Every person, no matter what age has that Oprah "Ah-ha" moment when it comes to the realization about sexual identity. Yes, nowadays, thankfully, it's a more accepting, inclusive world, at least more accepting than it used to be but progress has been made. But before one comes out to the world one must have a self reckoning. And those experiences can often be the most surprising. There is always a moment you can point to and say... "that was when I knew." And those moments can be chill or chuck full of drama.
Redditor u/UnsettlingAura wanted to see who would be willing to admit and discuss the moment they realized.... maybe it's time to explore some alternate ideas by asking.... What was your "oh crap I might not be straight" moment?That Dude
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When I said to my friend "This dude is cool, I wouldn't ask him out, but if he asked me I wouldn't refuse" turns out I'm gay and shy.
At 23....
My therapist was doing a series of quick questions and asked "you like boys?" and I was like "yeah" "and you like girls?" and I said "...no? I don't know?" and he "well, straight people normally answer that one waaay differently"
Then it hit me, at 23, that I'm not straight (might be bi) and finding that actress pretty, fantasizing about a girl 2 years my senior wasn't me "being so ok with being straight that I was ok with having experiences with women" I actually kinda like them so yeah, I was that oblivious.
School Chums
I used to have this thought to myself in high school about my friend! I really didn't want to be gay. but I had to confront the thought that if she wanted to be my girlfriend, I would have wanted that too.
She didn't, and also I didn't tell anyone haha.
Fiery....
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When I was little and whenever I read books about a straight couple in love, and the woman was this fiery goddess, I never wanted to be the gorgeous woman in the book, I was curious about how it felt to fall for one. I loved the idea of it. Then, I started to develop intense crushes on girls.
Discussing Philip
Met a girl via Twitter through a tag, started talking, then moved to video calls. Every time a notification came up on my phone from her, I got that warm faced, fuzzy chest feeling. "we're just good friends" I said to myself (like a liar). "She's just really sweet and I like talking to her." Four months of this and one day she mentions Philip. I ask her who that is, as I'd never heard the name from her before.
"Oh, that's my boyfriend."
"Oh. Okay. Recent boyfriend?"
"No, we've been together seven years."
Around minute five of crying is when I realized... Crying about that and feeling like I'd gotten my heart broken wasn't normal.
Famous Ladies
One time in high school, I knew a girl who was really attached to me. I had low self esteem and she would always be happy with me and she would say things like "You look cute today" and "That skirt matches your eyes". I never thought she liked me because I would just think, nobody can like me or I would just think I was lucky to have someone so nice. It was by valentines day she made me chocolate in a little pink lock and lock as she confessed her love to me. I almost fainted as I coughed in shock. Wrong reaction.
She was confused but we talked it out. That year we went to prom together, she was my 1st best kiss that grade, and we were one of the most famous lesbian couples in our school. We later broke up because she was going to her dream college in California and we both agreed a long distance relationship wouldn't be good. Ever since, I knew I was gay af.
I Heart Hermione
Very first clue that I was bi was rewatching Harry Potter when I was 11 and wanting to make out with Hermione super bad. Then when I was 13 me and my friends were all at a sleepover and, since we were horny teens, we played spin the bottle. I got my best friend and it was like the best thing ever.
Lol yes Emma/Hermione was definitely my first celebrity crush.
I did that gay people thing where I was like "I'm obsessed with her because I just want to BE her". It got harder to do that once I starting having crushes on my real life girl friends.
Can't Change the Channel
The day when I was 16 and had just realized that the only porn that i had been watching up to that point for the last 5 years was the gay kind.
You, 5 years later: still watching gay porn
Wait a second...
"We" Love Lucie
When my best friend came out as a lesbian and my brain went automatically "YES WE HAVE A CHANCE WITH HER....... wait" so turns out I'm bi.
Edit: by "we"I mean me (a dummy) and whatever runs my emotions, and no I did not say I had a chance with her out loud
Second edit: For clarification, no, we never got together.
