Many of you have seen me around campus in my 4 years of being here. I’m not what you would call stereotypically queer. I wear skirts when it doesn’t feel like hell has frozen over, I have long hair, I date guys. But the thing is I am queer and figuring out that I like girls was not easy to come to terms with.
        At 20 most people have already figured out the basics. You know your strengths and weaknesses, if you’re outgoing or shy, what types of activities you like etc.  You’ve formed this self-image of yourself that by that age is pretty concrete, at least when you’re talking about the simple stuff. My identity contained being straight. That was a given. I like guys, I have dated guys, I like dating guys. That’s simple, right? Even though I had always found girls attractive everyone did. That was normal. I mean you hear about females admiring females all the time.  But when the “I’m attracted to her” came out of my mouth unexpectedly something clicked and I freaked out.  Saying those words made it real, and more than just a passing thought. I was genuinely turned on by girls and even though it wasn’t the first time it had happened it was the first time I had let myself acknowledge it and maybe that it wasn’t “normal“ after all. My self-identity was challenged and like most people I tucked it in the back of my brain and tried to never think about it again.
        Later in the year I had a dream about a girl. I relayed my dream to a friend who was aware of my attraction to girls and he asked me what now sounds like a very straightforward question but at the time was a total disconnect.  “Would I like to be with a girl?” What! I never said that! It was only a weird dream! I couldn’t understand why he’d ask me that. I started thinking about it and after about two minutes of silence I admitted that I did. I should point out that at this point I still didn’t think of myself as bisexual. In my view at least, sexual orientation doesn’t only have to do with whom you want to sleep with, but also whom you want to have a relationship with. Since I didn’t want to have a relationship with a girl, or so I thought, I wasn’t bi by my logic.
        A few months passed and one of my non-straight friends from high school told me she was in love with a girl. It made me start to think why I thought I didn’t want to have a relationship with a female. I was straight, right? This should be easy to answer.  It wasn’t. Again I went into a state of utter and total shear panic. I can’t like girls, I thought, I’m straight, that’s who I am. Months passed and no answers came and all I could do was think of scenarios where I wouldn’t mind being in a relationship with a girl. This is not what I wanted to happen.
        Finally after about 6 months I accepted the fact that I might be bisexual. I started reading anything I could get my hands on about the subject especially message boards. For those of you who don’t know there can be a lot of animosity to what some people call bi-curios people and for that matter even bisexual people in the queer community and this was fully reflected in a lot of the postings I read. Now not only was I freaking out about possibly being bisexual, I was freaking out about possibly not being bisexual. Maybe I was only bi-curious and if that was true was I only doing it to get attention? I couldn’t prove conclusively that I wasn’t straight, since I had never done anything to prove otherwise, but then why was the idea of having a relationship with a girl not an unattractive idea to me? This was one of the most confusing and scary periods in my life.
        During this time of trying to figure myself out I was really confused because I didn’t have any concrete answers. I didn’t know what I could do to conclusively prove I was bi (or not bi), to not only myself but also to the outside world. For anyone trying to figure things out these are the two things I wish someone told me:1) Forget the rest of the world. How do you feel? Label your self however you want. Also it’s ok to not know. Don’t feel pressured to choose a label. Do it when you’re ready. 2) As stupid as it sounds many people don’t fit the stereotypes. If you have a lack of a stereotypical queer appearance don’t let it make you feel more alienated and take it as a sign that maybe you’re not queer if you think you might otherwise be. It made things harder for me. I didn’t feel like I belonged in the queer community because I didn’t know anyone like me.  The thing is that there are people who don’t fit the stereotypes it’s just that we’re harder to identify. If anyone needs someone to talk to I would be happy to listen. You can e-mail sstone@bates.edu and she’ll e-mail me.

~ Student ‘06

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