[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by mjules

OMGYES.

Zerbie addressed all of my major concerns after I read the initial post, so I wasn't even going to say anything, but... well, yes. Being bi is difficult, because some people DO see us as having a choice, and no, it's really like having two of your very favorite dishes set down in front of you and being told you can't have both. (Which is why I'm a fan of the idea of polyfidelity, but you wanna talk about being even MORE of an outcast...)

We're each going to have different expressions of our needs, relationships styles, and so on. I like to say, if there's one, there's another - no one is ever the ONLY one. A lot of my best female friends in high school came out later as bisexual and some of them were polyamorous.

It's frustrating for me because a lot of lesbian women refuse to date bisexual women, thinking they'll be left for a man eventually (as if it makes them more likely to be abandoned than if another lesbian woman might abandon them for another woman),

Irony of ironies here. I'm the bisexual one. The first great love of my life identified as lesbian.
And guess what happened?
SHE left ME. . . *for a man.*

So, yeah. A friend of mine has been joking about buying me a shirt that says "Bisexual Blues: We love everybody and nobody loves us." And while that's an exaggeration, it feels true sometimes. So I'm glad to see that the whole issue has been clarified, because it's oh-so-easy to be paranoid when you're used to getting criticized by both sides of the "fence."

It does feel true sometimes. But more than anything, I feel invisibilized. In straight company, I'm another straight chick 'cuz I got the hubby and the diamond ring as "evidence." When I'm at LGBT community events, unless someone asks, or I volunteer the word "husband" for some reason, people will sometimes (often? always?) assume I'm lesbian. I figger, the two scenarios make up for each other because all the wrong assumptions cancel each other out. But my favorite incident of assumption was when I briefly met a fellow activist in town, first at a protest which was attended almost exclusively by gays and lesbians, and later at a religion seminar. At the seminar, my husband was at my elbow, and this fellow activist who had seen me at the protest was chatting merrily away with me and made some references to me as a lesbian, while my husband stood right there listening. I just giggled and said "well I'm not really an "anything."

Originally Posted by mjules

*laughs* Oh, Zerbie. I hadn't even read your comment when I made mine.

See? We didn't even need to confer with one another to get our stories "straight."

Originally Posted by BrianB

What a paradox. It's not easy to find a date as a bisexual. The only long-term relationship I have had after coming out as bi' was with another bisexual person. Gay people think that you are fence sitting. Straight people think that you're a sex maniac. Very few people are secure enough to realize that they are the one I choose to be with.

I tell ya! Ain't that the truth!! It was really hard getting a date as an out bisexual, and I was a very cute and sexy 20-something girl. They shoulda been pounding on my doors. I suspect that it's even more difficult for bisexual men, since a lot of guys will view a female with a lesbian relationship history as sexy territory, but the converse is not so applicable for how straight women view men.

Originally Posted by sailaway58

yes, albeit not a very funny one

Don't you worry, Sailor. Maybe we can make commitments, but I for one couldn't figure out WHAT I WAS for a really long time. That's gotta count for some humor, somewhere.