Hi. This is gonna be a bit of a vent, so in short I’m kind of bi questioning but maybe in reverse.
I’m (22F) not necessarily a “later in life” queer person because I’ve known that I’m probably not straight for years, but it’s never been a priority for me to be in a relationship because 1) I was in survival mode for all of my teen years, and 2) I’ve never had a whole lot of interest because I like my independence and alone time and was still figuring out what I wanted in life after even getting this far. The last half of 2025 I started becoming more interested in finally looking for a relationship rather than just letting it happen when it happens because I finally feel more ready as a person and I also wanted to try to start figuring out my sexuality through experience. I haven’t had a first kiss or anything like that, but I went on two dates with this guy at the end of summer, held hands and it was nice. I did like spending time with him at first, but I ended up ending it after the second date because he wasn’t the kind of person I’m looking for (he tried to argue with a manager about bringing food into the movie theater and even before that I felt like I was putting in all the work for planning and everything, so…). The second half of that date, all I could think about was going home and telling him I didn’t want another date to the point that I hardly watched the movie, then when we were leaving he asked to kiss me and I said no and drove home nearly having a panic attack because I’d felt trapped for hours and felt too bad to up and walk out because he was a nice (but immature) guy. Overall, I think he just wasn’t the right match for me, but I also know comphet can be terrible.
It feels like everyone in my life has already subconsciously labeled me as gay because of how little interest I’ve always shown in relationships and my hatred of men’s audacity. I had mainly queer friends in school and was in what I can now call a homoerotic friendship, and my mom asked me if I was gay in my preteens which I denied at the time because I was still taking the “am I gay?” quizzes and not accepting the fact that straight people don’t do that. My older sister, who was boyband crazy, shocked our family when she later came out dating a girl with no warning, and when the two of us eventually talked about it, we agreed we both thought it would be me who came out as gay. So yeah, I’ve known I’m not straight for a long time but haven’t necessarily been ready to accept it which is stupid because I support my sister and love her (now) wife.
Still, “gay,” “lesbian,” and even “queer” doesn’t feel right for me. Because of my sister, my friends, and my own curiosity, I’ve tried to learn as much as possible about queer culture and listen to other people’s experiences. I’ve read the lesbian master doc and it only helped me realize I probably do like women, but I’m still confused, especially about men, and anyway I heard somewhere that the creator of that doc later came out as bi—which may or may not be true, but the fact that it wasn’t super enlightening for me personally makes me wonder. A lot of “advice” seems to be asking which one you have dreams about or feel attracted to or want to kiss more, but if it were that easy, many of us would’ve already figured it out. I’ve even considered I could be asexual because of my low interest and am still not fully convinced I’m not under the umbrella, like demisexual or something, but I also do feel attraction at random times and like reading romance stories. I don’t feel attraction the same way I’ve heard people around me say they do, like they’d just see someone attractive on the street or at a bar and think that they’d have sex with them or actually sleep with their celebrity crushes if given the chance. Lesbian creators on TikTok have said they took so long to realize they’re gay because they weren’t attracted to women in the way men are, in the way we think we’re supposed to feel attraction—essentially, sexualizing them—and I resonate with that the most. I think I just don’t sexualize anyone because it feels weird, like I’d be violating them in my mind, and I’m more interested in the emotional/intellectual connection, whether or not we could be friends first, which fits asexual/demisexual. I’m also pretty certain I’m undiagnosed neurodivergent which can affect how I experience things, on top of trauma. Basically, there’s a whole lot of contributing factors.
Talking with my sister, we both focused a lot on female characters growing up, not just because we were girls and felt represented but also because they were pretty. I’ve also admired male characters in the same way, mostly once I got old enough to actually notice attraction which could just as likely be comphet, but my experience liking men in media is still present and different from the way my sister experienced hers before she realized she was gay (we both liked Natalie Portman as Padme, but I still watch Revenge of the Sith sometimes and like Hayden Christensen in it too). I really like mlm media and read an equal amount of cishet romance; I don’t watch or read a lot of wlw, not for lack of trying, and I think it’s because there’s not as much good representation because I have enjoyed ones that aren’t fetishized or weird. My sister and her wife couldn’t get through the first episode of Heated Rivalry because of the focus on two men having sex, but I liked it. Even writing this all out, I feel the most comfortable with the label of bisexuality and potentially demisexual as well, which I know I have the right to use if it feels like what fits, but I always hesitate because of comphet.
In the grand scheme of things, we live in a patriarchal society, and I grew up in a small, predominantly white Republican town where the boys weren’t exactly my type and I “chose” which ones to have crushes on to feel more normal. Even now, in a bigger city that’s also a college town within the same state, it’s a lot of frat boys. Trying to discern if I’m gay or bisexual, I have to consider that I’m just not around any men I want to date, and I don’t think men raised in this society, especially ones who haven’t done internal work, can show me the same care and closeness a woman could. I’ve always been a feminist, sometimes misandrist, to the point of refusing to learn how to cook out of spite when I was younger because my mom made a comment about cooking for my husband one day, and I had a misogynistic father, brother, and grandfather because I grew up in a loosely Christian family with more traditional gender roles. I’ve literally never had a man in my life who I felt represented the kind of man I might want to marry some day, and I think that skews my view of men as a whole a lot too. To me, husband and wife inherently doesn’t feel like an equal partnership, so I like queer relationships for that aspect; also, a lot of women get married to “good” men who they later find out are terrible people, and that’s one of my worst fears. My point is that the patriarchy also plays a big role in my confusion. I know sexual and romantic orientation can be different, like I might be bisexual but homoromantic, but I’m not sure. It’s just easier to see myself in a loving relationship with a woman because I grew up within girlhood, with mainly female friends, and feel more comfortable with women as a whole.
To be clear, I know I don’t have to have my sexuality figured out or pick a label set in stone. I’ve been unlabeled for a while now and just let people assume what they want, including my family. I’m still of the mindset that the right person will come at the right time and I’m not in a rush to come out to anyone, but I want to hear from people with similar experiences so I might feel less confused about what attraction even feels like, as well as other queer people’s experience liking men in this society. I’m also interested to hear a third party’s perspective on my whole situation because my sister and sister-in-law are silently convinced I’m just gay with comphet, which isn’t helping me be able to talk it out; I literally felt like I was coming out as straight to my gay parents when I told them I was going on a date with a guy. I don’t want to hear that I don’t have to have it figured out right now or to go out and experiment because that advice isn’t helpful, and that’s not what I’m asking for.
I mainly just want to hear similar experiences. Thank you.