(f20) I feel like this dilemma is a pretty common one so I’m sorry if I sound like a broken record - my relationship with my current (male) partner has started to make me question if I’m just a very confused lesbian. I like the idea of having a boyfriend. but actually having one, meh. & though we had discussed prior that we are date-to-marry people, recently I just keep thinking, shit, I’ll never get to be with a woman if I marry this guy. and the idea of it just makes me so unreasonably sad. because. idk. I like women. possibly more than I like men. anyway I wanted to know if this is a common experience with bi people or if I’m just straight up gay atp ._. (sorry if this isn’t the right flair, I’m new here)

I don't know why I'm trying to get help from reddit but I suppose it's because I don't have people to rely on for this kind of stuff and therapy is too expensive. At least this is one of the more supportive communities I browse.

Basically, I have this friend that I have known for about three years now. I would say we are very close friends. I think that I have had feelings for him for a long time but I just ignored them. I thought I had a crush on him at one point but I was confused about it and I chose to suppress it in interest of the friendship. Recently we both reconnected after a period where I moved away for about half a year, and those feelings came back but way stronger. I don't think I realized quite how much I like him until he went on a date recently with a guy and I felt extremely jealous. I know that I can't continue like this because if he continues to date other people then my feelings will cause me to resent him and I'd rather die than come to hate him.

Honestly, I think I love him even though I'm not sure what love is, and I have no clue if he reciprocates my feelings but probably not. He has told me that my eyes are pretty and that he loves the sound of my voice and I am one of the only people he feels comfortable around and can be open with. I just don't think he likes me in that way because friends are supposed to compliment each other right? Also, he has been dating and doing things with other men and is pretty straightforward in communicating to people that he wants to date them so that's another reason why I don't think he feels the same way.

I know I have issues with accepting that people can like me on even the most simple level, and I am also scared of rejection and I don't want him to think less of me for the way I feel about him. I would be ok if he didn't feel the same way because I just want him to be happy. I know that it's not healthy for me and not respectful to him for me to continue in this way but I don't know whether to kill my feelings in secret or confess. I'm just terrified of offending him and losing the friendship because he has been someone I can always count on to support me in my darkest days.

Any and all help will be appreciated because I'm like 30 seconds away from crying at all times.

Edit: we are 20 and 21 yo

I (36f) am in a very happy committed relationship with my husband of MANY years. Kids, house, pets, whole shebang. I have no desire to change that, he's my forever person. But I've recently been realizing that I might be bisexual. How do you really explore that in this case? Literature and media? Any advice on where to start?

I haven't come out to my husband yet (though I know he would be fine with it) simply because I'm not actually sure if I AM bi or not.

Live in a small place, red state, because of recent events I wanted to hang a giant rainbow flag on the front of the house but of course we are all concerned about the dangers of that.

Is there something more subtle/"safer" in terms of flag or symbol? I have a few ideas but would like to hear some more. And I don't think I will use the pink triangle due to the history.

I kinda don't care personally but I didn't wanna be selfish and I understand the concern, I live with more then just me and they would be put in danger as well.

I want people to know we are a safe house if anything happens.

Im 24 F living with my partner. I came out as bi just over a year ago before getting in a relationship with my now boyfriend and he was made aware. Many times I’ve said to myself “my boyfriend is worth being with, and not having a female experience cos he’s a 10/10 inside and out” . But now I’m contemplating it….I can’t stop thinking about being with a girl. I don’t want an open relationship, nor a threesome with my partner. I’ve looked into the whole bi cycle thing and I understand it. It’s just everyday for the past 3 months it’s like “girl….girl…girl…girl”. It’s driving me crazy. I hate the fact I’m more attracted to girls. I hate this feeling of FOMO as I’ve never dated or had sex with a girl. I really don’t want to break up with him. He’s a very lovable person that my family adores. Passionate, looks after my parents, we are childhood friends and he’s always had my back. Hence why I don’t want to end us. I love him so much. The only part where we differ is that he’s super transphobic which I hate. When I argue against his views on it he just laughs and says he’s right.

