A broader way of understanding attraction, identity, and future relationships
Many people ask themselves some version of this question:
If I experience same-sex attraction, can I still be straight—or still date and marry someone of the opposite sex?
Many people are relieved to discover that the answer is actually yes: experiencing same-sex attraction—even when it is longstanding and highly compelling—does not by itself mean that a person is incapable of having satisfying and exciting relationships with someone of the opposite sex.
A same-sex attraction, fantasy, emotional attachment, or sexual experience is of course real and may tell you something important about what currently feels most compelling or familiar.
But it does not automatically require you to understand yourself as gay or tell you what kinds of relationships you will ultimately be capable of having.
One reason this question can become so confusing, however, is that people often assume that attraction is basically one thing—and that the strongest attraction we feel must tell us everything we need to know.
I don’t think it works that way.
In fact, in my work, based on many years of experience, I find it helpful to discuss with clients how attraction is actually supposed to work—and to especially distinguish between two kinds of attraction: connection attraction and triggered attraction.
This distinction also helps explain a question I discuss more fully in How Do I Know If It’s Real Attraction—or Just Fantasy?: why the person who most powerfully captures our imagination is not always the person toward whom attraction will feel strongest once an actual relationship begins.
Connection Attraction
Connection attraction develops through things like familiarity, mutual interest, personality chemistry, admiration, shared experience, and emotional vulnerability.
Sometimes it develops toward people whom we did not initially find especially attractive or who were not our usual “type.”
Coworkers who spend a lot of time together, for example, sometimes report becoming increasingly attracted to one another even though those feelings were completely absent at first.
People may also find themselves unexpectedly captivated by a close friend after a strong emotional bond develops. This can happen with a friend of the same sex or opposite sex. The person may not have gone looking for those feelings and may not even want a romantic relationship with that person. Yet the closeness itself starts to generate attraction.
That experience does not, by itself, tell us what identity someone should adopt or what other kinds of relationships they may be capable of having. Sometimes it is simply an example of how powerful connection can be in creating attraction.
In fact, because many people know this intuitively, or are taught about it from a young age, we often automatically know to maintain certain emotional and physical boundaries with people we spend a lot of time with when we do not want deeper attraction to develop.
Triggered Attraction
The second kind of attraction works differently.
This is when a person feels a strong and immediate sense of excitement or arousal from seeing or fantasizing about a certain type of person, image, body part, personality quality, role, or interaction.
Often these attractions go back many years and may involve some of the earliest types of people or images that really captivated us, for any number of reasons.
With my clients, I call this triggered attraction because of how quickly the response can get activated simply by seeing—or even thinking about—a particular kind of person.
Unlike connection attraction, triggered attraction does not require us to know the person well.
Someone may become powerfully excited by a certain type of person across the room or online while knowing almost nothing about them.
But once that person becomes real, the attraction may change very quickly.
Imagine a man, for example, who is consistently excited by assertive women with dark hair and a particular physique. He sees someone who fits that description online or across a room and immediately feels drawn toward her.
Then he sits across from a woman who has every one of those features.
Within five minutes, he feels uncomfortable and turned off. Conversation is strained. They do not laugh at the same things. He feels no emotional ease and starts hoping the date will end.
The features that usually excite him don’t just disappear, but they do not matter nearly as much now because he is no longer reacting to just an image or a type.
He is actually with the person.
The reverse can happen too.
Another man may meet a woman who does not look exactly like the kind of person he usually notices from afar. But conversation starts naturally. They understand one another’s humor. He feels relaxed and appreciated.
Afterward, he finds himself replaying parts of the conversation.
He wonders what she thought of him.
He feels excited when she sends a message.
He wants to see her again.
There is warmth, curiosity, anticipation, and the feeling that something might be starting.
That is another kind of attraction, and it can be exciting right from the beginning.
This is also why the question explored in Why Am I So Attracted to Certain People? can be so important. Sometimes what first captures us is extremely specific—a look, personality style, role, body type, or emotional quality—while attraction to a whole person develops through a very different process.
Why This Matters
Triggered attraction can feel so immediate, involuntary, and sexually powerful that people understandably assume it must tell them something definitive about who they are and what kinds of relationships they are capable of having.
But it may not tell us nearly as much as we think.
A person can have a particular type of same-sex person who reliably captures their attention while also being capable of developing connection attraction with someone of the opposite sex.
And the same thing happens with opposite-sex attraction. Someone can have an incredibly strong “type” and still sit across from a person who fits that type perfectly and feel almost nothing once they actually start talking.
In other words, attraction from a distance and attraction once we are actually sitting with and getting to know someone are very different experiences.
That is true whether the person we initially notice is the same sex or the opposite sex.
Connection Attraction Does Not Mean Settling
When people hear that attraction can grow through connection, they sometimes picture months of boring dates while waiting and hoping that desire will finally appear.
That is not what I mean.
