Bi or Straight?

[EndorPlanet24]

Unlike a lot of people I hear from online, I live in a pretty open and accepting environment. No one I know personally is homophobic and a lot of people have been coming out lately. With all of this newfound discovery and the anxiety of teenagehood, I'm not really sure where I stand myself. I have never even considered the possibility of liking a girl or a guy liking a guy before middle school, and now I'm questioning whether I'm actually straight or not. If I'm not straight, I'm bi, but how do I really know for sure? It comes in fluctuations, sometimes I feel like I'm into girls, sometimes not. It's like a wave of phases crashing down on me every few weeks or so leaving me confused. Do I think I like girls because I think it's different and exciting and adventurous, like an experiment, am I only trying to force myself to change because everyone else is coming out and I want to fit in? Is what I'm feeling natural or did I just want it enough to make myself feel this way? And if put into the ideal situation, would I want to date a girl? It's even more complicated. I don't sexually fantasize about guys, but I do about girls occasionally. Maybe because I feel like I understand my own sex more I'm more open to romantic possibilities? I know a lot of people protest that their parents tell them what they're feeling is "just a phase" but I really feel like this is justified, at least in my situation. Teenagers don't really know what's best for them yet, what's wrong is right, and what's straight is curved. How am I supposed to know if I'm going through an actual phase or not? It's been happening for a while and I feel uncomfortable sharing it with anyone I know. I've taken so many online tests, but the answers have been pretty split. I kind of want to be bi, but I don't want to hear what I want, I want to hear what I am.

[Redskies]

First, I'd suggest that you try not to second-guess yourself or give yourself a hard time about why you're feeling what you're feeling. I'm hearing you say that sometimes you think you might be into girls, and you're not yet sure what that means to you or what it means about your orientation. Does that sound about right?

It's okay that you feel that way, no matter why you feel it. Your feelings are your feelings, and they're legitimate

Sexuality as a whole, and sexual orientation, is very fluid and changeable. Not in the sense that we can change our orientation, but in the sense that it's inevitable that every person will experience many changes and shifts in the kinds of sexual feelings we have in our lifetime. For some people - more commonly than we tend to hear about - those shifts include shifts in orientation. So, in many ways, our sexual selves in a lifetime is more a whole series of phases, and not a static single thing

Too, this way that you've been feeling?- even if you "just" feel it for a few months now and not in the rest of your life, it's still real, it's still important. It's still a part of the story of you.

There's not really any kind of test that can tell you your orientation. Our orientation is a thing that we find out about ourselves by living our life and observing our feelings over time, and the patterns we can see in those feelings: which gender/s of people we tend to have what kinds of feelings about. I know it can be difficult when we don't have a quick or definite answer to something that feels so important and tends to be so central to who we are! If it helps, though, there is absolutely a word and a concept to describe where it sounds like you are at the moment: Q is for Questioning

[Mo]

I do want to throw out another thought here: being bisexual doesn't necessarily mean "I am attracted to men and women in exactly the same way, exactly the same amount." That's the case for some people, but really all it means to be bisexual is to have those feelings of attraction to your own & other gender(s)to some extent, at some point.
You're free to identify in whatever way makes sense to you, but you don't have to pass any sort of "true bisexual" test to claim that orientation.