What do I do? I’m just spiralling at this point because I can’t stop thinking about being with a girl. Need advice please.

For context, I was straight my entire childhood but during early adulthood I started growing male attraction. I even had an online relationship with a guy online, but he ghosted me after a half year, I got heartbroken and it led to me denying my bisexuality since I never met him in real life, and when I met my wife and he came back crawling on his knees I broke up with him right then and there, and at first, tried to friend zone him but later blocked him without explanation under my now wife's demand.

He tried to pursue me multiple times during my marriage with my wife by creating new accounts, and I kept ignoring him, until this year when I was in my most vunerable moment with a hoast of psychological problems.

I had just saved our family from a severe poverty chrisis in the Philippines and was back in Sweden for renewing my passport and finding a 9-5 job that makes way more money than the low-paid online jobs I survived on while there. I also tried to begin therapy for my light burnout and anxiety. That's when he wrote me again, and that's when I could no longer ignore him. I replied to him and after a long call catching up to each other's stories, all my feelings for him came back. It was 10 seconds of heavenly joy followed by an hour of shame and crying.

I kept writing to him hoping that I could make him stop loving me and get rid of my feelings for him by turning it into a normal platonic friendship, but several weeks in, I realized to my horror that it didn't work, and in fact our feelings for eachother got just stronger, despite me knowing full well that he has betrayed me before and is a douchebag of a person that I shouldn't want to have in my life even if I were single, which gave me the courage to block him again, once and for all, with a long message telling him to neve contact me again.

The following 2 months, my mental health took a turn for the worst. I started having more severe panic attacks, sleepless nights, chest pains, and many days where I couldn't even answer calls and messages from some of my best friends. Eventually I went to my wife and confessed everything, all the sexual fantasies I have had for years about men, about the recent interaction I have had with the guy. I begged for her mercy on me but was fully prepared to receive whatever hell I deserved.

At first she didn't took it very well, but after two days of it sinking in to her that I am bisexual, something I actually told in the beginning I may be but she didn't understand what bisexuality meant until now, she told me that she loves me even more now because for the first time I have made myself vunerable to her, and from then on, we had several weeks of deep communication where we discussed letting me explore my sexuality with other guys. The rules were simple and clear - no secrets, no hush hush, I had to report her everytime I hooked up with a man, before and after. And no Filipino. Those were her rules and I have no issue following them.

I came out to the rest of my family one by one - first to my sister, then my mom and later on my dad. My sister became a bit distant since then but expressed that she still accepts me, which is good enough I guess. My mom also accepted me, but was quite invalidating at first, not truly believing I'm bi since I didn't have male attraction in my childhood. Then it was my dads turn to hear my confession, and his reaction was the best probably.

"Yes son, I already know it because I saw the conversations on your phone when I came in and you were writing to her in tears, but I wanted to wait for you to bring it up because it is your life, your responsibility. I know you love your wife more than anyone else, but remember to think of them when you are in Stockholm working, and please, PLEASE, be careful of STDs."

The last sentence shocked me a bit. It's almost as if he either knew or just assumed that we opened up the marriage for me to explore my sexuality. I asked him before if he could hear our conversations from my bedroom, but he denied being able to hear anything. Now I am not so sure of that anymore, but I don't care either. My father gave me the reaction I needed to feel valid and not ashamed of my sexuality.

Now is my 2nd month in Stockholm and I had 4 hookups the first two weekends, and our marriage has taken a turn for the better. We used to talk only 2 hours a day, now we are chatting or talking every awaken hour. She apologized for the financial chrisis she caused while I was there by not following my instructions on bookkeeping when I invested in her businesses, but I had already forgiven her, and told her that's nothing compared to the horrendous things I have done. Our marriage is still open on my side, but my cravings for men has lowered alot and is now to the point where I don't think it's worth the effort to pursue hookups due to the messy nature of it. And best of all, we spend all days making dick jokes to each other and making eachother laugh at how messy I am of a person.

