Maybe I'll make a fancy gayness graph.

Hello, everyone. I'm new. I've spent the last half-hour reading posts, building up the courage to post here (drinking some courage, actually), so... here goes. Apologies in advance for the inevitable length.

I'm in my late thirties, and have dated men since high school. I recently split from my boyfriend. The reasons were a million tiny things, really, nothing terrible. But one issue that forced our split a bit wider was what I call my "queer spiral."

Every month, just before I get my period, I turn extra gay. No joke. I already identified as bi/pan, but for about three days before shark week commences, my standard "mostly dudes, occasional women" preferences flip 180 degrees. I would feel less romantic toward my boyfriend, be disinterested in sex with him, only want to watch lesbian porn, even shift my clothing choices into more masculine gear (more on that later). After a day or two on my period, it'd fade away. Hormones, I suppose? It was very strange, for sure. The thing was, that "queer spiral" got wider and wider, started to encompass more and more of my days. I found myself being purposely vague with new people, referring to my boyfriend as "my partner" and never using pronouns or his name, just so they'd maaaaaybe think I had a girlfriend, instead. I had dreams where I was holding hands with a woman. The nail in the coffin-- the thing that made me tell him "Hey, I need to stop and think about my sexuality"-- was that one day, while we were canoodling in bed, the thought, "I wish he was a woman," popped into my head unbidden. I felt absolutely blindsided by the suddenness and severity of the urge. I had to excuse myself and go to the bathroom to clear my head.

So we've broken up. It was the right thing to do for a lot of reasons. He's aware of what's happening with me, and is 100% supportive. He's an awesome human. We remain friends. But this diatribe isn't about our relationship. It's about me, and how I'm starting to think I've been ignoring parts of myself for... well, a few decades? I've been asking myself a lot of questions, namely, "How... gay... am I, exactly?"

I am a very logical, statistics-oriented, observant sort of person. Maybe I'm on the autistic spectrum-- it wouldn't surprise me at all. Or maybe I'm a Vulcan. Regardless, I often find myself looking for some sort of magically enlightening equation that I can create to find the sum of my parts. Like if I can just find enough *evidence*, I'll have proof, or near enough. I know people aren't like that. We don't make sense. If we did, we'd be robots, not people.

Does everyone do this? Search for "proof"? I bet we late-bloomers (or maybe late-questioners is a better term) do. I keep thinking, "Damnit! I wish there was a queerness test I could take that would help me figure this out! Y'know, like those things that help you figure out which political party you best align with!"

I think it might be driven by feeling out of control. I might not know how to classify my sexuality right now (and I *want to* so badly. Statistics, right?), but I know, for example, that when a cute little gay boy at a bar referred to me as his "new favorite lesbian", I felt amazing and didn't correct him. I know that I love to dress in drag, and that I cried when I hit "confirm purchase" on my new GC2B binder. I know that I've been standing next to women who were near-strangers and had the overwhelming urge to kiss them, but have never experienced that with a man I wasn't dating. I know I once gladly kissed my best (female) friend-- she just wanted to mess with the guy she had the hots for (whaaa?), and I just wanted an excuse to kiss her. I know that the one time I slept with a woman, it was the least scary sex I've ever had. I know that calling myself "bi" never seemed quite right.

Seeing them written out like that, they look much more like a list of "How I Knew I Was Gay". I suppose I just can't believe I've ignored all these things for so long. Much of this happened when I was a teenager. How can I call myself an observant, logical person, and yet take 25+ years to connect these dots?

I know all those things, and they feel good and honest to say, and still when I do I think, "Yeah, well, here's a load of contradictory stuff that shows this is all just a weird phase! Or a rebellious streak! You just wanna be gay because... I dunno, reasons! Stop thinking about it all so much! Just let it be!"

