How fluid can sexuality be?

[gnarp_gnarp_2]

I remember just a year ago, my attraction to men was way more intense than my attraction to women, but now it's the opposite.

So my question is, how fluid can sexuality be?

[mikky]

Hey there,

Sexuality can be EXTREMELY fluid. Like, very, very, very fluid.

There are so many factors that influence who we are feeling attracted to and in what ways. Maybe you meet a woman who just knocks your socks off and you feel like that attraction is huge and new and fun in a way that you haven't felt before. Maybe you go on a journey with gender and feel newly appreciative or drawn to folks who are expressively outside gender binaries. My point is, there can be a lot of flux and change in how we experience attraction, not to mention, how we react to those attractions.

In your other reply, which I want to address here, you said you aren't sure if your thoughts and feelings are real or how you are supposed to be feeling.

We don't get to decide what we think or feel, only how we act. There is no right or wrong way to feel, and I wonder if worrying about that led to your question above. No feeling or thought is more "real" than any other, which can be a bit hard for us with brains that just want to get an answer.

Are you feeling worried about changes in who you experience attraction to? Does it bother you to not know what you are "meant" to be feeling?

[gnarp_gnarp_2]

yeah that's why i posted my questions i think

[mikky]

Do you want to share some more about what you think you are supposed to or not supposed to feel around attraction?
What, if anything, do you think you are "meant" to feel?

[gnarp_gnarp_2]

Well, I feel like I'm supposed to be really intensely attracted to someone that I'm with all the time, but sometimes that's not how things go, and I know that's unrealistic, but I can't seem to get it out of my head. I also feel like if it's not as intense then it must not be real because that's not how other people describe attractions.

Whenever I feel like I'm not interested in a certain gender, like for example, I'm not as into men right now, I feel like I've been faking my entire life, even though it feels very strange to say that, because I know that's probably not true. But now that I say that so often, I feel like I've convinced myself to believe that, so I'm not even sure if my previous thoughts were right. I've had similar thoughts before about women instead of men but I didn't think much about it since I had bigger things to focus on at the time.

I think I just have this notion that attraction is supposed to be great every time, all the time, but I don't know if that's true, and if it is, I don't think I've ever felt real attraction before.

It doesn't really help that I sort of got manipulated in my last relationship with a guy and I was physically ill for a year, which gave me a lot of anxiety in my everyday life.

[Anya]

Hey again gnarp_gnarp_2,

I'm so sorry to hear about your past experiences. It does make sense that they might show up here though, as both our mental state/minset as well as the kinds of relationships we've engaged in inform how we think about and operate in our day to day lives.

It can be easy to let these narratives of "love conquers all" and "real love/attraction is a burning desire that never fades" dictate how we see our own desire and relationship to others. I think some key insights I might point out are about being critical of where you are hearing those sentiments. Being congnizant of where that messaging comes from can help us realize more fully why we're actually being told that.

If we find that a big part of it comes from social media or tv/movies, something to consider would be the fact that those things are literally marketed to make us feel a certain way and want what we see on screen. The problem though is that it can seem so real that real real life falls short. In real life, all relationships, no matter the length, type, feelings involved, go through phases of and changes, just as we do as people.

If you can think of a frienship or someone who is important to you, I would consider asking yourself, "how do I feel in this relationship?", "Have I always felt like this? Or did it start with me feeling a different way?", the chances are that just as you might feel different about yourself as you evolve and grow over time, your feelings about other people also grow (friendships, relationships, all included). This is pretty much the same principle as with attraction. It's very normal for attractions/desires/orientations to grow and adapt over time. Honestly it would be a lot less common to not experience at least some level of change or evolution in your attractions as you grow.

I hope that maybe looking through some other board posts or advice columns here might help with if you are feelings any loneliness in these ideas because trust me, you are not alone in wondering about these things. It can be a pretty frustrating and confusing process to feel unsure about these really core parts of you, but truly, this is completely normal. In all honesty, it can be difficult to really ever know where you solidly sit with stuff like this because we as people are always changing. This means that when our own indivual evolution is so consistantly fluid, the things that draw us to others is bound to shift in the same way. Does that make sense?

There's also no timeline. I would cut yourself some slack if you're feeling like you need to figure all of this out right now because you do in fact have time! Taking a few deep breaths when you start to feel anxious about this can help, breathing up from the bottom of your stomach to the top of your lungs. It's all going to be okay, you have time.

How is all of this feeling?