I’m bisexual and always asked one question by straight female friends

Sunday brunch in a cute café meant two things: overpriced lattes and my friends recounting some terrible experience with guys they had met on dating apps.

At some point one friend’s tale of stale conversation and bland sex, Gina* turned to me and said the words I’ve come to dread…

‘You’re so lucky you’re into women! I don’t know why you even bother dating men.’

I’m constantly hearing some form of this comment.

‘I wish I was into women!’ ‘Life would be so much easier if I was into women like you.’ ‘Why do you even go on dates with men?’ The list goes on.

Yet each comment makes me feel less seen than the last.

Because unwittingly, and certainly unintentionally, comments like these consistently negate my bisexuality. 

As a bisexual woman, I am attracted to men and women, I don’t have a preference between them, and I don’t gear myself towards one or the other. What might seem like harmless, fun comments about my sexual choices are actually doing more damage than you might think. 

Those comments are reducing my sexuality just as much as heteronormative comments would.

Bisexuality wasn’t something I discovered. Rather it was something I had to recognise in myself.

Initially, I truly believed everyone felt the way I did about girls, how could they not? I had always known I was attracted to boys, yet I found girls so beautiful as well. I assumed everyone wanted to kiss girls, and it was only in my late teens that I understood that being attracted to both genders wasn’t a universal thing. 

I had already spent years exploring my sexual interest in guys, and now a whole new door opened to the possibility of dating women as well.

Hercules was as much my sexual awakening as Meg was, with those Disney-animated hips and luscious ponytail.

At 17, once I recognised that I was attracted to both women and men in a way that other people were not, I didn’t immediately tell people. 

Frankly, I wasn’t sure I’d earned it. I didn’t feel like I had the right to call myself bisexual until I’d done more than kiss a girl. That was probably my first experience of bi-erasure, and it was self-inflicted.

Hercules was as much my sexual awakening as Meg was, with those Disney-animated hips and luscious ponytail

When I started coming out to friends, it was slowly and shyly, as it still didn’t feel like my ‘right’ to come out. Even then, I didn’t tell many people unless the topic came up.

At university, I never felt welcome in the queer communities. I was once also dismissed by fellow LGBTQIA+ individuals as potentially ‘bi until graduation’, implying I was just experimenting as a student – but I knew the truth. 

Thankfully the friends I did tell immediately accepted my bisexuality, and they worked hard to make me feel seen in it – maybe a little too hard.

When I left a long-term relationship with a man, my friends were eager for me to ‘further explore my bisexuality’ – but it felt like they only wanted me to explore it with women. 

Every time I told them about a date I had lined up, their first question was the gender of the individual.

When I did go on a date with a cute woman, I was given a Pavlovian level of approval. It certainly seemed their interest was far higher than if I’d been out with a man.

And on the occasions where I have dated or slept with a guy, and it didn’t go well, I have been immediately met with a Greek chorus of disappointment and warnings of ‘this is why you shouldn’t date men!’ 

I’ve struggled with my feelings about this situation for most of my twenties, as more than anything, I feel guilty about my reaction.

I know that my friends are trying to be good allies. I know that they likely see themselves as pioneering out of heteronormativity, and in a way, they are.

They’re not expecting me to end up as a man’s wife or girlfriend, they’re ensuring my sexual and romantic interest in women isn’t negated. 

But at times I’ve wondered if they are doing it a little too well.

It’s made me feel like I have to shut off the parts of me that like men, and that I’m a bad queer if I don’t only date women. 

There have even been times when I find myself wishing I could just be straight or lesbian – as if I’m the one complicating the matter.

When I finally raised the issue with my friends at the age of 27, after years of this experience, I was met with hurt faces that broke my heart.

They were defensive and explained that all they wanted was to make me feel seen. They were trying to overcome the heteronormative ideals they had read and seen TikToks about.

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They were doing their best, and I don’t fault them for this.

But I also need them to understand that women aren’t a fix-all solution. Girlfriends can hurt you just as much as a boyfriend can. 

Their good intentions can have bad consequences, and in this case, it’s boxing in bisexual women against our wishes.

When it comes to bisexuality, the same rules apply as any other sexual or gender identity: let someone tell you who they are, and believe them.

If I say I am equally interested in men and women, then respect my relationships with both groups.

Support my dates with women, please, because I’m still insecure when it comes to asking a woman out or finding my space as a femme queer. 

But, I also want you to support my dates with men, because those will happen too, and to discard my interest in men is to overlook a part of me.

And there’s no allyship in that.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]. 

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