i cant tell if i like guys or not

[holidaygirl29]

hello, i havent made a post on here in a long time.

lately i've been thinking about my sexuality a lot, which is unusual for me since i mainly prefer to stay unlabled (thinking abt sexuality stresses me out). whe i got out of a situationship with a guy a while ago. i'm very weird about liking boys and i feel like i get overly obsessive without even getting to know them?? it was just a week in until i got a "crush" on him.. sometimes i feel like i force myself to like guys?? it always feels superficial, like im trying to make myself believe something thats not true.

anyways i've always been attracted to women and girls. like ive been that way since i was little.. i remember i would stare at the victorias secret posters at the mall. i could name so many things i love about women .. i think theyre all great and wonderful and i get so happy when i see pretty girls. i have a girl i really like.. i'll call her lamb here for privacy purposes. we've been friends for a few months now and i found out that i liked her a while ago.. and then i found out she liked me back. we're not dating though. i got out of a pretty bad relationship that was about 3(i think) years long and i dont think im emotionally ready to dive into another yet. i've always felt a more genuine connection with women and fem leaning individuals in general. i hope this is enough info to get some help. sometimes i think i might be a lesbian but then i feel fake asf.

ive always struggled with this sort of thing a lot,, i'm hispanic and my family doesnt really think fondly of gays.. i know that both my parents r bisexual though.

[Latha]

Hi there, Holidaygirl29 — welcome back! I see this is a new account. Do you remember what your old one was?

I think it makes a little sense that you would be thinking about your sexuality right now. You’ve recently gotten out of a long term relationship (and I’m glad to hear that, if it was pretty bad), and you’ve had different but notable connections with a guy and your friend Lamb. It’s the sort of situation that makes you ask questions.

We can definitely talk about it. I’m hearing that your feelings for boys feel intense but forced in some way, while you are pretty confident about your attraction to girls — you are wondering what that means for your sexuality. Is that right?

As is often the case with questions like yours, I think the answer may come down to what feels right and comfortable for you. We can’t draw a rigid line between what it means to be bisexual and what it means to be a lesbian, so there isn’t an objective way to look at this. Being bi doesn’t mean someone has to feel the same amount of attraction or the same way about people of different genders, so there are bisexuals who are mostly attracted to women with some exceptions. There are also lesbians who identify as such because their primary and strongest attraction is to women — they generally prefer to date women, even when they do experience other feelings at times.

I wonder, where do you think the pressure to make yourself believe something untrue is coming from? When you don’t know a boy too well, what about them is interesting to you?

Also, when you say that your family doesn’t think well of gay people, does that include your parents? Would they support you if you told them you like women?

[KaCy]

I came to terms with my own sexuality about eight months ago, so I feel like I can relate to this. I never felt attraction to boys in elementary school, so I always wondered what the hype was about. I thought there was a possibility of me being a lesbian, but I never thought about it too deeply until I got into middle school and had a crush on a girl. I had convinced myself that I had a crush on this one guy, who, in hindsight, was kind of very annoying, that I hadn't seen since third grade. I kept going back and forth about whether I was in denial about liking him or in denial about not liking him. I think the amount of time between our last meeting allowed me to separate his personality from his body and project a soft, feminine personality onto him. That made me trick myself into liking him. I never felt any sort of way in my chest or my stomach or anywhere on my body like I do when I see an attractive girl, but it was hard for me to know what attraction was, as it's different for everybody, and hard to describe. Plus, heteronormativity, so that's tough. Any guy that had a soft enough face and zero visible personality, I would convince myself I had a crush on. I would dream of going to some public place and finally seeing a guy I was attracted to, but it just never happened.

I would say that if you feel you're forcing yourself into liking someone, there's a good chance you are. For me, I knew deep down for years that I didn't like guys and that I liked girls. It just took some time for me to fully figure it out. My advice is to sit on it until you figure it out. If there are any other details you want me to see if I recognize as something I've gone through or seems like a sign that you lean either way, I would totally do that, but sometimes you just have to think about it, and eventually your true feelings will come to the surface. It might be annoying, and it might take some time, but there's not much else you can do about it, except think. If you want to stay unlabeled, at least for now, I think that's a good idea. I know that for some people, labels can feel confining, but for me, it helps me to feel comfortable in my identity and to not spiral into questioning quite as much. Hope this helps!