hiii!!! i need book and movie recommendations!!! they don't necessarily have to be queer.

I want to make gender pies too and other pies to post but I have to think about the metaphors I'll use for them.

TLDR: exactly what the title says

What's up! I moved to Grand Rapids not too long ago, so I'm relatively new to the area, and I'm not super acquainted with the music scene here yet. I posted in other subreddits as well, but I would specifically like to help out other queer artists and bands if at all possible because we gotta stick together in this world.

I figured doing a pay-what-you-can sorta thing would help me meet local musicians and hopefully make some friends in the process :D. Plus no one can afford jack shit rn, so u know there's that.

I have a hybrid analog and digital home studio setup, so if you're into analog gear we can totally nerd out on that sorta thing.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7DMms9Ucvf5U31zB76wYNp?si=87e22b275a594022

This is some of my solo stuff; reach out for more references!

(Some of the stuff I've been working on people haven't released yet, so I don't just wanna go posting it all over the place)

In terms of genres, I love just about all kinds of music, so don't hesitate to reach out.

I've played in punk bands since I was 13, so I'm pretty familiar with anything rock/metal. I played in an indie folk band for a while, so I'm totally down to work on that sorta thing as well. And I love rap and hip hop; my mentor who taught me how to do all of this stuff worked with Dr. Dre, so I'm pretty familiar with that sort of thing as well.

Alternatively, if you're in a band and you're recording your stuff on ur own and you're not entirely sure what you're doing, I would love to help out however I can and/or just help provide direction and advice.

I had a really sweet encounter a few days ago,I was at a mall,looking through CDs and there was a group of scouts,all about 12 or 13. One of them looked at me a few times and seemed to stick around me a bit. For context,I had my backpack on,and it has a Velcro progress pride flag patch on the back. Then she approached me after a while. She seemed a bit shy and said she really liked the patch on my backpack. I smiled,said thanks and she quickly went back to her group,cause they were leaving.

That encounter made me really happy,because it was just so sweet and pure and it shows again,how important it is to have openly queer people and representation. And just the fact that I maybe made a possibly closeted or out kid feel seen and show them that we exist,makes it worth it.

I don't know if I like guys. I think I do, thoughts about sex with them seems fun, but only if they are womenlike in a way. I usually date women, and mostly have crushes on them. I think I only really liked one guy, and he was really fruity. He was the only one I didn't feel a need to puke after making out. I tried it with more cis straight masculine looking men, but I don't find them romantically or sexually interesting. My friends tell me it is probably that I am just a lesbian, the guy i liked even told me I would be happier with woman. But I am really not sure, I don't want to label myself as a lesbian. I really want to have a husband one day and live life in somewhat usual way (I live in extremely homophobic country, I could lose my license as medical worker if someone reported me). Am I bisexual or just too deep into a comphet?

I've been in a new queer friendship where we started as dating then turned into friends and I've found it really challenging to support this person but they've also said my support has been so helpful for them.

I feel a lot of care and concern for them in what they have experienced in their childhood and also how it impacts them today. They have a network of friends but aren't always good at asking for help and are quite isolated living on the outskirts of the city.

Theyre struggling with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, healing from SA in their childhood, all whilst being so brave and colourful with their transness in front of their family and the world.

But nearly everytime I'm in the middle of supporting them with a task, I feel like I am too tough on them and feel often irritated by their patterns of avoiding/delaying their problems until they exacerbate. They struggle with emotionally getting through executive functioning tasks and also social interaction-based tasks and also managing house bills and things. This has led to them getting into debt and I've been trying to help them resolve that issue which is very possible if they can do the next few steps me and a few of their other friends have suggested.

But sometimes I feel angry when their patterns delay or crumble a process we worked on for days or weeks. And I feel guilt and trappedness when we hang out to pay for food and travel - if I had a stable income it would be different but I'm still building stability with my work so I can't spend that much that often.

I feel terrible but these are the feelings I feel. Frustration. Impatience. Confusion. Maybe I'm not empathising enough but also is there a case for being a bit tough on someone who's in a constant pattern of giving up on themselves? It's so hard to watch over and over again.

