Ever since childhood, I’ve heard about "gays" and "straights". 

Surrounded by images of the princess being rescued by the prince and men falling in love with women, I grew up with the idea of that being what was “normal” and “expected”. When the word “gay” or the less nice synonyms were whispered, almost as if they were wrong, it was easy to think it was indeed “not normal”. While I was not raised religious nor to be prejudiced, the society I grew up in was, and unfortunately still often is, quite homophobic. 

I’ve always found girls cuter than boys. Even when I would go on walks with my mother, she would comment on handsome men, and I would mimic her by commenting on cute boys. But I never really understood why we were commenting on just the boys. Now and again, I remember commenting on a few girls, too, while my mother only commented on the men. 

I grew up playing with my neighbours outside. They were three girls, and we were all about the same age. Two of them were 3-4 years older than me, and another was one year younger. The two older ones were “Mi” and “RT”, and the younger was “MF”. We used to ride our bikes and skates, play gymnastics, and play with dolls, but as we grew a bit more, Mi outgrew playing with dolls, so only RT, MF, and I played together. RT was the oldest, so she usually led the play. And she would always be the boy, and MF and I would be the girlfriends, and it was usually like a telenovela. It was very dramatic. So RT would be the husband, either I or MF would be the wife, and the other would be the mistress. I would sit on RT’s lap, and we would pretend to be making out (kissing with our hands on our mouths) or just making kissing noises, and then MF would “walk in” and be “shocked” and be a whole drama. And I remember that we agreed that whenever our parents were around, we would hug RT and pretend we were the baby trying to fall asleep. It made me wonder why we had to do that, though. But I also remember thinking I liked being RT’s girlfriend in the play. I was sometimes jealous of how close RT was with MF outside of play, as they were, and as far as I know, they still are best friends.

As a 10-year-old child, I had a crush on an older boy in my summer camp, with whom I would often play and talk online during the year. I’ll call him “A”. But him being five years older than me, I never thought it would be mutual, so I let it fade. The following year, I had a crush on his nephew. A boy just one year younger than me kissed me back while we hid behind a building during our church summer camp. But, like any summer fling, it faded after the camp ended.

While on the summer camp, during shower time or when in the changing rooms in my school during PE, I kept looking at the girls my age and thinking how beautiful they were naked. I didn’t exactly wish I had their bodies, except I wished puberty would hit me because it was sure taking its time.

I remember one day, in 6th grade, I got home from school, and I was talking with A on messenger, and a question came to mind. I asked him: “Have you ever thought you could be gay?”. As the sweet guy, he always was, he answered: “Well. I’ve thought about it, but no. I don’t think I am.”. I remember asking him because I wondered if I was gay, but the thought quickly faded from my mind once I remembered that I had a crush on him at some point.

As a young teenager, I had a best friend, “IF”, with whom I would hold hands in public to more discreetly signal the cute boys around us. Except for one particular day, as we walked on a warm summer night in Algarve (South of Portugal), a man pointed at us and said, “Look! Lesbians!”. I immediately let go of her hand. She asked me: “Why did you let go of my hand?”. And I said, “I don’t know…” and she answered: “What do you care about what that dude thinks?”. 

I didn’t usually care for what a stranger would think of me, even at 14 or 15 years old. I was one to go with my best friend acting like complete crazy people on the street, rolling on the floor, being loud and laughing endlessly at lame puns, wrestling each other, and screaming at trains for the pure stress release it gave. However, that one comment brought my questioning up again. But since I had never fallen in love with a girl, I thought, no. I’m straight. Stop that, stupid brain!

Shortly after that Algarve trip, A came to visit me in Lisbon, where I lived. He brought a friend, and the four of us, A, IF, the (female) friend of A, let’s call her “B”, and I hung out for a whole week. One time, as we were in the movies, A and I kissed, and he became my first boyfriend. We dated for about six months, but I didn’t feel like I was being honest with myself for some reason. I felt like I liked him the same as IF after some point, so I figured I just liked him as my best friend like I liked IF and decided to break up, even though he was an excellent person and treated me well. 