Turns out she was experimenting more than anything else and told me she didn't like women before I could even get the courage to tell her. We stopped being friends shortly after (for different reasons) and I have no way to contact her anymore. She never knew and probably never will. Lucie if you're out there, I don't think about you anymore (except for this moment of my life that, in the end, is more about me than about you) but I once fancied the way you would smile at me a bit too much.
A Girl Crush
Love You Smile GIF by The Swoon
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When I was 13/14 I was at a sleepover. We discussed our "boys we fancied list" then our "girl crush list".
They named celebrities, I named like... Holly from Drama Class, one of our female teachers, a girl in the year above. And was yeah "yeah she's pretty and she's so cute when she ...."
I was then informed a girl crush is when you want to BE this person, or be like them.. not be ON THEM or kissing them and holding their hand while you walk round a Christmas market.
And that's how I found out that being attracted to girls wasn't a straight person thing.
EDIT: so turns out a lot of people didn't understand girl crush as this and now I think we should all create a support group and discuss ladies we want to take on a Christmas market date....
"HER"
I wrote a very long diary entry in late middle school about how beautiful my best friend looked as she slept at a sleepover. I wrote in detail about her fluttering eyelashes, her smooth skin, her parted lips, her deep breathing, etc. I closed it out by saying that I'm not homosexual and I never would be, I just thought my best friend was a beautiful soul.
We started dating a couple months later.
He's a "10!"
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Realizing that a male friend was objectively more attractive than my girlfriend. Took me another 20 years to admit to myself that I was bi, though!
I'm Comfortable
Was year 10 uk (maybe 15). on a school trip to the US, shared a 2 double bed room with 3 upper 6th (17-18) guys, this would be back in 2007ish, when skinny indie kids with greasy hair were the thing. One of them was this guy, who was 18 and I thought he was so mature and grown up, he wore a proper thick woolen trenchcoat and told stories about girls giving bjs under it, which felt like I was talking to some sort of wizard. He had very pale gray blue eyes, but with dark skin and messy curly dark hair so they really stood out.
Anyhoo, they decided that being squeamish around other boys was kinda uncool, so this guy decided after his shower to walk across the room stark bollock naked to get dressed. And he was really thin, but muscular with it, and that was the first time I'd really looked at a penis before, because he stood there toweling off with a bit of a smirk, as if he was trying to make me uncomfortable. I was not uncomfortable.
The Ladies
Megara from Hercules (and Hercules).
Chel from Road to El Dorado.
Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Lola Bunny in Space Jam.
(And quite recently reignited my passion for men too) Zagreus from Hades.
Googled It
Sitting there googling "am I a lesbian" quizzes lol
Well the first sign probably should've been lil 4th grade me, after learning of the existence of gay people, laying there at night thinking, "aww man, gay girls are so lucky. Wish I could date a girl! Oh well, guess I'll marry a man."
Or the countless times groups of girls would be obsessing over how cute some dude was and I'd be standing there like ???
Or maybe the fantasies I had in 6th grade about me dating a girl I was friends with.
But for some reason I didn't even begin to consider the possibility of not being straight until I got the most intense crush of my life (the kind that physically hurts because you want the other person so badly) on a friend of mine who was a girl. Hence the googling lol. Took me another two or three years to really accept it.
Even now I have a girlfriend and occasionally doubt myself but I know that's just my dumbass brain overthinking everything.
the sex is in the heel....
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When I saw a woman dressed in a business suit, but with a skirt. She had on heels and tights with a black line going up the back of her legs. That sight with the click of her heels... I didn't just like boys!
When Blogging....
I was reading a blog and it said bisexuality was imagining yourself married to either gender and being happy with it. It's probably not an accurate statement but I figured yeah, I'd be totally fine with either.
Later on I thought about the sex part, was completely repulsed and learned the term 'asexual'.
So Shy
I really liked the dude and he really liked me to, we were both to shy to say but you could tell from a mile away due to happenings like these, I changed HS on third year and the beautiful love story came to an end, we did meet afterwards and I swear we could have had sex then and there but neither made a move, I'm still in love with that dude and have been in for 9 years since I met him, and I'm afraid next year I'm letting it go, I have to live my life.
