Dating : am I the Q in LGBTQ?

Pride month has just passed and so many new people are out of the closet. Dan and Phil made YouTube videos about it, Lil Nas X tweeted about it, so what am I going to do about it? I really don’t know where to start. Maybe will start with relationships, but really hadn’t had to many of those. How about the first time I had feelings for someone, but that really doesn’t explain my situation. Lets just start with labels, I am Bisexual…….or at least I think I am.

I remember some of my first real feelings for someone always involving a boy. First my cheeks would turn red, followed by the act of playing like I’m not in to them. I could probably think of all my celebrity crushes being boys, but it wasn’t always about boys. Once I went through puberty/a little bit of life I realized you can be attracted to someone not just based off appearances.

I don’t know when I first was attracted to a girl, but its not just that. I really believe that if you have a deep emotional connection between the two of you that is more then friendship (may that be literally anyone) you will have feelings for that person. Does this mean I’m Pansexual? Labels get really confusing for me, I don’t know if am one else feels that way, but its hard some times.

The definition of Bisexual is being attracted to male and female individuals. Does this mean if you were to have a relationship that’s female male your no longer bisexual, your just straight. It sound crazy that feelings could just go away like that if you don’t engage in them. I really truly believe that anyone could have emotional feelings towards someone, and that you could just look through all the labels at once and just love someone for who they are not just off what they look like.

I have many fears of telling people about my personal life. Am I really going to be accepted for being bisexual/pansexual in the LGBTQ community? The answer is, probably not all the time. I’ve heard story of people being accused of, “your just confused with what you want” or “its just a phase”. I say what so wrong with being confused its all so difficult to understand what you want or who you like when tons of people will judge you in a split second if you drop the labels; gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

When everyone makes these stereotypes based off a label its makes me feel like you don’t know how someone will react to taking on this ‘new’ label. I have only really tried to tell my mom once that I was attracted to girls, but It kind of back fired in a way that opened my eyes even more. She said, “its one thing to be sexually aroused by them (like in film), but different to see a future with another female”. She also said something along the lines of “love is love and you can find it in anyone really”. This conversation gave me light to the situation for me in a way that I figured out that that I could see myself in a relationship with another female in fact anyone for that matter.

Yeah, I found clarity in that one conversation. But it doesn’t mean everyone else will react that way. I know my friends and I are firm supporters of the LGBTQ community, but to tell my friends I wouldn’t want to be treated any differently from them just off a label. Maybe one day ill say somethin, but at this point I feel like they know me for who I truly am and I don’t need to “come out”.

I know that through life preference changes, but I know that love is love and one day I will have a connection that is beyond labels and stereotypes. That is the one thing that will never change in me.