Charlene began doing volunteer work at the local gay and lesbian community center, where she's met a variety of other lesbians and gay men, both partnered and single. She finds some of the women very sexually attractive, something that has never happened to her before. She's also having mood swings. She's afraid to tell her lover how she's feeling, but there is already tension between them because Charlene's partner can tell something is wrong. Both Jerome and Charlene are experiencing delayed adolescence.
Teenagers typically have mood swings and intense sexual feelings, to no one's surprise.
When adults start feeling and acting like teenagers, everyone is caught off guard. Many lesbians and gay men do not recognize their feelings for members of the same gender when they are teenagers. Instead, they start coming out at 25 or 35 or 45 or 55, or older. When they were teenagers, the men dated women and the women dated men, if they dated at all. Some of them married and had children.