i’m pretty sure i’m bisexual but very confused

[turmericlady]

Hi! so i’m a girl and i’ve known basically my whole life now that i’m attracted to women. i figured this out when i was like 11-12 and growing up i never really had crushes on guys ever, only girls. so i’ve identified as lesbian for years now but things have happened this year and last year that have made me really confused.

i began college last year and basically immediately started dating a guy. i had talked to guys before because all my friends did so it just seemed like the normal right thing to do (and by this point i was like.. back in the closet) so this wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary- but i had never actually really liked them or been super attracted to them. with this guy however it felt like i literally fell in love with him. like i was very attached and very sexually attracted to him (though i hated kissing him and never felt anything).

i remember feeling like i wanted to marry him and i had never felt that way about a man before. and when we broke up i was a wreck for a really long time. i guess i was happy that i had finally found a guy i liked and so this meant that i would be able to marry one (that’s really important in my culture) and so losing that really hurt me. also just in general i was so attached and REALLY liked him and so i was super upset by this and i felt really insecure like there was something wrong with me and that was why he broke up with me. it’s taken me a year now but i’ve realized that i’m actually happy we broke up because i don’t know what i would’ve done if it became more serious and/or we got married??

it’s like the idea of marrying a man just terrifies me and doesn’t seem like something i would ever actually want and i feel like i knew that too while we were dating but because all my friends wanted to marry the men they were with i knew that i should feel that way too. since him i haven’t actually been with anyone and i’ve gone into a period where i’m very much not attracted to men and very turned off by them and i’m just so confused by my identity because it seems like i go into these periods a lot but this NEVER happens with women. like sometimes my attraction to men feels very artificial and forced and sexual encounters just… don’t turn me on in the same way, but i also know that i loved the guy i dated and felt genuine butterflies with him, but with women i’ve never ever been confused about how i feel? can someone help me navigate this? is this a normal thing for bisexual people to experience? could it just be that i have a preference for women?

[Jacob]

Hey there turmericlady! (I do love turmeric!)

I can confirm that being bisexual doesn't mean feeling the exact same way about every group of people you're sometimes attracted to, and doesn't mean feeling the same way about every person in that group.

I also don't think it's reasonable to expect any of us to have feelings of attraction which are completely separate from the societies and cultures we were born into or live within.

The fact that it's usually pretty rare for any family member to say "When are you going to find a man?" about any other gender, or "Aw your boyfriend is nice, but is he going to propose?" - is going to change the kinds of psychological and social pressures that are on those relationships, and it's going to affect how excited we are about those kids of relationships even in our fantasies. Also, I don't blame you for not being interested in marrying a man, plenty of people don't want that!

Then on an individual level there are guys who have traits which are rare for guys (the same going for all genders) and it might be that vague "thing" is what we were actually attracted to, and that same thing might be very common among women, among non-binary people, or whoever. So on the surface we seem to prefer group B to group A, but it's highly likely that we're attracted the same kind of attributes, across all groups, even if we can't name them. It might just be that those attributes are spread unevenly across the populous, or feel different when you mix them with other elements of gender.

Really as soon as you get past the initial one-word descriptions of our sexual orientations, within that every single person's actual orientation and preferences are unique to them and their feelings and experiences.

So, I think Bisexuality (like all orientations, in practice) is a pretty wide umbrella that you can easily fit under if it makes sense for you!

(PS: I just popped some paragraph breaks in your question to make it a little easier to read, in case you wonder why it looks different)