“The hardest part about being bisexual is that I can’t figure out what to say to everyone who loves me to make them completely comfortable with it.”
Will Varner / BuzzFeed
I met my friend Paul in a novel-writing workshop; we liked each other's work and hit it off right away, so soon he invited me to grab coffee with him and another gay guy from our workshop. Eventually the conversation turned to our personal lives, and Paul asked me for clarification on my sexuality. I was writing a novel about, among other things, two women in their twenties falling in love. But also, my look is most often a straight girl aesthetic and I might've mentioned the guy I was dating at the time. So he asked me.
"I'm bisexual," I said.
Paul smiled warmly at me and asked, "How old are you?"
"23," I said.
"You're young," he said, "You'll get over it."
"I'm bisexual," I said to a guy on the third date, as our conversation turned to past relationships. It was an awkward and abrupt coming out, as are most of my coming outs. I have to come out over and over again, to just about everyone I meet, but I haven't gotten any better at it — probably because I'm in a constant state of anxious anticipation about their response. It's a terrible buzzkill when I'm really liking someone and then they say something like "I don't believe bisexuality really exists."
With Third Date Guy, I came out timidly and awkwardly, trying to preempt any bad conversation that would make me dislike him. I said, "People always ask me the same two questions. First—"
He cut me off: "Stop acting like you're the only queer girl I've ever hung out with."
On our fourth date, he asked me the questions.
This is the first question: "OK, you're bisexual, but who have you dated more of?"
Meaning: Should I think of you as straight or gay?
Posts
Why It's Hard To Talk About My Bisexuality