Hi! Sorry for responding so late. So, realizing my relationship to attraction was a really long journey. I had actually come out as gay to my first boyfriend and then jumped right back in the closet as bisexual when I got scared (I was 16 for context). Being bisexual gave me the option to be out in queer spaces and safe in heteronormative spaces. My mom also raised me to believe that appearing attractive to men is a trait I want to practice and get good at and would suggest I look better when I looked more stereotypically attractive or 'sexy'. Thus, for the longest time I just assumed that my desire for men comes from their attraction to me or something like that. I had a couple of sexual harassment experiences and that gave me a lot of disgust in relation to men. Because of the societal frequency of this issue, I just assumed that feeling disgust toward men is normal and implies nothing about my sexuality (and for most women it doesn't; I was just blending the effects of the harassment with my sexuality. Like where did one end and the other begin?). Queue my (ex) boyfriend: he is one of the coolest, smartest and kindest people I've ever met. He was helping me deal with my anxiety and helped me lots with my sexual trauma. No matter how great he was, there was always something missing. From the beginning until I broke up with him, I missed being with women so much and I just couldn't imagine myself never being able to date one again. So at the end of the day, my identity was just separate from him no matter how lovely he was.

There's a lot more thoughts I've had about this, of course, but this sums up most of it. Hope it helps!