Hey Anita,

Yeah, I have a boyfriend. I’m bisexual, my interest in guys just developed later in puberty. That is how i explain all the things in felt in the last year (I even outed myself as a lesbian in front of a few good friends and then took it back). As I’ve never had a relationship with a girl, i cant really tell what gender i prefer, i can just tell that I’m actually happy with my current relationship the way it is. Back that i made sure with myself i was over Cleo before i started a new relationship, and my way of making sure was the following:

I pictured for myself a situation, i knew that would never happen: Cleo standing in front of my door, telling me, her relationship had ended and how unhappy she was because she just dated him to make me jealous, and asking me out. And I pictured I already had the relationship i currently have. And i asked myself, what i would do – leave him to start dating her, or say “sorry, you should’ve said this a few months ago”. I started dating him when i was sure the answer would be the latter.

However, sometimes i feel like I could be in love with a girl and a guy at the same time, because i’m pretty sure my brain would just threat them different. I cant really explain it, its like you can have a favorite type of ice-cream and at the same time you can have a favorite type of pizza without it affecting your love for your favorite ice-cream. As this is not what my definition of loyalty in a relationship is i just tell myself “No” at every girl i meet – still, during the past three years there are a few women i met that i could have developed a crush on, if i hadn’t forbid myself those thoughts.

I don’t really have an unresolved issue with this, tho. I probably had an issue with it in the first year, when I asked myself if there was something wrong with me for feeling like that, but over the years i guess i accepted that things for me just are this way. I just am like this, i cant change it, and if my brain cant tell itself that i shouldn’t fall in love with girls when i have a boyfriend, then i have to make that decision actively, because i don’t want my relationship to suffer from it.

I haven’t told my boyfriend this tho. He knows about all the stuff with Cleo, of course, but he doesn’t know the way i feel about my sexuality. Its not because i don’t trust him or stuff, but he is somebody that has a hard time trying to understand what other people feel, especially when it gets really complex, and its stuff he cant relate to. So probably he would just try to understand the concept of me being able to love him and still crush on girls, fail, and ask himself if this is, i dunno, a sign of relationship issues or ask himself what he did wrong. Nothing productive would come out of it, no kind of understanding or help, he’d just start self-blaming.

There are very few times i actually ask myself, i things where different if i had a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. And sometimes this girlfriend is specified as Cleo. This dropped into anger during the last year, and she stopped being this specific person i compared him with. But those comparisons have always been unfair and after fights, and the have never lasted after we made up. And when she broke contact for like – no reason – a year ago, the only picture of her in my mind isn’t the girl i compare my bf with. Its just us two, her and me, fighting.

Whenever, wherever, and its me saying things i could never say to her if she stood in front of my face, but i can imagine myself screaming all the stuff at her i can’t in reality, because i even know, its not her fault shes hetero. She never felt the friendship we had as deep as i felt it, so shes probably not even going to understand why I’m this angry she called me “soulmate” and then left. There are a lot of friendships that just end when ppl dont see each other in school anymore. And to her, I’m sure, I’m just one of those friendships.  Thats also the feeling that came back up when her sister popped up in University, and i knew Cleo was there somewhere. I image me meeting her, and we start to fight. Thats not going to happen, we’d ignore each other – and after it, i guess she wouldn’t mind, my week would be ruined by anger.

Id get an angry look at best, because i called her an “annoying egomaniac”, and i know that talking behind her back for her is the worst form of betrayal. I’m not going to confront her, but the idea of doing so is haunting me.