A man and woman may meet for the first time and unexpectedly find themselves laughing throughout the date. Conversation moves easily. Both feel unusually understood. They lose track of time.
Neither is overwhelmed by sexual arousal across the table, but both leave feeling energized.
They replay moments from the evening.
They feel giddy when a message comes in.
They want to meet again soon.
That is not just neutral friendship, and it is not settling. It can be the beginning of a very real romantic attraction that is developing through an actual encounter with another person rather than through a distant image or fantasy.
If the relationship keeps feeling comfortable and enjoyable, physical attraction may begin to grow along with trust, familiarity, affection, vulnerability, and emotional closeness.
A person may start wanting to sit closer, touch, hold hands, or simply experience the other person physically in a way that was not there at the beginning.
For many people, stronger sexual feelings develop as emotional and physical intimacy increase. They do not always appear fully formed before the relationship even begins or before more affection is actually shared.
This is one reason people can become unnecessarily discouraged when they expect a date to produce the same kind of immediate excitement they feel toward a fantasy or stranger. I discuss this more directly in What Should I Expect to Feel on a Date?
Familiarity Can Make One Attraction Feel Like the Only One
The people, fantasies, and experiences with which we first become sexually or romantically comfortable often become the ones our minds keep returning to.
Familiarity matters.
Repetition matters.
Pleasure, excitement, relief, and repeated fantasy can all make an attraction feel more automatic and more familiar over time.
If someone’s earlier or more reinforced sexual experiences involved the same sex, those experiences may become especially easy to imagine and return to. Not because of “who they are at their core,” but simply because of experiences that feel comfortable and familiar.
The same thing happens when someone’s more familiar experiences involve the opposite sex.
What is familiar often comes to mind first.
But that does not necessarily tell us everything a person may be capable of experiencing once a different kind of relationship actually develops.
Same-Sex Attraction Does Not Have to Disappear
Another point that I think is important is that same-sex attraction does not necessarily have to disappear for an opposite-sex relationship to become satisfying, genuine, and sexually meaningful.
Many people with same-sex attractions go on to build satisfying and pleasurable opposite-sex relationships and marriages, including people who continue to notice occasional or recurring same-sex fantasies or attractions.
People in committed relationships of all kinds can still notice other people or experience attractions outside the relationship.
Monogamy does not require a person to become incapable of every other attraction.
If a particular attraction, fantasy, or sexual behavior becomes so powerful that it repeatedly interferes with someone’s goals or relationships, then of course that deserves to be taken seriously. But people can often learn a great deal about what keeps those patterns going and become much better at managing them.
For people whose biggest concern is the absence of strong reactions toward opposite-sex strangers, Why Don’t I Look at Attractive Women Like Other Men Do? explores more directly why this comparison can be misleading.
So, Can You Still Be Straight?
Yes.
Experiencing recurring same-sex attraction does not automatically mean that you must identify as gay or that opposite-sex relationships are unavailable to you.
You may still see yourself as straight even if you have experienced—or still experience—same-sex attraction, fantasy, emotional attachment, or sexual behavior.
What may be more useful is to understand what kind of attraction you are actually experiencing, how it tends to work for you, and what happens when you are not simply reacting to an image or fantasy but are actually connecting with another person.
You do not need to deny anything you have felt.
But you also do not need to assume that whatever attraction currently feels strongest or most familiar gives you a complete picture of everything you may be capable of feeling in a relationship.
One Idea Worth Remembering
The attractions that come to mind most easily are often the ones that have become the most familiar or reinforced. That does not necessarily make them a complete map of every relationship you may be capable of having.
Taking the Next Step
If this pattern feels familiar—or you’re wondering whether it helps explain your own experience—you can learn more about my therapy approach to dating and relationship or unwanted attractions or reach out for questions or a brief consultation.
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Related Articles
Does Same-Sex Attraction Mean I’m Gay?
A closer look at why an attraction or experience does not automatically answer a larger identity question.
How Do I Know If I’m Gay?
For people trying to make sense of recurring same-sex attractions, experiences, identity questions, and the future they want.
Why Don’t I Look at Attractive Women Like Other Men Do?
Why not reacting strongly to opposite-sex strangers may tell you less than you think about your capacity for attraction.
How Do I Know If It’s Real Attraction—or Just Fantasy?
Understanding the difference between being captivated by an image or quality and becoming attracted to an actual person.
Why Am I So Attracted to Certain People?
A closer look at why particular types, qualities, or personalities can capture our attention so quickly.
What Should I Expect to Feel on a Date?
Why attraction during a real encounter may feel quite different from immediate attraction at a distance.
About the Author
Koby Frances, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with more than 15 years of clinical experience. He has served in academic and clinical leadership roles, including as Chair of Psychology at Touro College South and Director of Training at SUNY. His clinical work, writing and professional teaching include a particular focus on dating, relationships, intimacy, attraction and sexual behavior. His professional writing has appeared in Psychoanalytic Psychology and other publications.