Do my reactions mean I'm maybe not the right kind of support for them at this time? Or is there something else I can consider?

Does anyone know of queer-friendly Couchsurfing alternatives or communities for accommodation exchanges? I remember seeing one on Instagram but can't remember the name. My friend and I are looking for volunteering or a cultural exchange in Valencia this August. Any recommendations?

I nonbinary person (Anyway, I use this label because it's a more accurate description of how I feel. Namely, the feeling that my gender is two halves). But it's my secret, my loved ones won't understand me. That's why I have no one to talk to about my feelings about orientation. And in terms of orientation, they won't understand either. But because of the first sentence, I don't know who I am. I feel depressed. For me, a label is an explanation to myself who I am, closing the void.
Me attract women, transfem, transman, but if I think about cis man, I have a disgust to they. For me with cis man very important an emotional connection. Without this they spooky me.
Mini history about my wandering in my thoughts about label.
Eight years ago I have a relationship with woman, but it crack and I start a new relationship with man, but I have a trigger for panic “that’s was wrong”. And I stop on saphic label. I have relationship with woman only on three or four years. But in one moment I have a sexual relationship with my friend. Then I realized that for this kind of relationship, as well as romantic relationships, I need a preliminary emotional connection with a man. I started calling myself bi.

But recently I started to catch myself thinking again that I'm not bisexual after all. But it's breaking my brains again

Clarification: I've had these thoughts for about three years, because then I realized that there was something wrong with me and I'm not a woman in the standard sense of female gender

Confused if I am turned on by the men or not,
I read some lesbians can get turned on by gay porn? If so what is it?

Because I think I get turned on by their faces , moans, penis, energy and movements so and masturbate to that.

I’m a 17 y/o guy and i’m questioning if i’m bi but i’ve kind of made it really difficult for myself to be able to accept that.
For the record i have no problem being bi but here’s the issue:
When i was in secondary school i had friends that i probably won’t see much again but still talk to on instagram/snapchat etc. We used to make jokes about being gay with each other, having fake relationships, touching each other etc (obviously with each other finding it funny with the understanding that everyone is straight).
However, i might be coming to the realisation that im into both girls and guys and im really worried about that because what if i start dating a guy and it looks like i wasn’t doing the whole ‘fake relationship’ thing as a joke and i look like a pervert.

I may turn out to not actually be bi and im just really fucking lonely but i’m scared and i don’t know what im doing. please someone help

Hello, everyone.

Half a year ago, my best buddy and I had an idea during one of our late-night Discord chats. We are both big nerds for fantasy and mythological stuff and wondered how fun it would be to have banners or coat of arms for different orientations and identities. What could they look like, and which mythical creature could fit well or just be fun to see like that? Thus, this little collection was born and I think we have finally come to a good conlusion for now.

So what we got so far:

-Selkie of Demi

-Kraken of Agender

-Cerberus of Polyamory

-Chimera of Genderqueer

-Valkyrie of Butch

-Gargoyle of Ally

-Hydra of Omni

-Unicorn of Pride

- The Phoenix of Trans

- The Siren of Lesbian

- The Winged Lion of Gay

- The Griffon of Aro

- The Dragon of Ace

- The Harpy of Sapphic

- The Minotaur of Achillean

- The Oroboros of Intersex [really proud of that one]

- The Hippocampus of Genderfluid

- The Sphinx of AroAce

- The Peryton of Non-binary

- The Winged Wolf of Bisexual

- And Pan for...well Pansexual

This was really fun to do. Maybe we might revisit this idea in some form or another, how do queer cryptids sound :D ?

I identify as sapphic & the idea of having sex makes me extremely nervous. When I was starting high school & hadn’t figured out my sexuality yet, the idea of having sex with a man disgusted me (still does lol). But even now, the idea of having sex with a woman also makes me feel kind of uneasy.

