This is kinda long and rambly and I apologize in advance, it's kinda hard to get my thoughts into words.
I've been struggling with my identity for a while now. Since 9th grade, I've been openly identifying as bi, but as the years went on, I've began to wonder if I may be a lesbian.
It's kinda worrying, not because I actually dislike the thought of being a lesbian, but rather, I've identified as bi for so long that calling myself a lesbian would mean coming to terms with a new identity. It would mean I was wrong about my previous one for several years, and it would mean having to come out to all my friends yet again, as well as getting used to being a part of a different community. On top of that, I feel like I don't have the right to call myself a lesbian. I've been in relationships with men before, had sex with men before. I can't help but feel like calling myself a lesbian would be wrong after that.
And yet...I often find myself wanting to be a lesbian. There are times where I wish I wasn't attracted to men. The thing is though, I haven't truly been attracted to a man in years. There are men I find physically attractive, sure. But I haven't been interested in dating a man since 2012. I haven't been in a relationship since then either. I initially believed that I wasn't interested in romantic relationships in general, but over the years, I sometimes found myself wishing I had a girlfriend, never a boyfriend. Whenever people ask me if I ever plan on dating guys in the future, I always say that I'm focusing on me right now, or school, or that I just haven't been interested in anyone in a while. In fact, for a while, I thought I was romance repulsed. But now I know that if someone asked about if I wanted to date women, the response would be different. I have similar ideas about marriage. I always thought I just disliked the idea of marriage, and that I would never want to get married. And yet, I'm a lot warmer to the thought of marrying a woman. Or even raising kids with a woman, things that I can't see myself doing with a man. I want to date women. I want to be intimate with them. I'm afraid of commitment when it comes to men but less so when it comes to women. I really couldn't care less for being in relationships with men anymore. I'm so uninterested in dating men that sometimes people will confuse me for being a lesbian, and I actually kinda enjoy this. Sometimes I don't correct them.
Unfortunately, I have been with men before, as I stated earlier. I've had three relationships in the past, all with men, though admittedly, the first two happened just because I could. I entered those relationships solely because it was just something I could do, and at the time, I wanted to see what a relationship felt like. They were both nice guys, and we're actually still on good terms to this day, but the relationships didn't really mean anything to me. My third and final relationship was nice, and the only one that I may have actually liked, but I sorta just...stopped liking him as the relationship went on and that's why it ended. At the time I had no explanation other than "I'm just not feeling it anymore."
I've had sexual encounters with men. I've had some recently. But honestly, I really only do it because it's easy. Because there aren't any women around to be intimate with. I can have sex with men, and I'm not really repulsed by it or even really dislike it or anything. Hell, I can even enjoy it, but I kinda do it solely out of convenience, or because I feel like I have to. But that's kinda one of the things holding me back here, because despite my reasons for doing it coming from a place of "I feel like I have no other choice", the point still stands that I can enjoy it.
I also feel drawn to lesbian terms and culture. Another thing I've been struggling with lately is my gender identity, and while I'm not gonna get too into it here, since this is long enough, my desire to be more gender nonconforming and explore that side of me kinda ties into my desire to be a butch lesbian sometimes. Specifically a butch lesbian, not a gnc bi woman. Though that could be because bi women don't really have any labels like butch/femme for themselves.
tdlr; I clearly like women more than men. I can't tell if I'm a lesbian struggling with comp het or if I'm a bi woman who just happens to like girls more, which is a possibility I haven't ruled out. It's just all very confusing and I thought I was past this point of questioning my identity but I guess not. It's frustrating because I could either be a lesbian, and that comes with having to break in a new identity, or I could be bi, and that means all this questioning amounted to nothing in the end.