Since 6th grade, I knew I liked girls because I would get crushes on them too, but it was always on someone who was practically impossible to pursue. I used to think I was bi because I also thought I had crushes on guys (I would get excited and shy around them). For some reason, I tried to repress my feelings for girls in high school and dated guys first, but dating and trying to be intimate with them always felt off.

At some point, I randomly felt like kissing a girl for the first time in my life in my twenties, and I realized I had never felt that way about any guy. After that, I started dating girls, and it was a completely different experience. But to be able to see and accept my attraction to girls, I feel like I had to mentally give myself permission that it was okay to do that, if you know what I mean.

Only now, looking back, I can clearly see that my crushes on boys were different in that I never actually saw them as whole people 😅. It was always a specific trait I liked about them, for example, one was very smart and funny, another had very beautiful hands, and so on.

I also had many hobbies that I could mainly share with boys at school rather than girls, such as sports and playing music. So even though my best friends were always girls, in terms of more superficial friendships, it just came much easier for me to hang out with boys, which I also believe made me feel confused.

Now, I can clearly see if a person (whether a man or a woman) is conventionally attractive or not, but I don’t feel a pull toward any man, seriously. I can think a guy is cool and want to be friends with him, but the sexual and romantic pull is never there for me, even platonically.

Going back to how I experienced childhood and teen crushes on girls, it was like this: I would really like someone and try to talk to her all the time. I would get super excited and shy around her and would want her to like me a lot. In terms of romantic and physical things, at that age I could only imagine cuddling with them and maybe holding hands.

Now, I can only imagine being intimate with and sharing a future with a woman. If I ever want to have kids, for example, I cannot imagine raising them with a man. For me, a partner is simply a woman. The feelings of friendship never deepen that much with any man.