After breaking up with A, IF and I became closer, we would hang out together all the time, and she would sleep over at my place very often, sometimes even during school nights. My place was open for hers, and hers was open for me. We told each other everything, and my parents started treating her almost as if she was my sister. She would always be invited to do almost anything with us, from coming to the beach to going to some of my family events. 

One particular night, she was sleeping over, so I slept on the couch with her (those IKEA couches that turn into beds). We were talking, and I just sat in the dark on top of her. I felt this immense urge to kiss her. And I mean really kiss her. 
Being friends for so long, we had jokingly “smooched” before. I had held her boobs often, and we would pretend to be girlfriends when creepy men cat-called us. But I had never thought that I should kiss her. Thinking she was straight, knowing her crush on a boy, I didn’t. But I never forgot that moment. 

We spent another summer hanging out with another set of best friends, and we would go on best-friend double dates. We can call the girls we would hang out with “D” and “R”. They were just as close as IF and I were. One day D and I decided we should do a surprise double-date picnic for R and IF. We bought their favourite flowers and snacks, wrote them cute letters, set everything in the most romantic way and had a picnic. In this dynamic, D and I were quite girly girls, while R and IF weren’t as girly and would often say they were “the dude” in the relationship. 

So, while we were all the same age, IF was a year behind us in school, and she had just finished 9th grade and needed a dress for her school dance. IF not being girly and self-conscious about her weight, it wasn’t easy to convince her to have a whole shopping day. IF eventually found her dress and I went with her to her prom. I flat ironed her hair, did each other’s makeup, took a picture and went off to her school. I met her crush and felt oddly jealous of her feelings for the boy, but, thinking I was dumb, I told her just to confess her feelings for him. But she liked their friendship and didn’t want to ruin it, so she didn’t. 

During that summer, I met a boy online with whom I had a crush until he became creepy, and I didn’t feel safe anymore and decided to break contact. At the same time, I wanted to be online to talk to him as much as I could IF started acting out a bit. She seemed almost jealous, but I thought she just wanted her friend back, and once things ended with the boy, we returned to being as we usually were. 

Growing up in this best-friend relationship, I noticed how beautiful girls were. I often felt it easier to find a beautiful woman than a man. A boy had to be extremely cute to like him, while a girl could be considered ok, and I was already attracted. This, together with the thought of how I wanted to kiss my best friend, that one time started bringing up questions in my mind.

My mother and my stepfather also, at around this time, started asking me very often if I was gay. I remember I was studying for a test one day. My mother walked into my room, sat on the bed, told me to give her 5 minutes of attention, and she said: “You know, Nina, I will always love you no matter what, right? Are you sure you don’t have anything to tell me?” I rolled my eyes and said: “Mom. I’m not gay.” And it was true. I liked boys. So I couldn’t be gay.  If my memory doesn’t fail me, one day, my mother asked me: “Are you and IF really just best friends?” I replied yes. 
I found these questions odd. Why were they asking? Was it because I “smooched” my best friend all the time? Was it because I sat on her lap? Was it because we “got married” on Facebook, exchanged a wedding ring, had a “honeymoon” in the park, changed our last names on Facebook to a ridiculous name that was an inside joke of ours, and called ourselves “husbandas” (intentional wrongly made female form of husband)? But that was just what best friends did, right? It’s just teenage stupid things. R and D have that too. It’s not weird, right?

I was a loner all throughout high school just because I didn’t feel like I had anything in common with the girls in my class (also, IF did not go to the same school as me). I would rather be alone with my books than pretend to be someone I am not or be bullied by them. Boys groped me from 7th to 9th grade, so I avoided them until 10-12th grade. I read many, many, many romance books. More than I can remember, and all I dreamt of at this point was to find a boyfriend like the ones in the books. Also, everyone around me started having sex, and my curiosity grew. So I started paying attention to boys around me, hoping to find one I had an interest in. And so did IF. 

