Triggered

@sarah.ek No I’m not religious or anything. I guess I’m scared bc I’ve always known myself to be straight and I don’t like the thought of liking women and not being who I thought I was.

@anonymous00981 I get that. I used to never really identify with any label as I grew up catholic and never really dared to think about it, and when I did realize that I liked girls I never questioned if I liked guys until I had to face it eventually. For me it was never really that big of a deal to know that I am queer, but to know that I most likely will never find a guy that I like. It took me a really long time to accept the term lesbian, and though I’m out to most of my closest friends now, I don’t think I ever use the term directly either. But the thing with labels is: you are not supposed to fit into them, they are supposed to fit YOU. You are never a label, your sexuality is always going to be different than those of other people. What I mean by that is NOT that you are necessarily queer and you just haven’t figured it out yet. But I just want to shift your perspective on why your questioning is not necessarily bad or that it has any underlying implications. I would have never started calling myself a lesbian if it would have made me feel uncomfortable. And I did feel uncomfortable at first (had many reasons as to why: [internalized] homophobia, heteronormative society ect.) which is why I just didn’t label myself, and that honestly helped me A LOT in the process of figuring out who I am. Now I don’t know how old you are, and I am not meant to reassure you anyway but to just help you out on that one: the vast majority of people figures out their sexual orientation in their teens to early twenties. Of course there are exceptions, especially within the queer community but like in my case, this can be due to internalized homophobia and never even questioning and exploring whether or not you like men or not. In your case though, it sounds more like there could possibly be something else about a relationship that puts you off. If you had real crushes on boys/men throughout your teenage years, you are most likely attracted to men. I can not speak for all lesbians, but the only “straight” crushes I ever had were either in kindergarten (on both genders) or in early middle school (which was a boy I actually ended up hating and I puked when I saw him again after vacation so uhm…yeah). And not having a relationship is also not necessarily an indicator for being in “denial” (which btw, means to be actively DENYING the attraction you experience, if you don’t experience attraction towards women yet, even if you were queer, you are not in denial). I never had a relationship with anyone and I still know that I’m queer. I also have other reasons that keep me from entering a relationship (immense trust issues for example), but I still know that I am a lesbian. And last but not least, from one OCD individual to another: You are human, and you have a brain that is wired to ruminate over these things. It is normal, even outside of people with obsessive thoughts to question their sexual orientation as it is going to change throughout your life naturally, but constant rumination has nothing to do with the natural cycle of change, but with your OCD. If you feel like it could help, simply drop every label for a while, it does not change who you are and who you actually love but it can help you how you feel. And if that scares you, try to remind yourself of some of the things I’ve mentioned and if you have any further questions I’m happy to answer (though I will try to not reassure frequently as it won’t help you in the long run)

@anonymous00981 And SORRY for so much text, keeping it concise was never my strength but I’m working on it.

@sarah.ek I appreciate it! I’ve had a longtime maybe maladaptive daydream about my fantasy life with a man that I began in middle school (safety blanket for me while in school and at home ig). I’ve of course found women attractive (she’s pretty or beautiful, has a nice body etc) but I never thought beyond that. I’ve only ever thought about relationships (romantic and sexual) with men. I guess what triggered me from that movie trailer (and maybe I interpreted it wrong) is that some queer people don’t have romantic or sexual interest until it shows up later in life. I’m worried that that’ll be me, like I’ll wake up one day and be like “you find her attractive because you’re actually interested in her”. I keep ruminating on past experiences and memories and whether or not me finding someone attractive was actually interest. I’m worried that the crushes I’ve had on men and reasons that I didn’t purse them further was more than me being shy or too vulnerable.

@anonymous00981 I mean, some people (queer and straight alike) might actually discover sexual and romantic attraction later in life, but then it most likely won’t be all of a sudden (or how you described it as “waking up someday” and then immediately realizing that you’re attracted to someone). So again, I wouldn’t worry too much about much about that as true romantic attraction usually takes some time to develop, the whole “love at first sight” thing is really rare (I personally don’t believe in it anyway as there is absolutely no emotional connection, which is naturally occurring within romantic attraction). I think it’s just natural to find women pretty in an aesthetic sense, not only because you are a woman and (even if it’s subconscious) therefore oriented on social beauty standards for yourself, but also because men are simply not as keen on keeping a certain “aesthetically appealing” look for themselves (I don’t want to stereotypically assume this about all men, but when taking social norms into consideration, women usually do care more about hygiene and their appearance as if is expected of them). Not pursuing crushes is most likely purely because of shyness or fear of rejection. This again does not apply to all queer women, but from what I’ve heard, most lesbians in denial were rather really flirty with men as they didn’t actually care about a potential relationship, whereas they would actively avoid female crushes because they are also actually shy and scared of rejection. So again, nothing to worry about. I btw can also “appreciate” (I don’t know what word to use lol) a man that cares about his behavior and appearance. Though I don’t find them sexually and romantically attractive, I do still have a sense for what is considered conventionally attractive and I do have standards for male friends aswell (though they obviously aren’t inherently physical, but some physical traits are also attractive in a sympathetic way). But again, even if I wasn’t a lesbian I would still consider women to be generally the “more” attractive gender, and this is something a lottt of straight women say so there’s no need to be worried about finding women attractive.

@sarah.ek I appreciate your insight a lot! Thank you!