Stories of how you guys came to discover yourselves?

I always knew I was a girl, attracted to boy, girls and everything else.

But I repressed and denied and lied to myself until my legitimacy was gone. I pretended I was a straight cis guy and eventually after a long hard road of self-harm and suicide, I escaped. Then I knew I had to stop lying to myself. I had to be me. Not the drone society made me into, but the actual, human me.

 

Wow, I seem like a late bloomer compared to most of the posters in this thread. I guess I only realised that I has bi (strongly leaning to gay)/gay at around 16 or 17. I dated a girl for 1.5 years or so in high school and we fooled around like all teenage couples do, but it always felt like something was lacking.

I can't describe this feeling to this day, however. After I started dating my ex boyfriend and then a subsequent hook-up with another guy did I realise how much more I connected with males physically and emotionally than women, and the musky scent of guys were just second to none compared to the opposite sex.

And yeah, that was when I started to question my sexuality and tried for years to repress any feelings I had for men.

 

An online friend asked if I was gay and I had a long thought about it and realized I am... I don't even know how I didn't know considering I have always liked guys. I guess I didn't want to admit it to myself until I realized people would accept me.

 

I have a very similar story. It was only when my friend asked me that I put all the pieces together and realized what should have been obvious.

 

Ever since I was a very little kid (5 or 6) I had innocent little crushes on boys and girls but I really didn't know it wasn't normal. My first 'holy crap, I'm different from everyone else' moment was in 6th grade though. At least this moment sticks out for me.

I got caught looking at a girl for too long in the locker room. I was walking to class with my only friend in school when a girl came up to her and said something like, "You don't want to hang out with her." My friend asked why and she asked her to come to her. She whispered in her ear and left. My friend came back over to me and I asked her what the girl had said. My friend told me that the girl said that I look at girls in the locker room and that I was a lesbian.

Hearing this kinda shocked me. Someone had been paying attention to me and found that I was different. When I was that age it bothered me more that someone payed that much attention to me rather than thinking I was gay. But it made it all real. Vague little wisps of questions floating around in my head that I never really payed mind to were out in the real world now. Words I had never uttered came out of someones mouth. Albeit, the word lesbian was incorrect in describing me but at the time it was the closest thing to my reality.

After hearing from my friend what that girl had labeled me as I told my friend immediately that I was not a lesbian. Fortunately, the rumor began and ended with that girl. No one in school ever called me a lesbian again. But I think that's when I seriously started to take a look at my own sexuality and started the 12 year journey to figuring out who I was and finally coming out to my best friend and saying the words, "I'm bisexual" out loud.

I always disliked that girl in school. The one who saw me more clearly than anyone else had. Looking back I have her to thank for starting my quest into figuring myself out.

It was a difficult journey but totally worth it in the end.

 

It all began to make sense this year when I realized that I had feelings for one of my guy friends. I thought at first that maybe I just wanted to be close friends with him, but I should have known that it was more than that.

Looking back on it, I've actually had crushes on other guys before, but I really didn't think much of it at the time. I knew that I wasn't gay though, because I've had genuine feelings for girls in the past as well. So it all just added up over the years and I realized I was bisexual.

 

I'd never actually felt straight or anything else, I was always attracted to guys, but I'd always just ignore it somehow and not even consider what I actually was. It was only in my last year of secondary school that I actually started thinking and panicking about it. Since then I came out to two people, one of whom is soon to be my secret boyfriend ^-^

 

Well for me, I am a late bloomer as when I was 14/15 was when I felt my first feelings that I thought was just me wanting to be "best friends" but at 20 I only just realized that these feelings, were more than just friendship, it was more like I wanted to be with him and see him everyday and I even wanted him to wrap his arms around me. I remember these moments strongly because afterwards I took the whole thing like he broke up with me. I got really depressed and then I started to hate him after a while cause he hurt me.

 

I've always liked girls but I just never knew what that feeling was. About a year and a half ago this basically happened:

me: sees girl
me: woah she's hot
me: wait what

and that's when I started questioning and here I am today almost certain I am a lesbian

 

I just stumbled on this website by accident but it actually fits perfectly with my crisis, I'm straight, or bi-curious, I really have no idea what so ever. I just started really questioning myself this year cause I would walk down the hallway of my HS and would be strangely attracted to hot guys. Ever since I've been watching gay porn and I don't think I was ever weirded out by it, I don't know if that means anything? But now I just graduated HS and I'm headed into college, so I'm wondering if I should experiment? This whole thing is really confusing cause I had a girlfriend about a year and a half ago. I had to fill out a survey for my school housing and probably the hardest question on there was "what is your sexual orientation". I don't really know what else to post on this because, like I said, I literally just stumbled on this website and decided to make an account. I guess, any advice/similar stories out there that can help me figure out this mess?

 

Since age 11 or 12, I've questions my sexuality, but at age 13, I thought I was bi. This was until last month, when I realized I am pansexual, not bi. When I read the definition online, it just send to click; that describes me perfectly, I said. It was never just one event, though.

 

when i was in kgrade i had a big crush on this girl named macey i didnt understood myself yet but i liked girls i remeber a commercial was playing to help chlderen not become gay and my mom said "digusting" and turn off the tv and told me its wrong to like the same gender. in 2nd grade i got picked on when i said i liked girls and then during 6th grade i had a crush on another girl then i searched on google "help i like girls!" and thats when i found out about gay peope i realized i was gay during the summer and was scared out of my mind cause my family is homophobic i came out in 7th grade after christmas break even now i have problems cause my parents DO NOT WANT a gay child i also came out to family but they didnt believe me

 

I think the first time I ever realized it was when I was ten or eleven, and I was reading a book... I think it was called 'Remember Me 2'. One of the side-characters was a lesbian, and... I dunno, I... identified with that word. I'm sure I'd heard that word before, and I knew what it meant, but that was, for some reason, the first time I felt that word connect to me. For some reason, it made me think, and I began realizing something about myself... But for a long while, I'd push it away and make excuses, like "maybe it's just a phase," or "what about the boy you liked in third grade." I'm not really sure why I was pushing it away so much, since my mom had always told my brother and I that there's nothing wrong with it.

Then, a while back, I discovered a YouTube-er called CuteFuzzyWeasel. He has a segment on his channel called "Feeding the Trolls" where he does just that- feed YouTube trolls. (He's hilarious, look him up.) Aside from feeding obviously fake trolls or trolls ranting about stupid and unimportant stuff, he also feeds trolls who say things about gay people. And although the things these trolls say can range from just ignorant to mean-spirited to even cruel, Weasel responded to those troll's in such a cynical manner that he made it funny to watch his videos.

Seeing this guy talk about and argue with homophobic trolls, hearing him say that there's nothing wrong with being gay... somehow, it made it easier for me to come to terms with my sexuality. I don't know how many times I must have Googled "How do you know if you're gay", but I did eventually accept it.

 

It's embarrassing to say, but I fell in love at the age of 14 and I never stopped loving despite the shit that happens. And also, it felt wrong when I went out with a girl, she was the most beautiful girl in class and I didn't feel right with her.

 

A lot of things led me to believe I was a lesbian, but I always attributed them to just "feelings of the moment" kind of stuff. The thing that really did it was when I watched this woman's coming out video and I heard her say, "It might be selfish, but I am tired of hiding," and for some reason that just shattered me straight to the core, and from then on something was shifted.

I began allowing myself to look at women on the street or whatever, and from then on it just developed more and more. I still don't accept myself fully (family doesn't know, I'm not ready to come out to most of my friends) but I'm getting there.

It's so neat to read everyone else's stories!