My class was so small at the beginning of 12th grade due to how many people had failed the previous years that they put us together with another class. So class C-D was born. I was in class D, and in class C was one of the only boys I had known since 7th grade that was not mean to me. And while he had grown up to be a bit rebellious, he was still the nice guy I knew him to be. I’ll call him “L”. He had grown into a metalhead, and I had become a goth through all my romance reading. However, I didn’t always wear what I wanted due to financial constraints. I was so eager to find a boyfriend that I jokingly said to L: “L, find me a boyfriend.”. He looked at me and smiled. “Do you really want me to find you a boyfriend? Because I will!” I said, “Yes.”. He looked out the window and saw a friend of his, “J”, and said: “Hey, J! Come here!”. J got in, bought himself a burger, and sat next to us. L introduced us, “J. This is Ines. Ines, this is J. He’s single. And J, Ines is single.” I blushed to no end. “Thank you, L. Not awkward at all!” – I said. 
The topic of the conversation changed to heavy metal. I wasn’t a particular fan of it at the time, so I gave my jokingly “metal is shit” talk, which, to metalheads, it’s like a stab to the back. J and L gave me a lecture on metal, and then as I spoke, J focused on my nose and said: “Your nose moves when you talk”. 
I was, and still am, self-conscious of my nose, considering it too big.
I had already met J before when he showed up with class C and class E group for someone’s birthday party while I was on a date with another boy who had English with me. Still, my first impressions of him hadn’t been the best. Being the introvert I am, I felt generally uncomfortable being around the entire school that night, so I didn’t know him. 
As I covered my nose, thinking he was making fun of me, he said: “That’s very cute.” 
I don’t remember how, but through L, we got each other’s Facebook, and phone numbers and started talking. And sure enough, a couple of weeks later, he kisses me.

The following nine months are a chaotic mix of miscommunications that lead to the end of my long friendship with IF, soon after my prom. I cried on the day of our last big fight. I had never been so hurt before. And that’s when I realized I had been in love with her all along.

It was a strong realization, but coupled with the attraction I had felt for other girls since my pre-teens, I knew it was a possibility. I researched what bisexual meant and realized I was, but I didn’t immediately accept it. 

I came out to J, who was still my boyfriend. The news grew over the now smaller group of friends that consisted of me, J, L, J’s best friend “P”, “F” and F’s girlfriend, “An”. The idea in the group and my school, in general, was that “all girls are at least a bit bisexual, but not boys”, so no one batted an eye. I just checked girls out with J now and again. But I didn’t come out to anyone, and I’m sure everyone forgot about it shortly after that small talk that day. 

When I got to university, I got so busy that I didn’t think about it again. I would sometimes wonder if I was bisexual but thinking that maybe it was just all in my head and I was straight with an eye for the girls or that I was straight but just as bi as all girls were, in theory. Things between J and I became bad, and after three years of dating, I broke up with him. 

When I broke up with J, I told myself I would only date women. I needed to be sure I was bisexual. I wanted to be certain of what I was and see if I could fall in love with a woman again. But fate had other plans, and I met a man 15 years older than me, “B”. B asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend, to which I replied that I was bisexual and wanted to explore with women. In addition, I had just broken up with J and wasn’t sure I was ready for anything serious. He said that we could have an open relationship and I could experiment with men and women alike. So I agreed, and we started dating.

I never opened my relationship with B, except for a couple of dates with a guy from my high school, where nothing happened. Still, after I finished university, moved to Belgium, and corona happened, I started thinking again and wondering if it was just all in my head. At this point, I was about 23 years old. On the day of my 23rd birthday, IF sent me a happy birthday message after five years of not talking to each other. As we started talking, she came out as bisexual to me and confessed she had a deep crush on me, just as I had on her, and I made her realize her truth just like she made me realize mine. We become friends again. And even today, we don’t talk as often, but the friendship is there again, and I feel relieved to have her back in my life, even if only online.