Proof at the Louvre....
I don't think I'm gay since in relationship dynamics I much more prefer the company of women. However since the first time I went to the Louvre at 13, I was really fascinated with all those statues and paintings of naked men. So yeah, I'd say a beautiful body is a beautiful body, no matter the sex.
After the Shower
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i was over my friends house and he took a shower and came back to his room naked and started playing Fortnite naked i was way too interested in looking at him that i knew i wasn't straight.
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"What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?"
The minds of really smart individuals never stop working.
Resourcefulness
"They draw wisdom from multiple sources. Wait but that might be more wise than intelligent... But I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot."
– Puzzlehead-Engineer
Inquisitive Minds
"They are curious about everything."
"To be intelligent you need to be knowledgeable and you cant be knowledgeable if you are never curious."
– soup54461
The way highly intelligent people interact with others is slightly different.
Social Adaptability
"They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they're talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person's language of understanding."
– Wynonna99
Talking On Level Ground
"Talking to people as if they're intelligent at their level and without being condescending or even letting on that it's lower than their level."
"I used to work with a doctor - Tom Howard - and the day I realized he was a genius was the time he guessed every single condition a patient of mine had based on minute pieces of information about him."
– Yoodei_Mon
The Humble Professor
"No joke. The smartest professor I had in engineering school was also the most humble. She was an astounding human being. By week 2, she knew everyone's names by heart in the intro engineering course. In College. With like 180 students. Later, in upper division classes, people would occasionally ask some really stupid questions."
"Like, it happens... you get so deep into some fluid mechanics derivation or something you forget something really basic. People would ask a question like this and everyone would be thinking like; 'Wow, how did you even make it this far?' but then... it's like she would spot the flaw in their understanding so perfectly, and then respond with such clarity and wisdom that the person asking the question would look less stupid and the whole class would be enlightened."
"And here's the thing... I pride myself on being really good at that exact skill. I tutored a lot of people. I was easily one of the brightest amongst my peers. But that woman was on another level. It was mind-blowing."
"And it wasn't just her intelligence, but her organizational skills, discipline, consistency.... And yet... she was so humble. She was quiet and physically quite small. But she just exuded competence and immediately commanded every room she walked into. I've never seen anything quite like it."
– EngineeringNeverEnds
A Positive Effect
"When they explain something they make you feel intelligent."
– gwoshmi
When In Doubt
"They know when their knowledge ends and say something to the extent of 'I don't know and anything else i say on this topic is ignorant speculation.'"
–blutoboy
Some with impressive IQs may deal with questions in the following ways.
Reaction To Delayed Responses
"'You really think about everything don't you?' - a doctor, to me, after he asked me a question and I took longer than 2 seconds to answer it."
"No, I just pull something out of my ass every time and those extra seconds you waited for me to answer were purely to irritate you for my own enjoyment."
– Imakegoatnoises
The Really Good Questions
"They can ask really good questions."
"Edit: to anyone not understanding what mean, I’m talking about people who ask 'really good questions,' not just any questions, really good ones. I don’t know how one would achieve this skill(I know I haven’t)."
– milkmanbran
Taking Pause
"They spend time thinking before asking a question."
– ParkMan73
"Some of the smartest people don’t comment at all."
– metric-poet
I agree with many of the comments saying a really intelligent person knows how to cater the conversation towards another person's level of understanding.
They do have the impressive skill to convey something in a way that can easily be understood. Some of the most venerated professors at my university were like this, and their classes were always the hardest to get in to.
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I'm on the fence about high school. I want to hate it, but nostalgia haunts me. I saw a lot of violence, there is that.
We were on CNN.
don lemon nodding GIF by Red Table TalkGiphy"They started charging us for ketchup in the cafeteria. Most of the school boycotted cafeteria lunch and brought all manner of condiments from home. We were on CNN. They eventually caved." ~ Ash3Monti
No one liked him.
