For me, everyone else knew I was gay before I did. I want to say I finally figured it out when I was 14 or 15 and I met a guy in high school who I thought was really nice looking and quickly realised I actually just found him hot. Ironically a few years later after graduating I saw him on Grindr hahah but he was never particularly kind to me anyway so nothing actually came of that.
I think I probably would’ve figured out I was gay way earlier if it hadn’t been drilled into me by my parents at an early age that it was absolutely NOT ok to be gay and also I definitely wasn’t gay no matter what anyone else said. They knew as far back as that but to this day they won’t acknowledge it cause they got those hardcore republican anti-gay values and whatnot.