I became more vocal to B about my wish to be with a woman to stop the wondering in my head. Realizing I am also demisexual and can’t just have sex with someone for whom I don’t have feelings, a one-night stand was out of the equation for me. So I start by looking into making friends. Being in a new country and corona and my anti-socialness, I was in Belgium for almost two years and still hadn’t made a single friend. So I found an LGBT group on Facebook and posted a picture of myself saying I wanted to find friends. Two bisexual men looking for a one-night stand, one trans woman and one genderqueer person answered. I became insanely close to the queer one from those two, which I’ll call “Y”.

Y and I quickly became close and intense. Our personalities are very similar: our tastes, ideals, way of seeing life, etc. I fall in love with Y, and they fall in love with me while simultaneously in love with their girlfriend, with whom they have an open relationship.

Things with B and I started deteriorating, and he refused to go with me to Pride, deeply opposed my coming out, and was concerned by what others would think of our relationship. Not having enough friends in Belgium yet, and none that would live close by enough to call to come to pride with me, I went to pride for the first time by myself.

The first time going to pride was overwhelming. I felt like all was ok. I didn’t need to be ashamed. I could accept myself for who I am. Everyone around me was just full of positive energy and happiness. And yet I felt sad because I didn’t have anyone close to me to share that moment. In pride, I walk up to a stand and find the bisexual flag. I proceed to buy it, shove it in my purse and go home. B doesn’t like that, and so I, shamefully and ironically, hide the flag in my closet. 

These instances increased the tension between B and me in a relationship that was already not going in the best way due to a series of reasons, and I broke up with him. The next day, Y kisses me.

In the summer, I share Y with their girlfriend, polyamorously, while we agree to be best friends with benefits for a while. I installed Tinder and got the settings only for women during this time. Y, although attracted only to women, supports my struggle with bisexuality. At the same time, even though I’m a cis-gendered woman, I try to support them with their gender identity issues. 
This short fling with Y taught me how important two-way communication is, how to overcome jealousy, and how to trust someone. Y taught me to dream again, like I once did, and to believe in myself. And while we no longer hold benefits or see each other often, I’ll love them forever, just like I still love IF.

At this time, I came out as bisexual to my parents (mom and stepdad), to which my stepfather said: “Really? What have I been telling you for the past ten years? You only figured that out now?”. I came out to them without concern because I knew they would love me regardless. I came out to my father, who didn't understand what I meant at first but became supportive. The only other member of my family I came out to is my godmother, who was also supportive. I am still to come out to the rest of the family, though they probably already heard. I am lucky to have a supportive family and am heartbroken when I hear stories of people who aren't so fortunate. 

Y and I ended our benefits as the summer ended while keeping our friendship intact. I start dating through Tinder. Though I had many matches, I made many friends, all LGBTs, and ended up with the current three dates I love simultaneously. And while I wouldn’t say I have a girlfriend or girlfriends, I say I could date them all for who they are and love their different personalities.

My transgender date, my friendship with Y, and other genderqueer people opened my eyes to this portion of people I knew existed but had never met. Their internal and external struggles taught me how strong one person can be. It erased the preconceptions I had and all the prejudices I had before. If someone is strong enough to go against everything and everyone to be their true selves, against and despite all prejudice, who am I to tell them otherwise or question them? 

My friendship with other bisexual people, including my bisexual date, made me feel like I was not alone. Listening to their struggles and relating so much made me realize it’s all okay. Still, I also learned that sometimes, even gay people contribute to biphobia and bi-erasure, which feels like a stab in the back. I was fortunate not to have had that from a gay person so far, but the stories I’ve heard from other bi people are infuriating. 

After all this struggle and eye-opening adventure, I grew as a person. I became more honest, more authentic and more accepting than ever.

I love my lesbian transwoman date, my bisexual ciswoman date, and my lesbian ciswoman date. They give me as many butterflies as the boys I’ve dated before, and they make me very happy to be alive and have the privilege of dating them.

I am now proud to say that I am bisexual. I am proud to say that gender does not matter to me. 

So you can stare all you want when I hold and kiss my transwoman date in public. You can stare when I kiss and hold hands with the two cis women I date. You can point at me and call me a lesbian. I now know who I am. It doesn’t bother me anymore.