And yeah, mostly I do just Let It Be (cue the Beatles). I'll figure it out, I know, and what I've experienced in the past matters less than what I'm experiencing now. So I let it be. Until I can't, and then I drink some whiskey and sit staring into space. Or, as it would seem, I type out my brain tangles into an LGBTQA forum.

Thanks for listening.

 

Thank you! I'm glad I found EC. It's undeniable that a burden is lifted when one realizes you are not an anomaly.

 

Hello and thanks!

I actually came out twice as bi. Once, just after high school, was one of those "OMG. There is this girl. I want to kiss her face" moments. I was dating a dude at the time, and because I am (possibly overly) honest, I told him *sorta* what had happened, and that I thought I was probably bi, but not to worry because I liked him very much, blah blah. He flipped out: accused me of lying and actually being gay all along (which I denied), and of only dating him because he was sooooo effeminate that he was a sort of "woman substitute" (erm. No. No, he wasn't, not on either count. Dude had issues). So I dropped the thought for, oh, about a decade? And then it happened again, much the same way. This time I was married (different dude), and decided to be honest again. His response was opposite-- not angry-- but also not what I wanted to hear ("Oh, really? That could be a lot of fun...":rolle. From that point forward, I told everyone I was bi, especially after my divorce, when I started dating again.

Your point about fluctuations is interesting. I completely believe that our sexuality can be fluid AF, and it's unfortunate that it's so uncomfortable when it moves around. I suppose we like people in boxes, you know? Even ourselves, to a certain point. I've started reading about "late blooming lesbians" as a phenomena, and it's pretty interesting to think about all the socio-economic stuff that can cause a person to hold to the mores of their culture... right up until they just can't anymore, or have no reason to (e.g., they've been married, had kids, now have a career). I can't say I remember having conscious thoughts about that sort of thing. I knew I'd always been different than a lot of the girls I knew. I just wasn't sure why (well, wanting to wander around cemeteries didn't help. I've always been a creepy kid).

One thing I've been considering re: my weird PMS queerness is that I don't get more angry when I'm PMSing. I get less patient. And I get a LOT more honest. Most major fights I've started have happened during that time, always regarding something that I've been sitting on, trying to convince myself to forget about. Then my cycle comes and BOOM. I can't ignore it anymore. It (whatever it is) feels like it's sitting on my chest, and I'm incapable of holding my tongue. So I consider this, and consider how my sexuality seems to shift right then, too, and think, "Maybe I'm also not able to lie to myself then, either?"

I'm always looking for the "why." I suppose it really doesn't matter. What is, is. What isn't, isn't. Knowing how this happened won't change *what* has happened.

 

No, not historically speaking, anyhow. Most of my relationships have been fairly long-term, and none of them except the last ended because of my attraction to women (and I stress here that it was a *small* part. It was just the only *undeniable* bit, the thing that we wouldn't be able to just "work out" without some serious adjustments to the shape of the relationship itself). I've mostly experienced my bisexuality as being something that sorta pops up every so often. Most of my "Oh my, isn't she attractive," moments have happened when I was more or less happily, monogamously coupled with a man, and didn't make me uncomfortable, or feel as though it was something I *needed* to involve myself with. It's only been lately that I felt more and more driven toward at least investigating my urges to date women, to the point where it was detrimental to my relationship.

Not sure if this is what you were getting at, but I'd like to say: No, I'm not one of those mythical, bad-press-spreading bisexuals who "can't resist" sleeping with both men and women, and so are terrible mates because they're "always tempted." I am, in fact, rarely tempted. Never had straying eyes. It's like other people stopped existing when I was dating someone. Until very recently. It's possible that my "window shopping" was nothing more than a response to being very unhappy in my relationship for very relationship based (not sexuality based) reasons. It's even possible that my concentration on my sexuality is a misguided attempt to blame the failure of the relationship on something that's "nobody's fault." The idea that I might be doing that to myself makes me queasy. And that's part of why I keep trying to find this "evidence" of queerness. Because I don't wanna be tilting at windmills, y'know?