Scarleteen

I’ve had 2 serious boyfriends, I’m 13. Maybe it’s a bit young for me to start thinking about sex and who Im attracted to sexually but I can’t ignore my feelings. Both my best friends are LGBTQ+ And I’m super excepting. Maybe I just agree with the idea and I don’t actually want a same sex relationship, right ? But no, every so often I see a really cute girl and it makes me want to cry because I’m so confused. Also I get straight tendencies a lot and even though for 4 years I’ve had some form of attraction to liking someone of my own gender that stops me from coming out to anyone and it sucks

Hi there edgyweevil, welcome to Scarleteen.
I certainly don't think you're too young to start thinking about who you're attracted to! This is a time when it's perfectly okay to be having those thoughts. It's also okay, though, to not have everything figured out exactly, or to give yourself some space to be a little unsure. Do you have a sense of what feels most confusing to you, right now, when you think about the kinds of people you notice attraction to?

Honestly, it can be a lot easier to support and accept others than have to face our own queerness. Supporting and accepting a friend is a part of being a friend. It sucks to watch people we care about going through hard things, but at the end of the day, they're the ones who really have to get themselves through the hard thing. Coming to terms with your own identity means coming to term with how you feel through societal, possibly familial, possibly authoritative (teachers, religious leaders, mentors), possibly friend-pressure negative messages that tell you it's wrong to feel any way but straight (and cis).

As well, there's something we refer to as "queer imposter syndrome". Imposter syndrome is a feeling of inadequacy that can be fed by self-doubt, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and bigotry we face. Queer imposter syndrome makes many of us feel like we have to pass some test in order to be a valid queer person or that we're not queer enough if we don't perform our queerness in a certain manner (for example, many people may feel pressured out of identifying as bi if they have a preference for a different gender and/or end up marrying someone of a different gender OR many trans people feel the need to hyperconform to their gender's expectations in order to be seen as valid). So, a lot of the time it's harder to accept ourselves than it is to accept other people.

One thing you can do is practice treating yourself as a friend. When you're doubting yourself, stop and ask yourself what you'd tell a friend if they were the ones having those doubts about themself. Then, tell yourself what you would tell a friend.

Good luck in your questioning! Questioning can be an extremely hard and frustrating journey, but pretty much all of us had to go through it at some point. <3

I also want to just touch on this, and I hope that's okay, there's been a lot of information shared.

There's no time limit or expectation of when you have to figure this out by. I have a 23 year old friend that told me she thought she was gay for a while then bi, then other things and then just finally said she didn't care and didn't want to keep forcing herself with these labels and just said "I'm attracted to this person, I'm not quite sure what that means, and that's okay." I kind of just sat there like "cool, I don't feel like dating right now." and we kind of just ended it with talking about tacos.

For me, I say I'm gay but it's also a label that was thrown at me for a while, and for me, my sexuality isn't a major piece and I just kind accept that I like who I like, kind of following along with what my friend did. And since I stopped caring about it, I find myself a lot less stressed out. There's no norms you have to fit yourself to is what I'm trying to get at, there's nothing saying that one label might feel amazing at a certain time and maybe your feelings towards that label will change. It's also okay to say "I don't know" by the way. It's a really confusing thing to deal with and it's okay to just not know right now.

However, I'm not far off from your age, and it took a long time to get to the point where I just didn't care, and so believe me, I know that questioning yourself can be so difficult. One thing I did and I really advise anyone I talk to against, is forcing yourself against how you feel, if you notice you like someone, I challenge you to instead of attaching reactions like this is "good" or "bad" just notice that you feel that way and let yourself know that however you feel is okay. I forced myself to be in a relationship with a girl to convince myself I could be a typical straight dude, and I still regret doing that - granted it created drama, and left the person I was with hurt and me even more confused than I was to begin with.

Know, sexuality may feel like this massive thing right now, and even if your friends have it figured out, it's okay if you don't. Always though, try to treat yourself with kindness, and I like how horriblegoose put it, imagine that this was your friend you were talking about, would you ever judge them for feeling this way?

Also, don't know how much you want to hear this, but I'm glad said it to me looking back - You have your whole life ahead of you. Being gay or straight or whatever you identify as, -although it may be really important to some people and a massive part of their identity, for some people it's just not, that's okay - doesn't change who YOU are. You're still you no matter what.

I'm a bit late to the game, but I want to share that I can really relate to what you're feeling! I'd love to share a little bit about my own experience in hopes that it can be helpful.

When I was younger I found myself attracted to people of different genders, but I didn't realize that I could be attracted to any/all genders at once! Because I felt certain I was attracted to men, I figured I wasn't gay, so I shut down and suppressed my thoughts about women.

As I got a bit older and continued to feel attracted to people of my gender, I started worrying that since many of my friends were LGBTQ+, I was just having these feelings because I wanted to fit in. The queer imposter syndrome that Gone.Sorry mentioned is very real! What was actually going on was that watching my friends in normal, positive, queer relationships was allowing me to recognize and validate my attraction to women.

I now feel really confident in my bisexuality, but it was a journey to get there! Most of my serious relationships have been with men, and it has taken some time to fully realize that who I'm dating doesn't change who I'm attracted to (everyone!) and who I am (an awesome queer person!).

You've got this - although the journey of questioning can be challenging, I hope you find moments of joy and excitement in the process as well!