For my adult life, I really didn’t give a lot of thought at all to being bi—I fell madly for whoever I fell for and didn’t concern myself with gender I believed the romantic idea that a bi person would just kind of develop a gender-preference upon falling in love.(Whereas I’m realizing just how many gender preferences are available…) After all, my relationship with Amy started after a marathon of Clerks: The Animated Series made me feel like I could do without dudes for a while.
The itch started in 2004 when the Red Sox were playing the Yankees in the World Series. Back before Johnny Damon became a Yankee, he was a shaggy haired hottie. I had a dream where I couldn’t believe I was getting to pal around with him, where I just kept keeping with him from place to place.
These days, it’s Mad Men making me go to bed kind of straight. Funny how I’m superpissed at anyone chauvinistic, but Don’s secretary-assignations drive me swoony.
Anyway, when I started feeling attracted to men again, I panicked. I kept having these dreams of almost kissing guys. I tried to make artistic metaphors for these, but sometimes kissing is just kissing. I fell for my guy friends, got crushes that panicked my soul. I thought I would have to get divorced.
Amy is very well loved. I definitely do not want to get divorced. She loves me so wholeheartedly, so loyally, and I’ve known that we’re soulmates all along. Our second date was a meteor shower, for crying out loud.
But.
It’s very frustrating and claustrophobic to have this side of me that is not expressed.
So we made a compromise—if I meet someone who I think is worth it, I can date him. It’s been like that for—5 years? I’ve met a few people I would take that risk for, but they’ve turned out to be unrequited. They turned into prolonged (sometimes years-long) crushes that were very fruitful in terms of yielding poems and paintings, and too many friends-locked LiveJournal posts to count.
The trouble is, I think, I’m pretty monogamous for a polyamorist. Even when I am with that person who is driving me to distraction, I can’t stop talking about Amy. If I go out without her, to be all free and meet new people, I miss her.
But there is a part of me that is not being expressed. It’s not the thing itself that’s missing, but it’s something. Is there a limit to how much sublimation a person can do in a lifetime? Probably not.
This spring I had kind of an interim therapist. She pretended to be all understanding, but in the end, she kind of threw me under the monogamy bus. She said , “You can’t live in two cites at once.” But I can visit. Or I can live in Philly and still miss Orange county. It’s a bad metaphor—plane tickets are pretty easy to save up for…
Personally, if I were bi, I would be so confused. So I don't blame you for being unsure. That therapist was a quack though. Boo for therapizing people whose basic features you can't handle.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks!! also, I love the word therapizing.
ReplyDeleteI started a poem a while back about the fact that having cake and eating it may really just be tiny variations of the same thing. ;)
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wish I liked girls more. They are pretty and crush-worthy, but I just haven't found somebody who I'd wanna do STUFF with, ya know? :P
Hannah, I can't wait to read that poem.
ReplyDeleteI wrote one once about how Amy is a vegetarian and I'm omnivorous, on kind of the same theme. I never got it how I wanted it, but I'm still amused by the metaphor.