On (my) bisexuality

I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time. I don’t really know how long, but I know that I had wanted to write it last Saturday as I was getting home, that I thought about writing it on Sunday after Orlando, and that I wanted to write it today. This is not a coming out post, or maybe it is, I don’t really know. I don’t usually talk about my personal life in here, but I have previously mentioned I am pansexual/bisexual. 

Why am I writing this, then? It’s more of a coming to terms with myself. It’s an exercise of self-understanding. And because I read some stupid news on a stupid newspaper that made me furious because Bi erasure is a real thing and it happens every single fucking time. Yes, it made me furious. Bi erasure is real and needs to stop. 

And at the same time it is kind of a coming out post. Some of my friends and labmates are aware of me being bi. And none of them were surprised at all when I told them or when I casually make any mention of it. My family doesn’t know it, but I doubt anyone from my close family would be too surprised. I mean, many times when they tease me asking whether I have a significant other they always say “Do you have a boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”. That being said, I don’t know how shocked they would be if I ever brought a girl home with me (very shocked, but probably because of me bringing anyone home than about anything else (more about this in a while)). The point is that there are lots of people who don’t know, but wouldn’t probably be too surprised about it.

One of the things that I have encountered the most when disclosing my sexuality, however, is erasure. I have been asked a thousand times whether I have been with a girl as if that would give it any legitimacy. I’m tired of hearing that question. They knew they were straight before they had been with someone of the opposite gender, didn’t they? Anyway, in my case that doesn’t really mean much. No, I have not been with a girl, but to be fair I have never had a real relationship with a boy either, not the kind of relationship that makes you bring them at home and meet your parents, at least (*wink wink*). The truth is that I’m extremely awkward and terrible at relationships, I also don’t fall in love as easily as some other people seem to. For me it is a traumatic experience, it’s letting someone in my life in a way I’m not even ready to do it myself. 

I’m sure most of you can remember the first time you fell in love, the first time that you confessed to your friends that you had a crush. I remember that, too. I remember having everyone asking me whether I liked someone, insisting that there had to be someone I liked, implying that I HAD to like someone. I remember liking the most popular guy in school, doing all those things that all the girls did, obsessing over him. I didn’t question it then, but was I being forced into liking him? Looking back in time allows you to understand the breaking points in being who you are, the times when you were too blind to realize the truth. At that time I didn’t even know you could love people from both genders, and my only reference about gay people was that people took it as an insult. Gosh, homophobia runs deep in this culture. 

Anyway, the thing is that I really need to be invested to love someone. I might have been in love five or six times in my whole life, and I’m almost 29. However, how many of my friendships with girls were not such but crushes that I was too young to identify? How long have I repressed from being who I really am because I didn’t know it was an option? How many times have I lied to myself? No more. Here’s the truth, I like boys, I like girls, and I truly believe you can fall in love with anyone regardless of the gender they identify with. My experience or lack of thereof doesn’t invalidate my sexuality. Just because I’ve mainly been with men, doesn’t mean you can erase my sexuality claiming it’s just curiosity, it’s not. And even if I end up dating a boy or a girl that doesn’t make me straight or gay, I will still be bi. 

Helmut (Narrated version)

You guys are so lucky, I decided to narrate yet another one of my old stories! I'll take suggestions if anyone has any.



Helmut

Helmut was a ghost. He had been a ghost for so long that he didn't remember being anything else. He must have been human, at some point, but he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember his real name, either. He had picked 'Helmut' from some book long forgotten. He had been there for so long that there had been several different houses and several different tenants. There had been different ghosts, too, eventually, but none of them stayed, just like the people they came and go and left him alone.

Helmut was bored. He was a bored ghost. He had been a ghost for a long time and there are few things that a ghost can do. At that moment, he was living with a young woman who seemed to work too much and enjoy herself too little. He decided that he needed to do something about it, for both of them. She would sit on her couch, alone, doing nothing, going to sleep early because she was tired, and waking up early because she had to work. Helmut pitied her, he pitied her because she wasn't living her life. Helmut had a life, once, he didn't remember, but he knew he had it, and he wanted her to have it. Helmut liked the girl, she was nice, and she never made to much of a fuss about anything, even when he moved things around she always thought it had been her who had left them in a place she didn't remember. 

Helmut decided to spice things up in that girl's life, so one night, when the girl was sleeping, he turned on the TV. He knew that there was something on TV that would change the life of the girl. After a while, he heard the girl moving in her sleep and waking up after realizing there was something amiss. She walked up to the TV and stared at it, half asleep. She looked for the remote and simply turned it off. Helmut would have slapped her if he had been able to. He was trying to fix her life and she didn't even realize. He let a frustrated moan escape, which the girl seemed to pick up as she looked at his direction. She shook her head and told herself "There's nothing here, go back to sleep Ria". 

Mungo (Narrated version)

After the success of my first narrated version, I decided to do another one. This time is my story Mungo. I make voices and all!




Mungo

Mungo looked down at his feet and saw his claws were dirty, he was embarrassed about it, but he was also embarrassed about being where he was. In front of him the therapist waited for him to reply to her question. He avoided it a bit longer and looked at the clearing where they had agreed to meet. There was no one else around, some birds flew over their heads.

-Mungo, I asked you something. 

He turned his head around and looked at her face so alike to his mother's, it was comforting. It was a good face, and she didn't have stains of grass around her mouth like his younger sisters tended to do. 

-Yes. 

-I will repeat it. Why are you feeling sad? 

-Because,...-he looked down.-No one likes me and they seem scared of me. I don't have any friends.-he fiddled with his tiny front paws. 

-Have you ever done anything to make them scared? 

-No! They don't even talk to me, they see me and run away. I thought everyone loved Triceratops, but no one will come close to me.  

The Triceratops therapist sighed. Mungo was a depressed little dinosaur, also a deluded one. 

-Mungo, look at me, do you look like I do? 

She saw his oversized head tilt while he intensely stared at her. She understood why people were scared of him, even if he was still very young. 

-Yes. I am like you. 

The therapist shook her large horned head. 

-No, you are not.-she paused for a second trying to find the best words to break the news to him.-You are adopted. 

-I know. My real mommy died and my other mommy took care of my egg when she found it near her nest. 

-You also know you're not a Triceratops, do you? 

-Of course, I'm a Triceratops, what else could I be? 

She would need to tell him, just to make him face the consequences of being who he was. 

-A Tyrannosaurus. 

His mouth fell open, showing all those pointy teeth with grass between them. 

-No! They are bad! I'm not bad! I'm a good dinosaur! 

-Mungo, you're a Tyrannosaurus and that's why everyone is scared of you. 

-But, I'm good! The other dinosaurs have to see it, I never ate anyone, I just want to make friends. 

Tears piled on his eyes as he helplessly tried to reach them with his tiny arms.