Bisexual, not confused

The first time I told a friend I was bisexual, she laughed and said, "So you're just confused?" The second time, a boy I was dating said, "So you'll leave me for a girl?" The third time, a girl I liked said, "So you're not really queer."

After the third time, I stopped telling people.

For years I tried to choose. When I dated men, I told myself my feelings for women were admiration. When I had a crush on a woman, I told myself the men had been practice. I felt like a tourist everywhere — in straight spaces and queer ones.

What changed things was a small book club in Bengaluru, full of women who read queer fiction and argued about it over filter coffee. One evening we read a novel with a bisexual heroine, and a woman in her fifties said quietly, "That's me. It's been me for forty years."

Nobody laughed. Nobody asked her to choose.

I am thirty-two now. I have loved men and I have loved women, and both were real. I am not halfway between two places. I am a whole place. If you are bi and tired of explaining, you don't owe anyone a map. You are allowed to just be.