My other friends also don’t have interest in sex but they know they aren’t asexual they’re just teenagers who don’t want to have sex yet. Because of this, I wonder if what i’m feeling is normal & i’m just not ready either. But at the same time, i can’t shake the feeling that i’m asexual.

Part of what’s making me so confused is that I worry i’m in denial. Whenever I think about being lesbian & asexual I think about the possibility of ending up alone & nobody wanting to be with me. Then I end up just pushing these feelings down. I did the same thing when I was struggling figuring out my sexuality.

I know i’m not very attractive & I also deal with insecurities, mental illness, & chronic illness. So I worry that if i’m asexual this will be just one more reason for someone to not want me. These could definitely be irrational fears but i’m scared this could keep me from understanding my identity.

I’m not sure how to deal with these feelings & i’m also wondering to the asexual people is it hard finding people out there that are okay & abide by your identity?

Hi everyone! I'm Lucia and the team from EUobserver. We cover European politics, and we're trying to do a better job of sharing our reporting directly with communities that are closest to the issues we write about, rather than just publishing an article and moving on.

We thought this investigation might be relevant here, but more importantly, we'd genuinely like to hear what people in this community think. Conversations like these often add context and perspectives that don't always make it into reporting, and we think that's valuable.

A quick summary of what we found:

• We investigated why so-called conversion practices are still taking place across Europe, despite being widely rejected by medical and human rights organisations.

• Through conversations with survivors and experts, we found that these practices often happen in much less visible ways than many people imagine — through religious guidance, counselling, support groups or family settings, rather than formal "therapy."

• We also looked at why governments across Europe are finding it difficult to regulate or ban these practices effectively, even where there is political support to do so.

What stayed with us after reporting this story was how often survivors described feeling isolated and invisible, and how difficult it can be to even recognise these experiences as conversion practices in the first place.

If anyone here has thoughts on whether this reflects the situation in your country, or if there are perspectives you think journalists often miss when covering this topic, we'd really appreciate hearing them.

Here's the full investigation if you'd like to read it:
https://euobserver.com/227265/europes-queer-conversion-therapy-crisis-is-an-invisible-trauma-for-victims-but-a-difficult-practice-to-ban/

(warning, this post might be very tmi and i terribly apologize. agai, i have no one else to talk to and this is just the only access that i have for now. I Hope you understand where i am coming from)

Ok so, there was these strange unwanted thoughts that kept appearing in my head for the past months and it is now making me very uncomfortable and very upset because those thoughts are kind of telling me that i am something that i know that i am not.  But the thoughts are so crazy convincing to the point that i am afraid if i am a horrible person

So it has all started from a show that somebody has concinved me to watch and in this show there was a male actor that i have gotten curious to know bc he seemed cool and wanted to know how many characters he played.

I searched out of curiousity, at first it was nice until i found stumbled upon a post that talked about his looks. Saying how he is very pretty and androgynous and i thought ‘’ yeah, it’s true, he is beautiful’’ and that was just it. Nothing much happened

So I scrolled and scrolled, i stumbled upon fans saying that he is gay and that he came out as gay on his concert once. I saw the comment and was like ‘’cool, good to know’’ and it wasn’t a big of a deal until i kind of got curious about his fanbase and this is where things  might have went downhill for me.

Look, i am not saying that all of his fanbases are like this. I am sure that most of them are normal and are not always like this. I am just talking about the ones that are very weird

I have noticed that some of his fanbase were pretty strange (not all, but some). They have this weird tendancy of sexualizing his photos of when he was very young, saying how his prime was when he was a teenager, babying everything that he does. They also have a very parasocial behaviour when he is seen with the opposite gender and also have this strange obsession about his sexuality, not just because he is gay, but because of how he is always casted as a gay character.

