Came out to my best friend. It's a start!

I had lunch with the woman I'd consider my best friend yesterday, and I decided it was ok to tell her where I've been at lately. She is a very highly educated and socially liberal feminist, so I didn't think it was going to go poorly or anything. I just wanted to make it clearer, and practice talking about it. I had alluded to bisexuality before to her, in passing, but she and I always talk work/big subjects, so it was more of an aside. So I mentioned that, and told her the funny/pathetic story of the man I gave the boot for using the "s" word ("What polyamory isn't" blog entry)... and I said that I was pondering my lifelong feelings and contemplating whether I might be entirely going to the other side.

She was totally accepting, and she immediately said that she had wondered about herself at times, except that she really just doesn't have much of a sex drive. So I talked about asexuality, and how that's a thing now too. Anyway, it was nice, not a big stressful situation, maybe just a good confidence builder for my possible other comings-out at some point. Like my mother who already "knows but doesn't know" - or heaven forbid my seriously religious end of the family... ugh.

Between this site, my gay-ed up Facebook feed, and binge-watching The L Word this week, it's becoming so much more normal to think about myself as queer, even if I don't know my identity right now (bisexual or lesbian). Instead of being a subject I keep buried in the bottom of my mind, it's becoming a part of my conscious thought. I think the best thing about it is focusing on my preference. It's like I am listening to myself in a very significant way. Figuring out how to mold my existence into something that feels good. More than just, what music do I want to listen to, where do I want to live, how do I want my house to look, what are my favorite foods... those are steps I have taken in my very gradual shift to independence. But I am thinking about my deepest attractions and attachments, trying to divorce that from external influences.

Making friends with women these past few years has helped so much (after 20 years of avoiding them because I feared I could not control my attractions or fearing heartbreak.) And them all being lifelong single women has been great for me. My identity was always so tied up with a man and I avoided looking at life as a whole person. They have helped me do that by being examples for me that I never had growing up. It feels good to be able to be honest with at least one of them. I don't know how the others would take it. I have another very good friend from Malaysia who moved out of state a couple of years ago, and we don't talk that much now. But once, she mentioned wondering if she liked women since she wants nothing to do with men (abusive father background). And she asked me, "Have you ever done that? Wait! Don't answer that." So I didn't, and it has never come up again. As I look at my girlfriends I actually see how they could all be fine candidates for closet lesbians. Even the friend I stayed with on my trip to Europe made a comment about how much easier it would be to be a man. But again, like with my other friends, she and I just don't talk about relationships of any kind. We are always talking work or economics or politics. Talking relationship stuff with them seems supremely silly and out of place.

So I don't know, maybe I'm kind of asexual myself right now. Learning to live without anyone in my bed except that little buzzing friend that my Yorkie wants to play with when I'm busy playing with it! But for me I feel like I need the inner silence of no expectations from anyone, especially from any men. I have long said that I was bisexual simply because I'd had sex and relationships with men. But I am seriously starting to question that assumption.

Ah, well, this post got really long! Anyway I am pretty happy with things right now, even having no idea where I am going or whether I will ever end up with another romantic partner again. I am clearly getting good quality companionship from these fine ladies who are much too busy with their careers to worry about such things. Maybe.

So yay for coming out a little bit! (!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)

 

Done!!!