Iāve always found it very easy to develop romantic crushes, from when I was seven or eight I canāt remember ever NOT having a crush on a boy. Iām a girl and my crushes were always boys, but when I was fourteen I was somewhat obsessed with a girl in my class - she was really pretty, really funny, she seemed really nice and dressed exactly the way I wanted to - I was incredibly jealous of her and everything she did and said, while also really wanting to get to know her better. This was in a new school and my social anxiety was at its peak, so I never really managed to talk to her more than once or twice. After becoming best friends with a bisexual guy I met (and only interacted with) online, I thought about it a bit, I thought āmaybe Iām so obsessed with her because I have a crush? Maybe Iām bisexual?ā, and those thoughts would come back sometimes every so often, but I mostly disregarded them because I had a crush on a guy at the same time, and they felt different, and āI guess I can never really knowā. I eventually learned to disregard the thoughts so well that I never took them seriously.
Around this time, maybe a bit later, I realized Iām a pretty sexual person - I had a lot of frequent fantasies, I always masturbated often, though I wouldnāt watch porn out of fear of people finding out, I did feel weird whenever I saw ads for sexy halloween costumes. To the point where I would browse and bookmark those ātop 10 sexy cosplaysā articles on random sites. Iām not sure why this never made me question my sexuality - I remember having entire folders (well hidden) with pictures saved of women modelling revealing outfits. At the same time, they would also make me incredibly jealous - I was incredibly self-conscious. I would get upset when I saw really attractive women, because I wished I could look like that. In the end I devised several excuses for my mixed reaction to these images - I decided that Iām very sexual and very attracted to guys, and that I subconsciously and automatically associated seeing women in revealing clothing with guys being really turned on, and that turned me on. āThe idea of turning on a guy turns me on, nothing else.ā
After deciding on that excuse I conveniently stopped worrying about it, at times considering myself ābi-curiousā but never ever to the point of actually mentioning it to anyone. Then, years later I had joined tumblr and gotten more versed in different sexual and romantic orientations, and I saw lesbian and bi women reblogging pictures of attractive female anime characters and tagging them āiām so gayā. It annoyed me, because I felt excluded even though I felt attracted to those characters too - thatās when I realized how out of the ordinary my āheterosexualityā was. That was the first time Iād been really conscious of these feelings after finding out that sexual and romantic attractions can be two separate things, and so thinking about it for a few days, āheteroromantic bisexualā felt really good, it felt really right and it made sense of a lot of things that I didnāt understand earlier. This realization just happened this last summer, so Iām still very new to the thought that Iām not actually straight.
On another note, since joining tumblr and learning about internalized misogyny and working on liking myself more, the jealousy went away and gave room for interest and curiosity (this happened way before the aforementioned realization). Iāve had several really intense āfriend-crushesā on women and girls around my age - one particular on someone who I got to know before I got on tumblr, and so I initially hated her because she was so pretty and confident and funny and great, and then later had a really intense āfriend-crushā on her for the exact same reasons - I still wish I could get to know her better, even though we havenāt spoken in almost a year. Since giving serious thought to the possibility of my bisexuality, I realized I might view and interpret these āfriendcrushesā differently if they happened now. It may be that Iām romantically interested in women, and that it just manifests in a different way than my interest in men. This is one reason why I prefer the label bisexual for myself, rather than pansexual or polysexual.
In the end, I have no idea whether Iām biromantic or heteroromantic, but in an effort to be as honest as possible and avoid accusations of āfaking itā (even though I realize Iām playing right into heteronormativity), Iām going with heteroromantic until proven otherwise. This also means I have conflicting feelings on coming out to my family - on one hand, I love being bisexual, I have a lot of bi pride, I donāt ever want to be considered straight again. But on the other hand, as long as Iām still heteroromantic, declaring my bisexuality feels like it would be the same as discussing my sexual preferences with my family, something I would never dream of doing. Iām also insecure that Iām kind of reinforcing the stereotype that anything non-straight is simply about sex and not love.
However, I did come out as bisexual very casually to my mom in conversation, and her reply was just āthatās not surprisingā. I feel the exact same way - bisexuality just makes a lot of sense for me.