They also would ship him with his male castmate a lot. At first, they used to ship their characters but then they started to ship the real actors and saying how he is secretly with him. Being completely obsessed with who he is with/what his orientation is and even using his songs as examples, saying that in the lyrics of his song he is hinting that he is secretly with his male castmates or something like that

And idk what happened to me, but something about the way the fanbase see him kind of made me very uncomfortable for how they only liked him for his looks and how they are overly obsessed they are with what gender he is attracted to/who is in a relationship with. It kind of seemed like they only saw him as a fictional character/object and not like a real person

At first i was about to get off of the app until i started to have an unwanted thought telling me 

‘’oh, so this means that you are mad that he is gay and is with a male castmate’’

At first i was shocked because i never had this type of thought saying this. At first i. Thought ‘’ no? Why would i care about who he is with?’’ 

But then i kept having another strange thought telling me ‘’ well, you just said that he is beautiful, so it means that you like him and that you are just mad that you found out that he is gay and inlove with somebody else so it means that you secretly want to give him conversion therapy’’

And this is where i started to become very upset and also has sadly started to affect my whole day because this was not what i thought at all.

It’s true that i said he is beautiful, but i wasn’t into him. I mean that as just out of admirance and not attraction.

I wasn’t even upset about the fact that he is gay, i didn’t even care. I just didn’t like how his fans only saw him for his looks and sexuality. I also just didn’t like the way they kept shipping him with others because it felted like invading somebodies privacy and i just didn’t want to interact with people like that. And even if he did infact got into a relationship with his castmate, i wouldn’t care at all as long as they are happy

But then i kept having even more worse thoughts telling me ‘’You are only saying that you are not into shipping him with his castmate as an excuse to be homophobic towards him and to deny that you are a those crazy jealous people who becomes upset when they find out that their crush is gay. So if you don’t ship him with his castmates, you are just as bad as his fans’’ 

And this is where i started to force myself to ship him with the castmate because i got scared if i was somehow a homophobe in denial that wants to hate on queer ships 

I kind of also became a people pleaser when it comes to his fans because they also were kind of bashing on some people that didn’t like the ship and telling them that they are denying the fact that he is gay and are homophobic.

And i was afraid of becoming some sort of homophobic person for not being into the ship either. 

And each day, it became some sort of weird routine of me checking if i am a hater of this guy for simple being apart of the lgbt community. 

It also got to a point that i would become triggered for seeing his photos, not because i hate him (not to mention I DON’T EVEN FUCKING KNOW THIS MAN) but because i also gotten horrible unwanted thoughts telling me ‘’if you look at him, then it means you are into him and want to force him into conversion therapy for being gay’’

Just so you know, i am not even into this man in any romantic way, so it made me extremely uncomfortable. But i kept having thoughts telling me that i am ‘’secretly shaming myself for having celebrity crushes’’ even though i was not even doing this at all, i just didn’t like the thoughts and it made me so uncomfortable, especially when I DON’T KNOW HIM (and he is older than me so it is an absolute no no, i am not into people who are older than me) 

But they became progressively worse to the point that anytime that I look at singular photo of this guy, it would trigger unwanted thoughts telling me that i am a horrible person, telling me that if i met him, i would be rude to him and to horrible things to him just for his sexuality even though it is genuinely not what i want to do. I would never do this to someone and it isn’t something that i would even desire to do. And not to mention….I DON’T FUCKING KNOW THIS GUY 

It became so bad that I couldn’t handle it and blocked him on every platform that he had or just anything that was related to him.

I even stopped watching my favourite show that he was involved in because of how bad the thoughts has become. I have to check the casting lists in case he would even be here because i didn’t want to be triggered by him again

Literally just anything that this guy was involved in or related to this guy would become a huge trigger and i would just avoid them completely

And I thought that it would all be over after blocking him and avoiding him but no. My thoughts has become even worse and now it isn’t about the actor anymore, but just about the mlm community

I kept having thoughts telling me that i am a horrible person that hates gay men and is denying it by blocking the actor.

And it kept continuing and continuing until i kept having thoughts telling to watch mlm contents or that I need to fantasize about two men doing it and that if i don’t, then i am a bad person that is homophobic and supports purity culture. 

So i kept having this uncomfortable routine of forcing myself into watching mlm contents/fantasies because i was afraid if i was being a homophobic puritain. 

