Hey y'all, 27F, femme. I rarely meet queer women irl and my besties are straight. Just throwing this out there if anyone else was also looking to have more queer friends, purely platonic. I'm very outside, so I can always suggest something for us to do (or just be mutuals online:)). I really want gay friends lolll <333
I think I started figuring out that I was gay long before I had the words for it.
When I was in Class 5 or 6, I had two friends who were especially close to me. We were the kind of friends who were always together. One day, I saw them being intimate with each other while we were in class. Like ile kupitisha mkono kwa neckline to get to the boobs, you know. I remember feeling something I could not quite explain. I was jealous. I wanted that closeness too, but I did not understand why.
At the time, though, we did not talk about what I had seen. They knew I had seen them, and somehow we just moved on.
Around that same age, I had a tiny blue notebook. One day, I wrote four words in it: “I am homosexual.” I did not really understand what I was writing. I think part of me was trying to give a name to something I already felt.
I later found my grandmother using that same notebook to write Bible verses. I know she found the page and tore it out. She never talked about it.
Then there were other little moments.
During a high school visit, I remember seeing a high schooler twerking and thinking, “Oh my.” There was also a beautiful aunt I found myself attracted to. I even imagined what it would be like to sleep beside her, although nothing ever happened.
At the time, I did not collect these moments and think, “This means I am gay.” They were just strange little feelings that I kept to myself.
Then, when I was about 19, a friend sent me my first pron video. Smartphones and easy internet access were still relatively new to me, so I had never really thought about searching for pnor myself. The video was w/w.
I watched it.
And that was another moment where something clicked, even if I still did not fully understand what it meant.
Looking back now, I can see how many clues were sitting there.
I just did not put the pieces together.
Sometimes I wish I had figured it out before going to campus. I envy people who got to explore their sexuality there, meet women, date, make mistakes, and learn what they actually wanted. By the time I got to campus, I was still carrying so much fear and uncertainty.
I remember liking a woman and trying to “katia” her through a text instead of approaching her in person. I was too scared to say anything face-to-face. She eventually found out who I was, but we never really talked.
That feels almost funny now, but it also makes me wonder how different things might have been if I had understood myself earlier.
Maybe there was never one exact moment when I figured out I was gay. Maybe it was a collection of moments I kept dismissing because I did not have the language, confidence, or freedom to understand them.
The little blue notebook probably knew before I did.