Why did it take me so long?

This is a question I have asked myself quite a few times over the last 2 years. Why on earth did it take me over 20 years to arrive at the obvious?

I recognised that I was attracted to males at about the age of 14. I was a bit surprised but it didn’t phase me. I suppose the thought of being gay, or more to the point bringing a male partner home to my devout catholic mum, scared me a little bit but I wasn’t shamed by my attraction. I was however conflicted, because I knew I wasn’t gay – the girls were just too hot.

The answer to the question of why it took so long ultimately lay in a hidden, internalised, biphobic trope – that I had to pick a side.

I hold my hands up, yes, that’s what I thought. I thought that bisexuals were greedy. That it should be the simple matter of “picking” which camp I would pitch my tent. I used to say it. Looking back, I think it started as some sort of defence to the mindless teenage questioning of friends or the bullying words of the school yard. Typically along the lines of “nah, i’m not Bi either (having already denied being gay), Bisexuals are just greedy, they need to pick. It’s so selfish”.

And it stuck, I believed that crap. And then I wondered why I was so conflicted – after all, it should be easy to “pick”. As I went off to uni with my “lay” score at 2-2, I planned to pick. I planned to choose my side in freshers week and then go off and play my chosen field as much as possible. I really thought when I got to the big city, to my new life, I would easily be able to choose being straight or gay and then I would follow that path for the rest of my life.

Tit!

Suffice to say, that didn’t happen. All that happened was I completely lost my confidence and wasted my biggest opportunity for lots of casual hook-ups. I could not process being unable to choose and align with a set sexuality and identity. And so I was hopeless when it came to pulling. With women I was nervous, with men I put up barriers to any hint I might be gay. I even failed to pull a man in a massive gay club I went to with my female housemates – twice! I tried to chat to loads of fellas and just couldn’t understand why it never seemed to progress to flirting or more. Towards the end of the second visit I was at the bar and a friendly face brought me a beer. I thought I might be in. We had a quick chat and they asked if i was enjoying the night. I said “yes, but I thought I might get chatted up a bit more (Hint, Hint 😉)”. They actually laughed and retorted “oh sweetie, everyone in here can tell you’re straight as, so they don’t waste their time”.

That continued through my first and most of my second year, with occasional success (two women) (not at the same time) (I wish 😆). To be honest, they probably just felt sorry for me but hey! a score is a score.

Then it happened. I met a girl that melted my heart. We clicked, I relaxed, we had a few dates then got together. And we stayed together.

I didn’t need to pick – THE STRAIGHT LIFE PICKED ME!

Yup, that was my mindset. From that point onwards, I didn’t need to make the decision as it had been made for me. Divine Intervention, The Universe, Fate, Luck – call it what you like, but it was out of my hands. It made complete sense to me in a twisted sort of way and explained why I had struggled so much with making the choice myself. All I had really needed to do was let nature take its course.

And it worked (it didn’t), I instantly turned straight (I didn’t), and all my other gender attractions disappeared (they didn’t). Any “lapse” I put down to being horny. I could scratch that itch with some quick “me time”. If I noticed a man out and about, that wasn’t me being attracted to them, that was me being a modern man, able to call a fellow chap handsome. All non straight thoughts could be legitimised or reconciled.

I realise now that I was mugging myself off. I also realise that whilst this was not purposeful, I was effectively hiding something from my partner and now wife that is pretty damn important. I did so for nearly nineteen years. I was fearful of losing her, especially in the early days. Lingering biphobia triggered by bisexuals being wrongly blamed for male to female HIV infections was still rife in the UK at this time in the early 2000’s. Why risk losing the woman I was besotted with by revealing something that I didn’t think mattered any longer. I wholeheartedly believed it didn’t matter any longer.

Nature did indeed take its course. I suppose there’s only so many hidy holes of the mind you can park thoughts and feelings in before seepage occurs. The small leak then begins to erode the safety barriers. The flow increases. Then the dam fails.

Introspection is hard when your mind is a raging torrent of emotions. I felt like a contestant in the final of the Crystal Maze, trying to pluck tiny, shiny slithers out of the air as they billowed around me. Any I managed to grab would then be shoved quickly into the holding slot, without the time to examine each one as there was just so many more to clear the air around me. When the whirlwind subsided and I then checked my haul, all I found was blank silver tokens (for those wondering what I’m going on about, check out this from ~ 2 minutes in https://youtu.be/Achx3V8lzyY ).

So it took a while for me to say – “I’m bisexual, I’m valid, I’m me”.

It might sound like I now have everything figured out. I haven’t, of course, but I have progressed. I’m no longer overwhelmed with a flood or a tornado of thought tokens. I think of it as now being a baggage conveyor, full of luggage. When I spot a bag that looks interesting, I can pluck it off, pop it open and begin to unpack things. Sometimes, what’s inside is easily sorted. Sometimes, it’s a bit scary looking so I need to be cautious. Sometimes, I close that bag immediately and place it back on the conveyor, for that bag will come round again and hopefully I’ll be in a place where I can delve in to reveal the contents.

How did I get here? Well, another superb slice of wisdom from my wife. She says to me “just go with it”. Initially I wondered what she meant, I couldn’t “just go with it”, there was too much to go with, I thought. I was so focused on trying to immediately figure things out that I completely missed her point. She was bang on the money though, I have to just roll with it and in doing so I’ve been able just to slow down enough to begin to break down nearly two decades of hiding, denial and lying to myself, and to her.

Si