This Bi Life: I Don't Feel Bi Enough

By Brittney White

June 10, 2016

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Photo credit: Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

I was married for six years to a guy. He was my first long term relationship and first marriage. After six years and two kids, things weren't working out so we decided separation and divorce would be our best bet. Now that I have the freedom to date again, I feel really conflicted about it. The reason why I'm conflicted is, well, complicated.

It's not a need to protect my marriage, because that's dead and buried. I have this irrational need to prove I'm bisexual by dating a woman, any woman. I feel like I have to do this so that whenever someone says I'm not bi, I can point to both relationships and say look, I told you so! It's a ridiculous urge, I know, but it's there all the same. The people who would erase my bisexuality because I was with a guy would do the same if I was with a woman. There's no pleasing those people, so why try?

Those days are relatively easy to work through. I've pretty much stopped caring what others think of me and my sexuality. The hard days are when I do battle with myself. On those days, I don't feel bi enough because I'm more attracted to men than I am to women.

There's this belief that in order to be a bisexual person, you have to be attracted to men and women equally. That's not the case. Ignoring the fact that men and women aren't the only two genders bi people are or can be attracted to, it's not always split down the middle. Some days it is 50/50. Other days it's 25/75, 20/80, or even 60/40. On days where it's weighted more towards men, I feel guilty and start to question myself.

Am I doing this for attention?

Am I really just straight?

Was all this just a lie?

All the stereotypes I face as a bi person become questions that I torment myself with. All the questions that get thrown my way when people find out I'm bi bubble to the surface of my mind. Internalized biphobia causes me to question part of the core of who I am.

Part of me knows that no matter what, I'm still bi, but the questions are still there floating in the background. The days when you question yourself are the worst because it's so much harder to tell your brain it's wrong. Admitting to yourself that you're being biphobic towards yourself is one of the hardest things you can do. Telling someone that they're being biphobic online, or even in person, is so much easier in comparison.

One day, with time, wisdom, and reassurance that yes I am bisexual, it will get easier. What other people may say or think about me, about us, has no bearing on who we are. No matter who we date, no matter who we have sex with, no matter who we fall in love with or marry, we are still bisexual. No one can take that away from us.

If you'd like to share your own bi story, please email us at [email protected].