Growing up in this era makes everything about ‘identity’ confusing. Sometimes I question if what I know about myself is true, or if it’s something I unintentionally fabricated. There’s so many straight women nowadays who used to say they were lesbian or bisexual and truly believed it. How do I know I’m not one of them?

I’ve been out as a lesbian since I was in middle school. I have a bad memory, and I can’t even remember what made me “decide” I was gay. You’d think I would remember something that important wouldn’t you?I was on tumblr at the time and my friend group from middle school to high school was basically entirely bisexual women (now, in hindsight, I think most of them were actually straight). Being in a group like that, we all played up everything about us that was “LGBT”. I was eventually excommunicated from the friend group after coming out as a radfem in my senior year of HS. I had crushes on girls in MS/HS & I fantasized about women, and I even confessed to several. But since my memory is so god awful, I feel like I have no way of knowing if I just convinced myself of these things, and now I continue to believe I am a lesbian because I already established that as part of my identity.

I’ve only ever kissed 2 people, both of which were girls, and it was when I was 14. First one was my friend and we were drunk. Second time was at a party, but since I didn’t know her, I remember feeling strange about it afterwards and was more focused on the mechanical parts of kissing rather than any emotional “flow”. I am and always have been more attracted to women I actually know on an emotional level. Was I just too young (plus she was older and intimidated me lol) and didn’t know her well enough, or did I feel weird because I’m not really gay? I can really only imagine myself dating a woman I’ve known as a friend first… Is that just me being secretly polilez and not seeing it?

I have trust/intimacy issues now that make it hard for me to be open or let anyone in. I’m scared to even try dating, and I guess I always have been (though previously it was to a lesser extent, though I’ve always had social anxiety). My standards have increased since high school – I initially suspected due to an increase in self esteem – despite the fact I have had no experience since then. My taste in women has also gotten pickier, which I think might be because I’m finally being honest with myself (which I wasn’t when I was in that friend group) and am less desperate, but also might be because I am critiquing other women’s appearances like I critique mine. I’ve been in college for a few years and I still get crushes on women, but I also have self-esteem issues and don’t even like to imagine myself really dating anyone as I am now because I find myself ugly and fat. If I picture myself as my ideal self it is much easier, but it never feels real because I don’t know anyone well enough to imagine it naturally. But is this really bad self-esteem and mental health issues, or is it my subconscious trying to find an excuse? I mean, feeling anxiety at the thought would imply I don’t really want it, right?

I’ve established my attraction to women as women who I find attractive (duh), but I don’t really get “aroused” simply seeing a woman. I’ve been on antidepressants since I was very young (10-12, I think?) and I wonder if this has “dulled” my sexuality, if this is a normal experience, or if it is evidence I’m lying to myself. I’ve seen womyn on here talking about how women have more of a “responsive sexuality”, so maybe that’s it.

Since I went to an all-girls school, I never had to interact with boys. I don’t particularly like hanging around boys & I actively try to make connections with women, but I second guess myself that this is simply because I didn’t socialize with them during puberty enough and so I’m just “awkward”. Before puberty, I did the typical girl thing where I would choose a male classmate to have a crush on because I thought I was supposed to. I feel more intimidated talking to women than men (I mean this socially, not as in concern for my safety. obviously men are more intimidating that way) because I care more about what women think of me. But is this really because I value women and find them attractive, or is it because I’m subconsciously against the idea of being homosexual, and I’m actually inclined towards men?! Conversely, since I don’t usually interact with men and I expect them to have ulterior motives, I am often more nervous when talking to them. (Saying talking to women is more intimidating but talking to men is more nerve-wracking may seem contradictory but I don’t know how else to explain it.) So then I ask myself, Is this actually anxiety or is it subliminal attraction?

There are men I find handsome in an aesthetic sense, but I am repulsed by the penis. (But aren’t a lot of straight women repulsed by penises too, so how can I even rule that out???) The other week while trying to examine a man to test my sexuality, I saw the size of his hands and how masculine they were and felt a twinge of disgust. But what if I only find women’s forms appealing because I am a woman, so it isn’t foreign to me? When trying to determine what men are attractive, they all tend to blend together, but with women I am able to actually establish a hierarchy (that sounds so nasty to say but I thought this might be relevant!)

On that note, like 99% of the women I am attracted to have long hair. A very large aspect of the lesbian community, as far as I’ve noted, is butch/femme dynamics and I cannot really relate to that. I don’t shave my pits or wear makeup and I don’t expect the women I like to do that either, but I find that long hair frames women’s faces in a way that looks better for the majority of women. A lot of the “celebrity crushes” I noted in MS/HS were on conventionally attractive women, and I did lots of stuff for attention then, so I suspect some of those were lies. I still have celebrity crushes on conventionally attractive women, but still I wonder, is that a real crush or just because I can appreciate that they look good? Growing up I was exposed to pornography and I want to know to what extent my view of women is pornified. Like, what if some weird part of my brain is just trying to replicate attraction. When I masturbate, I masturbate to the idea of other women having sex that I’m not involved in. This could be due to porn exposure, self-esteem, or any number of things. There are so many women now who “identify” as lesbian or bisexual that really just see women as sexual objects and aren’t really attracted to them… Am I one?

As for what I want: I want to be a lesbian. I want to date and have sex with a woman (that I know well first), and eventually get married and have kids. But can I really trust what I want? I don’t want to have to go through 16 girlfriends to find my soulmate, and the idea of having to go through a courting process is off-putting. Is what I really want a best friend??? Like, in my head I’d be eating her pussy but still. Maybe it's more akin to a fantasy from a storybook, something I think seems nice but would never really do if it came down to it. I’m scared that when I finally have sex with a woman or get into a relationship with one, It will turn out I’ve secretly been straight all this time. The idea that I could somehow catch feelings for a man terrifies me.

I don’t feel connected to any sort of “community”. Sexuality isn’t a community, I know, but I still wanted to factor this into my assessment. I feel alienated from the heterosexual lifestyle because it is unappealing to me, and also from the lesbian one because I have no real-world experience with it.

It’s especially hard to figure myself out right now, because the queer stuff is EVERYWHERE. There’s nowhere for me to go. If I’m not secretly straight, then I think I might have some internalized homophobia somehow or something, because the label of lesbian used to reassure me back when I thought I had a community, and now it makes me feel lonely & nervous. I feel so isolated.

This probably seems ridiculous to a lot of you reading this, one way or another. Some necessary context: I have OCD, and I am fairly certain I’m experiencing Sexual Orientation OCD right now too (and have been for months). If you’ve read at all about SO-OCD / H-OCD, then what I’m talking about here probably seems pretty straight (lol) forward, but it doesn't make it any less confusing because it seems a lot of the symptoms of questioning one’s sexuality line up with SO-OCD… So how do I know which one it is?

This is mostly a rant. A very jumbled, disorganized, stream-of-consciousness rant. I’m not expecting strangers on the internet to know all the answers to my life, obviously, but there’s nowhere else for me to talk about this, and I thought maybe some of you would have experience with this, or some advice or something.