The First Time You Realize You’re Bisexual
By Rinay Sutton
The first time you fall in love with another girl, you might not know it at first. You might think, “Hey, this girl’s kind of cute but it’s not like I’m bi or a lesbian or something… I just want to get the hell in bed with her, like NBD, right?”
You might go to the Internet for help and google “am I bisexual?” and receive an obscene amount of quiz links from OkCupid and only marginally helpful answers from Yahoo! Although you’ve been comforted by the World Wide Web for hours you refuse to acknowledge it, or care even. Because those people, they can choose to be part of that LGBT community, but not you. You were raised in a traditional family setting in a normal, American town. Maybe those people have problems. Maybe they’re trying to rebel against authority.
The first time you question your sexuality, you might think it’s your angsty teenager hormones. You listen to angry alternative music. You hate your parents. God, you hate your parents. Your mom’s voice might pop into your head and say “It’s an awkward time for everyone, and everyone just wants to be unique.” You might believe that at first, for months at a time. But once you mature, and those feelings for the same gender still exist, you question that, just like you questioned your sexuality way back then.
The first time you say “I’m bisexual,” you might be looking straight into the mirror, getting ready for school. It won’t dawn on you for, like, five seconds. That voice you hear everyday… it might surprise you at first. Where did that come from? Didn’t you just spend the last year or so trying to convince yourself you were just going through a phase?
The first time you tell someone you’re bisexual; you might announce it publicly at a party. After all, why not just say it once and get the message out to everyone? You might be sitting at a table with about twenty different people you only know as acquaintances when the feeling in the pit of your stomach grows and you spit it out. You might or you might not know that these people will be talking about you for the rest of the month. You might or you might not care.
Or maybe the first time you come out to someone, you’ll be at your best friend’s house for a sleepover. You whisper it in the middle of the night as your deepest, darkest secret. Your best friend might be supportive and keep your secret until you decide to come out publicly to more than one person. Or, she might act like she totally gets you for that last time and keep her distance from then on. Hopefully the former, but you won’t know it when you tell. You’ll just innocently think everyone will be okay with it, that it’s not the ‘70s anymore. You might try to make that innocence last forever, but at one point or another, it will disappear, just like that one friend.
The first time you truly accept yourself is when you meet someone with the same sexuality. You’ll go out for lunch and share stories about all the bitchy men and women in the world. You won’t be able to live a day without her, because the first time you truly accept yourself is when you realize you are not alone.