I am working now for a year or so to earn enough money to put into investments both there and for myself, and going back there November next year. I can't wait for that to happen. I miss her and my son so much and I am not sure if I will be able to keep my tears of joy in when I meet her at the airport, especially after all we have been through.

Hey everyone! So I (21F) have been going through a...weird...phase this past year in terms of figuring myself out and exploring life in general since that was something I never got to do much when I was younger (though that's a different story).

Anyways, I feel quite confident at this point in my life that I am bisexual with a heavy leaning towards other women.

At first I didn't feel the need to come out to any of my peers. However, as I've gotten older, holding onto this secret has been increasingly weighing on me. But the problem is that I am petrified over the idea of coming out to my new found friends.

My friends are incredibly kind and non-judgemental, and I go to college in a very liberal, LGBTQ friendly area. So I know logically that it's dumb for me to be so scared to come out. But I just can't seem to get it out no matter how hard I try.

I tend to shut down and stay silent when the topic of romance comes up among my friends for fear of outing myself. I think the reason for this is that my friends are just so nice and actually make me feel like I matter and that I belong. I've never had a more amazing friend group irl. I care about them with all my heart, more than I can express in words, and I am afraid they may turn on me if I come out. I can't bear the thought of losing them and being all alone again.

So...I don't know. I guess the main piece of advice I am looking for is how to get over this fear I have. Would it be better if I just stayed quiet about this? If not, would you guys have any tips on how to come out as naturally as possible without making it too awkward? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.💖💜💙

DOPPELGANGERS, I'm convinced.

I and several of my bi friends/exes (both male and female) have discussed in the past that we are much choosier regarding potential partners of our own gender compared to those of the opposite. Is this a common trait, or do I have a skewed sample?

so i've always considered myself to be bisexual, ever since i was very young. i've always had an attraction towards women, but i've never dated one. recently one of my friends found a girl that supposedly likes me, and we're planning on going on a date soon. i'm naturally flirty with my girl friends and i'm a little nervous that i'm subconsciously going to convince myself we're on a "friend date" and not a date date. like i've said, a huge part of my identity has always been that i consider myself bisexual, and i'm scared that if i go on this date with this girl and i just don't feel any attraction then that part of me will just be gone. is this normal?

Backstory: [25M] I believe I am someone who could be considered much more “hetero-passing” than most. Anyone I have come out to other than my mom was extremely taken back and even thought I was playing some dark joke. I can empathize with how this would be traumatic for some people, but for me I never thought too much of it. My bisexuality has always taken a back seat for me, which may be due to something in my past and should be dealt with in therapy, but I have never given it much thought. I have never been outwardly public about my sexuality outside of very close friends, family, and romantic relationships.

Today at work a male coworker of mine, who I am not very close with but have a mutual respect for and look out for each other, came to me for advice with another man who he had a few hookups with who was being too “clingy”. Prior to this I had never talked to this person about anything relating to our personal lives other than what we wear and what we drive. He said he wanted my opinion on the situation because he felt I could offer some insight that other people at our job wouldn’t have… because I was bisexual. He spoke of it as if it were so natural and not even a question. And for one of the few times in my life I felt like I was being actually seen by someone for who I actually am as a person. It was very surreal. I almost thought I had come out to him before but somehow forgot, he just spoke to me so matter of factly. My takeaway from this is that people who live similar experiences to us are able to notice each other naturally.

