And then, of course, finally meeting other queer women, and seeing the vast spectrum of what being queer could look like, showed me that I was perfectly capable of being gay, even having had this adolescence that was boy crazy in one way or another.Why am I gay ? That is a question that is even harder to answer. Once I met her, I realized this is as simple as: “Do I want to keep hanging out with her or not?” And I did. And just to go back a little, what was it like when you were first dating Lydia? We had been together for about four years at that point.Īmazing. We got married in 2019 before the pandemic. You started seeing each other after that? I was extremely nervous, but it worked out well. I saw Lydia’s profile within the first couple of days, and I messaged her and we scheduled a date. I went on OkCupid and I put myself down as bisexual. I wish I had that 10 years earlier.Ĭan you tell me about your first date with a woman?
It’s significant that the thought of going on a date with a man only makes you feel dread, whereas the idea of going on a date with a woman makes you curious.” She made it seem really simple. When I started talking to my therapist about my romantic life, she said, “It’s significant that you pretty much only want to spend time with other women. I moved to New York City when I was 26 and had dated a couple of guys pretty unsuccessfully. I had a wonderful therapist who helped me click things into place. What led to the moment when, at 28, you told your friends that you might not be straight? There were also times when I would take quizzes and want to be told that I was gay, but then I just didn’t really believe it because the criteria they considered in order to make that assessment felt so fake. But in the early aughts, that sort of literacy was not there, especially not on whatever crappy quizzes I was finding. Obviously, now there is a lot more awareness about bisexuality and sexual fluidity. And usually what I wanted to believe was that I was straight, or that I was not sufficiently gay for it to really manifest in any meaningful way in my life. I was looking for an answer as confirmation of what I wanted to believe that day. I wasn’t looking for an answer as in the actual truth. Were you looking for a particular answer about your sexuality?
A lot of people with coming-out stories trace their questioning back to, like, 6 years old. When did you turn to quizzes to learn about your sexuality? But dating was one area where I felt completely lost. I felt like I had everything else figured out: I was good at school, easily made friends, that sort of thing. I didn’t feel like an outcast by any stretch, but seeing myself as this undateable, sort of sexless person, even if that wasn’t outwardly visible to people, weighed on me. With every passing year, the fact that I had not dated anyone seemed to become more a marker of difference.
I felt it especially once I got to college. When did you feel that your experiences were diverging from your friends’? As I got older and felt my experiences diverging from those of my friends, I looked to external sources to reassure me that I was still “normal” and that there was still a path forward for me.