When you grow up immersed in a culture of compulsory heterosexuality and labour under the misapprehension that you must be straight. Hetlag typically lasts for years or decades.
It is particularly prevalent among those who do not experience a strong sense of romantic or sexual attraction to any sex or gender, and therefore have less obvious counter-evidence to the assumption of heterosexuality than those who experience strong same-sex/same-gender attraction. This is typically exacerbated by the lack of LGBTQIA+ education in schools and lack of awareness in many communities.
However, it is not exclusively experienced by people who identify under the asexual and/or aromantic umbrellas. Anyone whose sexuality is not the exclusively heterosexual 'default' that widespread social norms teach them to expect may experience het lag.
Originally coined in a tweet by Jared Pechacek (@vandroidhelsing):
"Mistyped it as 'het lag' so now we have a term for when you grow up thinking you're straight."
aka Hetero lag- aka heterosexuallag: when you grow up thinking you are straight but you never really know but in the back of your mind you do really know you just push it back into your mind more though.
John: im gay- BUT HET LAG EVERYDAY AMIRITE
John at 60: still gay but still het lag
Be respectful to people who don't want to come out and get out of HET lag. It takes time.
That period of time, before coming out, when a gay guy tries to believe he's straight and dates girls.
I tried dating girls during my teen years but had no sexual feelings towards them. After I figured out I like men sexually, I realized I had been suffering from het lag.