This was a very short exchange but I’m planning on talking to him more because I’d love to get to know him better now. I’m not really sure what the point of this post is. I’ve never visited or posted on any public community about anything relating to this. I just felt this moment was special and I wanted to tell someone because I don’t know who else to go to with this story. Thank you for reading this <3

You see I relate alot with heartbreak highest character Douglas aka Ca$h I relate with his character alot nmi don't relate to his Eshay stuff though anyway heartbreak high and heartstopper both made me question myself with heartstopper I relate with both Nick and Charlie and I lean more towards Charlie in physical aspects and mental health wise But I relate with Nick questioning himselfand taking online quizzes I have took so much of em my mum banned me from taking any more or she would change the internet password my mum is a huge ally BTW....sorry if this is worded badly I am dyslexic and autistic and I am still a young teenager not near the age of university/college yet and I don't want to have sex or anything like that because I think I might be Asexual because I get aesthetic attraction not sexual but I do get romantic feelings when I see a real person like face to face but I haven't felt romantic feelings for 8 months cuase my breakup---I started reading heartstopper again and I really connect with Nick and want what he has well not all of it but I think he made me question my identity again and Bisexual ya see I like guys like I have alot of celebrity crushes on both guys and girls not as many on girls as I do boys my mum says I shouldn't get into a romantic relationship again until I am 16-18 or something along those lines I agree with her---anyway back to my main question any advice on how to figure out your sexuality without looking up Porn or engaging sexualy,kissing is ok though but yeah nothing too big---so any advice?

My tiny little bright spot this week in a conservative area of Texas

I was at a college football game in a hella conservative area. Like I saw folks in Trump shirts many times at this game.

But at one point, a kid (~12) called the referees the f-slur used against queer men. Immediately, everyone in the area told the kid no and shut it the fuck down. I thought my wife and I would be the only ones, but nope. Dad got mad. The nearby families got mad. Kid immediately sincerely apologized and looked like he felt awful.

Idk man, it just gave me faith. People didn’t play with that word and I know a lot of those same people voted differently than me.

So I(18M) have always been confused even if I have considered myself bisexual

So yesterday i thought i should try grindr but to be on the safer side i only replied to the people who were from my college

So I picked out this one guy(19M)

We were going to study together today but he kept pushing (while saying not forcing) to have sex in the library washroom after the session (and when I asked about condoms he said those can't be arranged????)

So seeing his negative traits and my uneasiness

I dropped a nice apology message and blocked him

Now I know even if I might like men sexually to some extent, my emotional attraction to them is low(or isn't there idk)

I just want to know what to do... Should I just wait till I am graduated and earning to explore?

Edit 1 (i feel i should share this) Also I was being dumb yesterday as I was half asleep... Made an account on Grindr with my real name and pfp... Luckily wisdom struck today morning in breakfast and I cleared up everything

I had went as far as sharing explicit pictures with him.. when I didn't want to... Thinking about that made me realise... Oh fuck am making a mistake

Hey, I (28M) have been married to my wife (35F) for almost 5 years now, and I've always been questioning of my sexuality. Growing up having some attraction to some boys and experimenting once as a kid. Being Catholic though and in a not so accepting environment I repressed myself for many years but now that my life has been getting more settled and stuff I find myself wondering more and more of what could have been. I've never told anyone about my sexuality except for vague memes and jokes and I'm really terrified of telling anyone at all especially that I'm married now. I love my wife with all my heart but I still fantasize about sex with boys sometimes. I'm shaking just writing this and don't even know what l'm even asking about. Anyone have anything they can tell me? (Also posted in R/LGBT)

I (M) like the idea of dating a guy, but whenever I look at guys I never find them romantically or sexually attractive. Can anyone else relate?

