look, as someone who started watching this show with an "eddie diaz is gay" lense, it does make sense, if you squint really hard and ignore some of canon. but season 9 and also making buck/shannon parallels edits made me rethink my stance on eddie's sexuality completely in a way that i could easily see him as a bisexual. (and demi, but he was always demi to me). because if we do take canon into account (and we kind of have to, since buddie is not really your usual fanon ship, because we have an actual chance of it becoming canon), then eddie did love shannon. romantically and sexually. the first part is maybe not that obvious because their relationship was messy. but love was not the problem (pwmow is echoing in my mind). if we can say that buck was in love with abby and taylor despite these relationships being unsuccesful (though there're people that deny that too), then we can say that eddie was in love with shannon.
i like reading fanon theories about comphet gay eddie. but i don't think it's the story that the show was trying to tell, because eddie and shannon's relationship was very real to the writers. from the show's pov, the reason they didn't work out wasn't because eddie was gay and wasn't actually in love with her, it was because they were two teenagers thrown into parenthood that had to grow up too fast. and eddie enlisted probably to escape the mess that was his home life with not being mentally ready to be a father (something he said himself) and also living with his overbearing parents (we know it from the way shannon talks about them, but also literally from any other time they're on screen too). he also learned from his father that to be "a real man" he needs to "provide for his family" (another thing that was said in canon a few times). so there were a few reasons for why he enlisted that have nothing to do with him not having feelings for his girlfriend that had to become his wife because of the outside pressure. and if we're talking about second thing which is his sex life, then it's also very much canon that he enjoys sex with women. and as much as i love the entire "comphet gays and lesbians can enjoy sex with the opposite gender because sex is a very layered thing and human brain can do wonders when it comes to denial, performance, and sticking to the status quo" discourse, because, yeah, it actually happens irl, and it would be cool for the show to explore it through eddie - maybe it would even work in season 5 after the ana breakup - again, it doesn't seem like it's the story that the show is painting. eddie and shannon's biggest issue was actually them jumping to bed first and thinking about everything else later - or, actually, using sex to avoid the issues in their relationship. basically, what buck "liked" to do in all of his relationships too. and yeah, eddie did romanticize his relationship with shannon, but i think it was mostly because she DIED, and he wanted to preserve this picture perfect image of her and their marriage in his mind, because they never got the chance to figure their shit out. she divorced him and then she died. it all just stayed unresolved, as we clearly see in s3 and s7. especially that dialogue with kim where he tells her that they were apart more than they were together and he thinks she was the love of his life, though he didn't know it at the time. and if it weren't for buck, i would agree with him. i always said that if the writers didn't kill shannon off and made her and eddie actually work through their issues and reconcile, like maddie and chimney did in s5, i would like them together. they had potential (and chemistry). but with what we have in canon, i think of shannon as eddie's twin flame and buck as his soulmate. so in my opinion, buck is the love of his life, and shannon was more like a lesson, like abby for buck. (i always come back to this post in my head when it comes to eddieshannon). maybe that's why abby and shannon are still haunting the narrative all these years later, lol. they're THE ghosts in their stories (2x07 reference, where interestingly enough, shannon came into picture at the same time as buck let go of abby).
and if we're talking about ana and marisol, it's also canon that eddie was attracted to them visually and physically (even though i have a lot to say about rg's acting of eddie. like, i'm sorry, but yeah, his heart eyes for buck look more natural than his heart eyes for any of his official love interests. and i do want to scream "GAY!" any time i see eddie on screen. but, yeah, has nothing to do with canon). not so much romantically, but it probably has to do with him being not over shannon. like, he has trauma (idk if that's too big of a word for this) when it comes to commitment in romantic relationships because of having a child and marrying too soon. that's also the reason why it was easier for him to do all this relationship stuff with buck, because they didn't label it as romantic. eddie wasn't suffocated by this role of a boyfriend or husband. he just got to play it out with buck with no attachments. in his head he's "a nester that nests". and while he couldn't really commit to his words in his actual relationships - because with shannon there were too much baggage and with ana and marisol there wasn't enough chemistry and connection, he just chose them as something that "should work". i mean, both times he was pressured into dating them by other people. and they were also picture perfect caring loyal latina women. exactly what his parents would want for him, instead of shannon (the way they talk about her makes me want to punch them in their face) - he did it all effortlessly with buck because buck was in the category of his "best friend" in his mind. i mean, obviously he was so much more, since eddie chose to build a nest with him (and buck was actually the one to make the first step, and they started building a nest together without even discussing it really). but we all know how good eddie is at compartmentalizing, so it took a while for him to realize what place buck actually takes in his life.