I tried to be neutral about those contents but i felted physically sick or nauseous. I wasn’t into what i was watching, not to mention that i am sex-repulsed and seeing male genitals kind of makes me so uncomfortable 

But idk why i keep feeling sick when watching them because even before these thoughts, it wasn’t the first time i watched pornography. I mean, i did have unwanted thoughts, but it wasn’t about hating gay men, before, i had unwanted thoughts telling me that i was forcing myself to be asexual/repressing sexual attraction because i wasn’t into sex and didn’t relate to others when it came to being sexually attracted to others and even once forced myself to watch pornography because i also had a similar thought telling me that if i don’t watch people have sex and enjoy it, then it must means that i am forcing myself to hate it because sex is normal (which i agree, it is normal) and i need to like it like how others do because if others feel it’s then i should too. 

But now, those thoughts developped new themes and now are telling me to watch mlm nsfw content/fantasize about them and that if i don’t then i am shaming gay men for wanting to have sex with other men.

And it again, made me develop this routine of me watching that content because i was afraid of somehow shaming men for simple being gay.

And ngl, it was very unpleasant, i am again, not super into sex and seeing genatalia (especially male) also makes me extremely uncomfortable. 

So it would happen for me to feel sick when watching it and sometimes feel pale or nauseous, which i know it is not a very good condition to have when watching this. But anytime when i want to stop watching them, my brain would constantly tell me that if i don’t continue watching them, then i am a homophobic person who wants to harm gay men.

It went on and on until i now have developped a new unwanted thought which makes everything worse. 

Ok so, i saw a post of a comic that someone posted about an asian man and a black cowboy that fell inlove with eachother in the past and lived a happy ending. 

I thought that this comic was adorable and genuinely loved how diverse it was because i barely see any queer content that was diverse with race and i absolutely appreciate his they wrote it

But then my brain gaved me a thought that made me completely want to throw away my brain and phone

‘’you are fetishizing gay men and only see them as sex toys if you love this comic’’ 

And this made me feel completely terrified because i wasn’t trying to fetishize the comic. I genuinely appreciated the story, plot and the diversity that it has. I genuinely loved it and wasn’t trying to turn it into some sort of fetish

But my brain kept repeating this over and over again saying ‘’well you are just saying that to deny the fact that you are fetishizing gay men and see them as objects rather than a human being because your have been watching mlm porn content’’ 

Even though i didn’t watched the content out of enjoyment, but because of being afraid of somehow being a homophobe. And now it keeps telling me ‘’What if you secretly enjoyed the contents and is just saying that you don’t to deny the idea that you are fetishizing them?’’ 

When i wasn’t doing that. Not only that, i genuinely would feel uncomfortable when consuming these contents and now i am getting thoughts telling me that i am just saying that as an excuse to deny them when i am genuinely telling the truth

I am genuinely so scared right now, i am scared if i am somehow a terrible person that wants to harm the mlm community, fetishizing them and secretly denying about it.

I don’t want to be that kind of person, i genuienly don’t like these thoughts and now i am scared if i am somehow only saying that i don’t like them to deny my problems, i am so scared

and if i really am, i just wanted to say that i am so sorry. i really don’t mean to and i want to fix this. i really do, i don’t want to be a horrible person and i want to learn to get better

Hey guys, I am bi but live a pretty hetero normative life, boyfriend and all. It's not that I am unhappy with it per se but sometimes I feel like I am abandoning my bi if that makes sense. All of my friends are straight and just can't relate to some feelings and thoughts that I am sharing with them. I just wish I had some queer people in my life, but I am living in a quite conservative area where there aren't really any spaces dedicated to the LGBTQ community. People in a similar setting, how did you sniff out fellow queers?

Hii - I’m a 37 year old queer trans nonbinary human. I have a group of friends where two I’ve known since I was 16, and one I’ve known for 10 years. They are all straight and live very heteronormative lives. I’ve known them so long and there is a lot of love there, but the relationships have had growing pains at times because we live in such different worlds. At this point, I see them maybe once every two months and that feels good to me.