It went well I'm married but I'm definitely not hiding what I like anymore im going to start dressing fem my mom was extremely supportive and is telling family whoever says something funny to her ill never see again not worried about that even a little bit my wife think just saying on Facebook is too much she says to many people will try to start shit but just tell friends and family I think she's right over the years I do have alot of stalkers on my profile exfriends and exes but as for other friends I'm kind of a little worried but not stressed but ide like to thank this awesome community for support and love yall show everyone I love this page and all the awesome people that make it so great I'm living my life out in open I'm might be in straight relationship but we aren't gender norms and I think men and women are hott so does my wife so why hide anything from the world as my wife has told me the ones that mind don't matter and the the ones that don't mind do I'm bi and I'm proud hopefully I won't find the grammar nazi with this one lol

So I'm a 17 yr fem, and I work part time at a pizza shop; there are some regular friendly customers that come in the shop, but recently this (34 yr) guy has been coming in, and what I thought was harmless flirting with me. But tonight he came in (didn't buy anything) to give me a dozen pink roses. Then I find out that he's been flirting with a coworker, and asked to "hang out" with her. Everyone thinks that he's wrong and creepy. I don't know what to do about it...

Hi I'm a young boy who is asking himself questions I don't know if I'm in the right place but anyway it's been at least 7 or 9 months that I feel desire for trans girls and I have a lot of bi desire and I don't know if I'm gay or just curious but I feel like I'm doing something forbidden. so here's my situation

I've tried a lot of lemon bars throughout my life, and even lemon cake pops and lemon bar ice cream but I feel like I need a recipe for my upcoming holiday parties to really give em the ol razzle dazzle you know? Does anyone have a really awesome great grandma's lemon heaven bars kind of recipe?

Looking for some gamers that are around 30s to play with when I don't have anybody else to play with I want it to be just relax without politics or worries of the world hopefully understanding that my house sometimes sounds like a zoo and have kids (that don't always want to listen to me ) I just want to talk some shit and game for a few hours on fortnite working on ranked and stuff like that(my niece got me into this game and now I can't put it down). Plus gets me to talk to others like me.

(Edit) I have game pass so I do have battlefield and stuff like that.

I've known that I was queer since my kindergarten days, but I struggled with accepting this part of myself. It wasn't until I was older that I came to realize that I was bisexual as I had always thought I was gay because of my stronger same-sex attractions. I have been through many phases of my life where I've either felt confused about my sexuality, perceived it as being "unholy" because of religious doctrine, or have accepted my bisexuality. Every now and then, a religious inner voice or simply human curiosity questions my same-sex attractions and whether or not it is normal/moral. I'd gone as far as attempting to "pray the gay away" and made no progress—shocker (I'm being sarcastic)! I'm currently willing to embrace my sexuality and, should I feel ready to pursue any long-term relationships, would feel ecstatic regardless of the sexual orientation or sex of the person. How do you guys cope with the shame associated with same-sex attraction often rooted in religious trauma or societal expectations of what a man should be?

Ive been thinking of hosting a small bi cuddle party at my place. How would I go about finding the right people for this? I havent reqlly put out there that I'm looking. I am nervous to be turned down. But want it small and intimate. Don't want everybody that is interested in attending either. It would be invite only. And be approved. Any other thoughts?

I feel silly typing this but I need to get it out.

Girlfriend got pregnant so we got married. We have had problems with our sex life way before the baby and it’s not helping. She is 7 months along.

Because of our issues such as me having a higher libido than her, I suggested I find a FWB to help. She is completely against it.

I also am curious on my own sex life. Traditional home and taught masturbating is a sin was no help growing up.

Part of my curiosity is what is it like to be with a man. I have never orgasmed from a bj so I was wondering is a man would have “the skill”. My wife can’t blow me. Her mouth is too small and her jaw hurts after 30 seconds.

So I still want to have sex with a man but it would ruin the marriage obviously. So I am stuck with wanting something I can’t have.

There is no solution other than accepting it.

I just needed to vent because this part of me I will never get to learn more about, even if it is just lust or young desire or whatever.

I guess the question is, if you are bi, how do you explore that while being married? Not everyone is ok with an open marriage.

I am not bi but I am at least bi-curious and I guess I figured that part out too late.