"I was big into drama club and musical theatre when I was in high school. There was a girl in the drama club in her freshmen or sophomore year who was super nice and everyone loved her. Her older brother on the the other hand, was a complete and total douchebag. No one liked him."
"He always made inappropriate comments or jokes and no one liked to be around him. One night, he was driving him and his sister back from school when he took a steep curve going around 100 mph. He lost control and hit a telephone pole. His sister died instantly and he was in a coma for a few weeks but ultimately survived."
"Myself and my friends in the drama club were devastated. She was one of the sweetest girls you'll ever met and we all loved her. A year or two later, the brother messages my sister and tries to use his sister's death as leverage to get laid. F**k you, you piece of crap." ~ FearTheKeflex
Bribes
"Guidance counselor was taking bribes to change grades (Both money and sexual favors). Invited one male student over to his house. Had the student tie him up and hang him by chains in his basement "dungeon." Student was homophobic and while the counselor was tied up, bludgeoned him to death." ~ monthos
H2O Issues...
"This is not that extreme, but it's still disgusting. We have drinking water taps instead of fountains. One parent was suspicious of whether they were cleaning the tanks or not. So they made an announcement that the tank was being cleaned every single day."
"A lot of us didn't believe it, so a group of boys decided to see for themselves if it was true or not. So they put a dead frog in the tank when there was no one around. I don't even know where they found the frog but they swear they didn't kill it. Anyway the frog was there for a few weeks. And obviously the water started tasting weird."
"After the teachers got multiple complaints, they opened the tank and found the frog. The boys were punished, but they fired back with the fact that they lied about cleaning the tanks. They were still punished, because they proved it in a disgusting way. They could've put literally anything in the tank, but they chose a dead frog." ~ R00mTemperature
The Quad
Acds2 Look Away GIF by Anime Crimes DivisionGiphy"A worker doing stuff on the roof. He fell off. Landed in the 'quad' at lunch. A large piece of machinery fell and squished his head. Like a cartoon, only funny. Like 150 Kids saw this." ~ LordInventus
Threats
"The Latin kings gang threatened my cousin and his friends and they had 10 squad cars guarding the whole school and dismissed us the same day early." ~ Terrykrinkle
“it’s gonna blow”
"I had just moved in from Egypt to the states in my senior year of high school. A teacher thought it would be funny to fold a bunch of papers and wrap them in duck tape to make it look like a bomb and threw it my direction and went under his desk saying 'it’s gonna blow.' Everybody started laughing and I was so clueless then I just laughed along. It infuriates me to this day that I didn’t call him out on it or report him." ~ ezzabousaif
Go Fish
"Someone somehow made a bomb threat on a Swedish fish candy. Like one single piece. I don’t know how it happened but he got arrested." ~ ts_13_
Masternid
"A couple weeks before graduation, this kid hacked into the school system and put a Hitler quote and a Boston bomber reference in the senior quotes for the yearbook. One of the affected parties was a trans girl, and we're still not sure if it was a targeted act because of that."
"Administration didn't find out until the entire senior class had received their books. Some people turned theirs in to get their pages replaced, but some kept it because it was a 'limited edition item' or some stupid sh*t like that. Kid got arrested and charged with cybercrime, since he hacked everyone in our school system's school passwords."
"He was so close to graduating too, but got expelled like two weeks before he could. Looked like a rat too. It was all over the news, and everyone in the state of CT basically knows about this now. Got out on bail for $5000." ~ kocorpsie
Season 3 What GIF by On My Block"Apparently one student brought drugs to school and was selling it to her friends. A completely unrelated student caught on and stole the drugs while everyone else was in class. She was caught snorting the drugs in the bathroom by the group selling the drugs and got the crap beat out of her."
"We also had a recently graduated student murder his parents for insurance money . He hid the bodies in a chicken coop and told everybody they were on vacation. It wasn't until 7 months later the bodies were found by the landlord because the rent was late." ~ randomgenericcow
Enjoy high school, at least try too. Maybe if more kids do that, it wouldn't be so insane.
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