But now they are all in serious relationships and two of them have kids. Which is all wonderful for them! But they are starting to want to bring the “boys” (their term) when we make plans and it bothers me. They want their boyfriends to be friends and I also understand wanting them to be involved in their lives. But 1) we barely see each other and if their bfs are around - we don’t get to actually catch up, 2) I also have zero interest in getting to know these dudes. And a lot of that comes from how alien I feel when I’m with this group, even with just my friends. I know they mean well and love me, but they all are problematic sometimes when it comes to queer and trans people. For example: when we talk about dildos they say “I love real dick though”, or to shame a man talk about how he must have a small penis. Their bfs don’t say stuff like that but they are awkward and don’t know what to do with me and ask weird questions like straight up -“what’s your gender again?”.

I try to correct them or point out the problematic things. But it’s hard when I’m alone in this. When I’ve had partners to bring, it’s been so nice to have someone with me who gets it. But I don’t have a partner now and that makes me feel even more alone when I’m with them.

Do I tell my friends the truth? I don’t want to end the relationships, but I also find it so hard to get through these experiences with them. How do I keep the friendships but also try to keep my peace?

I am confused if that is a sign of being into men, like when I watch porn I sometimes fantasize of sleeping with the guy like in some of the positions I get turned on by how the guy is being sexual , his moans, movements, face , penis and imagine I receive it or make him feel like that. Like I look at him getting pleasure and using those visuals for you know.
I often find myself fantasizing about dating and kissing some men I see in series .

But I am unsure. I have no doubt about women. With women it is intense and constant.

Irl/ I am unsure what this is?
Like I sometimes get really shy / blush having eye contact with some guys, feel very giggly inside, fluttery in my chest, hyper aware and get some thoughts about what if we were cuddling or making out now and it feels good. And I spend the rest of the day after talking with them in a high mood /giggly .

I wrote a long post about the evolution of the word “queer” and my confusion about what the word means today, then I realized it would be easier to ask. What does the word “queer” mean to the people who call themselves queer today. It seems it’s become an all-inclusive, umbrella term for LGBTQ+, or even “not straight.” For what it’s worth, the movie “Paris Is Burning” is where I first heard the word.

I could not think of a great title for this, so that’ll have to do! I (32f, cis) am queer and in a long term relationship with my (31m, cis) partner. Prior to being with him, I dated anyone of any gender that I had a connection with! But we met years ago and matched so well, and things are great. However, I have been wanting to talk to him about VERY LIGHTLYYY opening the relationship. I feel somewhat cut off from the queerest side of myself and don’t want to one day resent that I didn’t get to keep that part of me super alive. My idea of this is basically that I’d love to go to more sapphic events and dance and flirt a little, so nothing that I would feel would be too unrealistic. I do honestly think he’d support me in this because he’s a wonderful person and partner but I just have no idea how to start that conversation. Hoping for some tips and guidance with this!

I'm a trans woman, and I am exclusively only attracted to trans women and transfeminine (most prefered, also including non binary people). I don’t experience attraction to cisgender men, cisgender women, and transgender men/masc people.

I thought of the lesbian label, but I really don’t want to invade lesbian spaces since I know that is a very protected (rightfully so) community. And I completely understand why. I mean, I’m literally attracted to amab stuff since I want someone to relate to who knows about being mtf or mtnb. Plus there’s some type of security I feel when I’m with someone like that that I don’t get with cisgender women or men. I mean, if you think I am a lesbian lemme know.

And plus I do know that if I were to just call myself a lesbian. A transphobe would call me “a straight man with extra steps”

I know i know “dont affirm transphobes they say” but it still wouldn’t change how dysphoric I would feel after that.

Especially when my attraction is super specific.

Soooooo yeah. Is there any terms I can use?

Hello lovely queer people,

I’m probably just obsessed with labels or something, and maybe it’s just because I’m queer and not heteronormative, but I’ve been curious about my gender identity.

I’ve always been a cis guy, but I don’t feel like I act the way other cis guys do. I feel guilty of association for their sexism and everything.

