i had this professor last year who was a great guy, really good looking and pretty chill in general. he had some great beard flow i wish i could get. i admired him because of his great teaching skills and his chill personality. he also reminded me of me in a way. he didnt seem so masculine and intimidating. and the greatest thing is he never seemed nervous at all, like he could walk into a room and just be himself, which is something ive always wanted to be able to do. i figured he gets a lot of girls. i used to think how great it would be to be this guy. but now im wondering if i actually wanted to be like him or be with him. sorry for the essay, thanks for reading.
Well being able to tell when another male is attractive isn't an uncommon thing among straight men. Anyone can tell when another person is attractive, that's what people do. It's always difficult to figure out if what you're feeling is curiosity or legitimate attraction, but being curious isn't uncommon either, and nothing to be ashamed of if you end up curious. Though what can help in figuring out your sexuality is a lot of deep thinking about it. Would you mind sexually, getting involved with another man? You know, foreign penis. That's double the penis. Also, in a romantic setting. Do you think that you can have real romantic feelings for another man? Fall in love, spend your life with, all that? You've described yourself as a very jealous person. Someone repeatedly taking your friends, that makes sense for you to be jealous. Being jealous doesn't mean you want to 'bang' a person. There are several degrees of jealousy and not all mean that you are attracted to one of the persons involved. It's natural to feel jealousy when you're feeling left out. The fact you say it feels weird when you /try/ to have fantasies about men should be a good hint. Just sort of think about how you feel about this.
I second everything GiddyGreen said, and I'll add that feeling nervous or awkward around gay people (or people you think might be gay) isn't that unusual, but it's something you want to address sooner rather than later. That reaction probably has to do with your own anxiety and obsessive thoughts about potentially being gay, and you don't want to punish a totally innocent stranger by treating them differently just 'cause of their orientation. Once you become more comfortable with yourself (whether you decide you're straight, gay, or something in between) these feelings of discomfort around gay people will probably disappear. You said you got off thinking about a guy and it didn't feel that weird anymore, which was weirding you out. It may not be that you're actually turned on by guys, but that you're letting yourself explore your sexuality, which is normal and nothing to be ashamed of. If you're really into guys sexually, thinking about them while jacking it would be second-nature, something you do without worrying or stressing about it. Of course, it could be that you really are turned on by men, but from all that you've said it seems like you might just be a straight guy suffering from OCD, or maybe a little bicurious. But from what you've said about guys, what you're doing isn't lusting after them so much as comparing yourself to them. "If I looked like this guy, I'd get all the ladies." or "I'd feel better about myself if I looked and acted like this guy." It's a self-confidence issue wrapped up in your own obsessive thoughts.
