Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Throughout my life, I have always thought I was a straight girl. People usually talk about how they knew it during their younger days but just had a hard time accepting it. However, that was not my case. I didn’t even know it was possible to be attracted to more than one gender, to begin with.
In school, whenever I had crushes, it was always on a boy. I remember thinking women were attractive sometimes, I would find myself being sexually attracted to them, but I always shrugged it off. I thought it was normal.
I didn’t even know you could be attracted to women and men. I just thought you either like the opposite or the same gender.
At that time, LGBT was not a popular topic within my circle. I only knew about bisexuality when I enrolled in university and started meeting new people.
It made me self-reflect and question my sexuality. Since I was in my early 20’s, I decided to give myself a chance to explore. I was attracted to men, but I was not sure if I felt the same for women.
I thought to myself, “I am staying by myself, so no way my traditional parents are going to find out. What’s there to lose?”
So I opened myself to the idea.
It was hard to date because I did not know if they were into girls.
In 2014, dating apps were not popular. No one used them, not to my knowledge anyway.
Back then, we did not have this option. We either met face to face or connected through social media by sliding into their DMs. There was no guarantee that someone you met was LBGT.
I had close friends in the LGBT community who introduced me to their mutuals. Before long, I became part of this queer friend group and eventually started meeting more people in the community. I was ecstatic.
Some were closeted, some were not. There were transgender people of both sexes, and some were lesbians. There was a lot of diversity.
I dated some of them. The more I dated women, the more I realised that I was into them.
I live a double life with my family
However, since I discovered this part about myself, I have not told my parents.
In my family, dating is a big no-no unless you have plans for marriage. So introducing my non-male partners to my parents was never an option.
I don’t think my parents could even grasp the idea of being attracted to both genders. To them, you’re either straight, gay, or lesbian. It’s just easier to keep it a secret from them.
I try not to dwell on ‘what ifs,’ and plan to just deal with the truth when the time comes.
People always have misconceptions about being Bisexual
Even in the LGBT community, biphobia – which is the discrimination against bisexuals / biromantics is common..
Some things I’ve heard along the way:
“You’re dating a guy now, so you must be straight, right?”
“You are just a gay person in a closet. You never really liked men, did you?”
“Out of all LGBT, bisexuals are the most likely to cheat on their partner with someone of a different gender.”
And the worst of all, “Does this mean we can have threesomes?” This last one usually comes from men. I think it comes from a place where girl-on-girl sexual fantasies have been fetishised.
These thoughts are so common that people don’t realise the harm they cause. It used to make me angry, but nowadays, I just roll my eyes and disregard their ignorance.
People always assume being bisexual is a pit stop to being gay and that I have just not decided on my sexuality. But that is not the case.
I have decided: I am simply attracted to both genders.
Just because I date a guy doesn’t make me straight, nor does dating a girl make me a lesbian. I am bisexual and that’s who I am, no matter who I date.
That does not mean that I am going to cheat either. There are so many cases of heterosexual couples cheating but do you look at them and say, “You are straight, so you are going to cheat.” ? No, right? Why do you look at someone bisexual and assume they will be a cheater?
Your sexuality does not determine if you are going to cheat. It’s about your morals, not what sex you are attracted to.
Over time, the biphobia in the community has improved
There is still a long way to go but it’s better now. It’s all about awareness and education.
It took a while for me to realise that I am bisexual because I had no awareness of the LGBT community. I do not worry about the younger generation. They are much more woke about these things on social media.
Today, everyone talks about the LGBT. Good or bad, it’s being talked about.
So even if the younger generation comes from a very traditional family that does not talk about the LGBT, they would most likely have resources to educate themselves.
That gives me hope for the future for People Like Us.
For more stories like this, read: My Family Asked Me “Are You Gay?” While We Were At A Strip Club In Thailand and I Told My Parents I’m Gay, And Here’s How They Reacted.
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