I usually don’t think of myself as a bisexual, but I have understood that I do feel attraction to both sexes. Most of the time it’s extremely confusing. It’s much easier to get that I’m attracted to women as a woman myself — I don’t really know why, it guess it happens more often. I can tell when a man is attractive but they’re not as many as the women and then I fell in love with a guy earlier this year and that was strange, unusual and uncomfortable — because I’ve never felt those feelings so strongly before, I have only had crushes before on both sexes.

It’s hard to imagine my future. I want to be a mother so deeply and get married. The thing is that I want that with a woman but also not. I’m Christian and I love being it. My country is one of the top most accepting countries of homosexuality and bisexuality and the majority of the population wouldn’t really mind whatever you are. Most of my friends are fine with people being gay and bisexual and the same goes for my family but I don’t want to tell them, I simply don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be abnormal. I don’t want to push people into making room for me. I can’t imagine standing on the altar breaking the tradition of a marriage between a man and a woman. I can’t imagine going through IVF or an adoption with a woman. I love loving women but I hate the fact that it’s not the norm and it doesn’t work with evolution. I don’t want to make things complicated.

It’s strange thinking for years that I probably was a lesbian because I almost didn’t feel any attraction to men in comparison to women and then falling in love with guy and opening a new door. I have a choice now — not really, you can’t help who you fall in love with but bear with me — and I can choose the easy choice or the hard choice.

I don’t want people finding out about it and I’m scared that they’ll notice. I’m afraid that they will find me staring at a girl a little bit too long and know. It feels as if there’s a big sign pointing down on me and everyone can see it but me. I don’t want to feel those things. I want my life to be easy and I want to fit in.

And then comes my problem with science. Because heterosexual relationships is the way for evolution there is a natural question mark as to why some people are homosexual and bisexual (I want to be clear I’m not questioning if homosexual and bisexual people exist rather why and how). Maybe I’m getting hung up on this but how can I be allowed to feel like this if there’s no obvious reasons as to why I feel like this?

I don’t really know why I wrote all this. I suppose I just needed to tell somebody and see if they can relate.

My first and only previous relationship was a WLW relationship for 4 years, and then i had the transition from that to a “regular” opposite sex relationship. Mind you I barely even talked to straight men properly let alone romantically prior to my current relationship so it was an adjustment lol.

For me it was like a type of culture shock. Things that didn’t matter in a lesbian relationship suddenly mattered a lot, like hanging out with perceived threats (other dudes or exes in this case). Obviously jealousy exists in lesbian relationships too but I never felt like I was doing anything wrong by hanging out with a certain gender of person, and it seems more normalized for lesbians to maintain friendships and be normal after relationships than it is for straight relationships. This specific idea of loyalty seems a lot more prevalent in “straight culture” and it was weird to get used to and work through.

Even just falling in love felt entirely different, not in a bad way it was just more slow and soft with my ex and intense and almost obsessive at first with my boyfriend.

Communication with another girl vs a boy was also very different, hard to describe exactly how but it was. I had more conflicts with my ex gf yet we still understood eachother very well without having to struggle to explain our feelings. With my boyfriend we don’t tend to fight often but it’s a whole different style of communication and having to explain basic emotions and perspectives that he doesn’t experience. I guess that’s probably a result of the shared female experience or something.

In the same line of thought there’s also the whole feminism barrier, not that my boyfriend was a crazy misogynist but there wasn’t that basic understanding of feminist theory and whatnot that lesbians and women in general tend to have that I kinda had to explain a lot of stuff to him that he didn’t quite get causing him to have some implicit biases and whatnot. Same thing with LGBT culture, racism etc. Yes straight people are aware of that stuff but they aren’t as directly involved so there’s a difference in awareness.

I also had to fight the instinct to grab his nonexistent boobs, that was something to get used to as well lol.

Being bi is like being at a weird crossroads between “LGBT culture” and “straight culture” and a lot of unique experiences come about as a result, feel free to share its interesting and funny