which leads me to the next point - eddie also just in general has a problem with listening to his own feelings, because he always focuses on what's best for everyone else ("make sure that you're following your heart, not christopher's". "we can't take care of others if we don't first take care of ourselves". "if you're gonna make it about me having to choose between you or my son". "so all this time i was looking for him in church? ... you were looking in the wrong place" etc).
again, a few reasons that are not tied to him being gay, if you don't specifically make it about it.
all i'm saying is that even though all this time we were projecting our own headcanons on this character, because, well, he is queercoded, intentional or not, - i think we gotta learn how to let go of a specific label for him, because if the show gives us buddie canon, it's already beautiful and a win on its own. and eddie's sexuality at this point in time makes more sense as him being attracted to both women and men instead of him being gay. because his romantic love for shannon was real. his attraction to other women was real. his sexuality is different from buck's though in a way that eddie does seem demi, which means he's not as sexually and romantically active as buck. and him coming out of the closet won't be as easy as it was for buck - by being kissed by some random dude. "dating feels like a performance" is him being demi. avoiding dating women in s8-s9 is him denying himself joy. which is not about his gayness specifically, but about his self-esteem and guilt and fear of fucking everything up again. and maybe about him already having everything he needs from a relationship in buck, except the sex part. and that can only be solved if they're both on the same page. but eddie doesn't know that they're. and buck doesn't know too. buck is joy for eddie not in the sense of "he's a man" (thought that too. because, well, his relationship with buck is gonna be his first relationship with a man (unless they decide to do some flashbacks to eddie's past), and it's gonna pull eddie out of his comfort zone a little and require some inner reflection, which is different from buck's coming out, because buck is more chill and go-with-the-flow guy when it comes to relationships and he grew up with a different background than eddie), but in a sense of "he's the best life partner i had so far, and i don't want to lose him, and i don't know if i deserve him, and idk if my feelings are mutual".
after buck came out, they never discussed the possibility of buck being attracted to eddie even once. even though i've seen people irl talking about it after their friend comes out/they come out to their friend. not as an accusation, but more like curiosity. like, "did you ever consider me as an option/did you ever have a crush on me?" "no, you're in a different category in my head" "same". and that was it. but with buddie, it's a sensitive topic, because, well, they do have feelings for each other. and deep down they both know it, but they're both so good at hiding their feelings even from themselves, that it's still something that wasn't resolved but is just floating around them in the air in every interaction they had since eddie decided to move to el paso. and in 9x12 buck compared his relationship with eddie to his parents and to madney. and in 9x13 eddie didn't deny any buck's husband allegations. and i do think the aftermath of this nde is going to be them admitting their feelings to themselves first, then maybe trying to avoid each other or overall being weird around each other, and then confessing to each other. hopefully at the same time in some kind of fight. because i sit on the "just make them confess mutually" on the entire "who should confess first" debate.
i always thought what kind of nde could make them realize their feelings for each other, if all the previous ones didn't work. but with all the other "buddie crumbs" and "sprinkling" we had this season, i actually like the way the show slowly built up the tension between them with this joint nde and how they removed the "chris wall" between them (starting from chris being okay with eddie dating alex, even though eddie tried to use him as a shield from his feelings again). they now know what they mean to each other without chris being the common denominator. and they'll have to sit with it. and i think it will all be resolved in the last episode of the season with a confession and/or a kiss (or just a feelings realization), so we have something to look forward to in season 10.
i strayed away from my original point, but, yeah, queer unlabeled eddie is cool. love queer unlabeled eddie.
