I met a girl, and I feel so confused now (internalized homophobia)

I’ve been so distraught over my own sexuality my whole life, and recently all the ugliness of my own repression is butting it’s head to the surface.

It’s been easy to just date men like I’m supposed to.

I always hid my attraction to women even though I’ve always craved them so badly. I’ve convinced myself women wouldn’t like me anyway, and even if they did, it wouldn’t work out because I know I don’t have the balls to ever come out apart from to my small circle of friends. So I should never get involved in something, right? I wouldn’t want to hurt the girl needlessly by feeling like we have to hide because of my own issues.

I do all this justification to never even try being with a woman, and this cycles in my head repeatedly. Some days I’m even like, do I even like women? But then some days I’m like, do I even like men? 😭 Fuck is this shit?? I’m just confused.

Now, I have become good friends with a girl who’s confident in being a lesbian and through her, I’ve actually started to slowly feel better about my attraction to women, and she accepts me for who I am. We have gotten like really close, we are so similar to each other emotionally, it’s crazy. Because we are so similar, we understand each other more deeply than anyone else has. And we have said this to each other.

Recently, we cried with each other and told each other how much we love each other as friends and how much we feel seen by each other and want to take care of each other and it was beautiful and I never felt so close to someone like I did then.

But I can’t stop thinking about her now, and to make things worse IM DATING A REALLY GOOD GUY THAT I LIKE. I feel like SUCH a piece of shit for feeling like this.

I understand why this is happening, I have never really truly processed my own sexuality and now that I feel close to a girl, I feel that I like her. Is it real or not? I don’t know. I’m confused. Same thing happened to me when I was a kid.

Again, I repeat my mantra - she wouldn’t like me back anyway, and even if she did I wouldn’t be able to come out for her.

I feel disgusting. I shouldn’t be feeling this way for her because I am with someone else. Maybe I’m just feeling curious? I don’t know. I wish I could stop thinking about her, I don’t want her to go away because again, she is a really good friend. But it’s hard to stop thinking about her when I talk to her almost every day.

I don’t want to punish her by not talking to her as often, and make her feel pushed away after we had such a deep moment. But I feel sick to my stomach every day I feel this way because of my boyfriend.

I wish I had explored before, maybe things would feel more clear to me now, I don’t know. I just know that I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself.

Just like I never have.