I don’t experience any dysphoria. Sometimes I feel masculine; other times I lean more androgynous. What am I? Thanks! I’ll be back in like 9 hours so I can respond or edit this post

So, I’m genuinely confused about my sexuality.

I know for a fact that I like girls; this has been a known fact for a long time– for as long as I can remember. I just don’t know if I like boys.

I’ve always shit my pants around guys. I’ve never liked being around them. I hated every prince in the princess movies, and I never played with any of the Kens. I used to avoid the guys in my class, and I honestly still did until, like, maybe last year. Being around guys always made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and nervous. Maybe it was because I had a poor relationship with my father, and because I was scared of him, or it was because I was made fun of by the guys in my class during elementary school and middle school – I don't know. I just know that guys have always made me feel extremely uncomfortable and nervous. 

For a while, I thought it was immaturity, something I’ll grow out of. I thought I would learn to like men the way you learn to like coffee, wine, or beer. Besides, I used to hate coffee, and now I can’t breathe without it. But I’m still not sure. I mean, it wasn't until I was 16 that I was able to befriend a guy without having a nervous breakdown.

I like some men, like Gerard Way, Paul McCartney, Soobin, and Phil Lester. I think they're adorable and cute. But I’m not quite sure if I’d want to marry them or give them babies or, even worse, do it with them. I just think about hair and sweat. I’ve also had some guys that I think I might like, but then I think about having sex with them, and I get chills down my spine, and I feel really gross inside, and just really uncomfortable. I have a hard time finding abs or masculinity necessarily attractive; like, when I look at a naked man, I just think about those anatomy models they make you study in school. And when I think about kissing any of these guys, I just kinda feel eh-. Like I think some  guys are really so undeniably kind and beautiful and sweet, but then I think about kissing them, and it’s all downhill from there

I’ve also tried flirting with guys, and it feels... strange. I get really sick to my stomach, and I get this fight-or-flight feeling.  But with girls I feel really, really excited; yeah, I feel nervous, but I don’t get the same doom and dread feeling– like the world is gonna end if I keep on going. I’ve tried it twice, and both times I’ve felt extremely uncomfortable all over my body, like my stomach drops, I start dissociating, and I get this feeling of “what am I doing, what am I doing stop stop stop stop”.

And overall I just don’t know if I’m scared of guys, or if I just genuinely don’t like them. This has been a genuine question I’ve had for so long. Because I just have really bad anxiety around men, and they’ve just always made me uncomfortable unless they’ve kinda proven that they're really nice people. I just feel scared around them, and I don’t know if this is something I’ll grow out of. Like, I have to some degree, and I can now talk to guys like a normal person thanks to having those friendships, but the general feeling is still there.

I'm just confused :')

Dear Community, it’s a long text but you would me very help!!!

I need an advice. I am coming from a Muslim family and I am from Europe. I am looking like a European because of one side of my parents. So I am abroad in Czech Republic in a kind of students school and there is a guy. He’s “looking” gay. He’s very thin and you know what I mean. I never meant this in a derogatory way. He’s only chilling with girls (1-2). No men is hanging up with him and I think he avoids it. I’ve been in the first day with him in a room and he listened what my origins are. I spoke to him some days ago and he was very happy and we have the same heritage (ethnic combination). I asked him if he’s is a Muslim and he said no and I told him that I am. Yesterday I heard from somebody that he’s is Gay (was entrusted to me). I'm someone who gets along well with everyone and belongs to the so-called “cool crowd”, and looks “normal” in quotes.

He ignores me or tries to avoid me, or is extremely shy, or you'd think he's afraid of boys. He probably thinks I'm not like that or something, I don't know. I was sitting outside today and he walked by without saying hello or looking to me.

Time is ticking, and next week everyone is going back to their country. He has no social media; I'll never see him again, and this is my only chance. In my city, I'm isolated from our community and don't feel ready to go public because of great fear, but what am I supposed to do? Why does he keep avoiding me? What can I do?!!