please help me. i have no idea what i am

[PhantomW]

im 24, been isolated most my life, never gave much thought to gender, sexuality, or anything till last year. had a... "weird" dream about a long time friend (same sex) and that sparked my spiral of questioning everything and knowing less every time i try to fine an answer. my whole life my parents have always made anything outside the "normal" out as like the worst possible thing. my dad stopped shopping at home depot for 15 years because "they support the gays". so of course when i started having thoughts at about 7 i just pushed them aside and basically gave up on finding anyone because who would love someone who hates themselves.

recently i hooked up with a guy on tinder. he was nice but i just didnt enjoy it at all. i went into it wanting it but after a minute or two i just felt numb.  its like I have a desire to be in a sexual relationship as well as having sexual attraction to certain people but doing anything (even masturbation) is just draining, like I'm just doing it because it is "normal". Idk how else to put it. I guess the best way to say it is that I want it but when I have it I don't feel happy or satisfied, just tired and drained,  like it is nothing more than wasted effort.

 

[Chuck Finley]

Same lol, but not for lack of trying. Have you had any experiences that may help you to understand your sexuality? By that I mean have you attempted to date or approach others with the intent to form a sexual or romantic relationship?  Or have you not tried anything as of yet? If you haven't taken the plunge so to speak it may be more difficult to get a solid read on your own preferences, beyond what you are physically attracted to...

[Chuck Finley]

Please disregard my prior reply. I'm new to the site and didn't see the content of your initial post. I understand your predicament I had similar experiences with men and women, and have provisionally labeled myself as asexual aromatic, but every once in a while I still feel attraction for some people, so I'm determined to maintain an open mind. Honestly, labels can only go so far in defining what you feel or what you "are." From what you said you might be panromatically attracted to men (meaning romantic but not sexual)?

The best advice I guess I can give on the sexual front is to try not to be afraid in any case. i.e. don't be afraid to try things out and say no if they aren't working for you, but also don't be afraid if you aren't attracted to anyone at all.

Romantically speaking, however, I have no clue at all sry.

[Blondie]

7 hours ago, PhantomW said:

im 24, been isolated most my life, never gave much thought to gender, sexuality, or anything till last year. had a... "weird" dream about a long time friend (same sex) and that sparked my spiral of questioning everything and knowing less every time i try to fine an answer. my whole life my parents have always made anything outside the "normal" out as like the worst possible thing. my dad stopped shopping at home depot for 15 years because "they support the gays". so of course when i started having thoughts at about 7 i just pushed them aside and basically gave up on finding anyone because who would love someone who hates themselves.

recently i hooked up with a guy on tinder. he was nice but i just didnt enjoy it at all. i went into it wanting it but after a minute or two i just felt numb.  its like I have a desire to be in a sexual relationship as well as having sexual attraction to certain people but doing anything (even masturbation) is just draining, like I'm just doing it because it is "normal". Idk how else to put it. I guess the best way to say it is that I want it but when I have it I don't feel happy or satisfied, just tired and drained,  like it is nothing more than wasted effort.

Hi there, I’m Blondie, one of the support mentors.

It sounds like you shut off from all things romantic / sexual due to your family situation so you haven’t really explored any feelings or attractions. Which is completely understandable given the circumstances.

Eventually, as I’m sure you realise, our mind will find a way to make us address things like the dream you had.

I’m really sorry you had this experience as each of us deserve the time and space to process and explore our attractions (or lack of attractions) to others.

While it’s completely possible and ‘normal’ not to be attracted to anyone I wonder if you almost need to give yourself permission to explore your thoughts around this to remove any blocks.

What do you think?

[PhantomW]

7 hours ago, Blondie said:

Hi there, I’m Blondie, one of the support mentors.

It sounds like you shut off from all things romantic / sexual due to your family situation so you haven’t really explored any feelings or attractions. Which is completely understandable given the circumstances.

Eventually, as I’m sure you realise, our mind will find a way to make us address things like the dream you had.

I’m really sorry you had this experience as each of us deserve the time and space to process and explore our attractions (or lack of attractions) to others.

While it’s completely possible and ‘normal’ not to be attracted to anyone I wonder if you almost need to give yourself permission to explore your thoughts around this to remove any blocks.

What do you think?

Well, tbh, the way I was raised and how my parents are has always made me scared to disappoint them. When I had the dream, I started to accept and open myself up to the thoughts I had been having but had repressed. Add it all up and I about killed myself because I wasn't "normal" like my parents expect. Of course, I haven't told them anything of the matter and unfortunately that makes it hard to openly explore anything. I am trying to explore everything and learn as much as I can, both about the LGBT+ community as a whole and myself. But I don't know what to do anymore, I feel like I'm at this roadblock of needing to date to figure out what I want but needing to know what I want to date.

[Blondie]

16 hours ago, PhantomW said:

Well, tbh, the way I was raised and how my parents are has always made me scared to disappoint them. When I had the dream, I started to accept and open myself up to the thoughts I had been having but had repressed. Add it all up and I about killed myself because I wasn't "normal" like my parents expect. Of course, I haven't told them anything of the matter and unfortunately that makes it hard to openly explore anything. I am trying to explore everything and learn as much as I can, both about the LGBT+ community as a whole and myself. But I don't know what to do anymore, I feel like I'm at this roadblock of needing to date to figure out what I want but needing to know what I want to date.

I'm wondering if you could go on a date / meet a woman on Tinder to see what the experience is like.

It might give you an indication of whether the experience you had with the guy was an isolated one or whether it happens again.

Do you feel comfortable doing that? 

[PhantomW]

2 hours ago, Blondie said:

I'm wondering if you could go on a date / meet a woman on Tinder to see what the experiment is like.

It might give you an indication of whether the experience you had with the guy was an isolated one or whether it happens again.

Do you feel comfortable doing that? 

Yea, I'm going to try to meet some more people and see if there is any difference