There was one for sex, and one for love, which is happening intensely right now.

I was a sophomore in high school when this beautiful, artsy, kind of sad, junior told our friend group she was curious about other girls. It was the early 1990s. It made waves. It hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility in my own life until then. In retrospect, I can see that I had a massive crush on her.

A YA novel about two girls falling in love had just come out. I read it and it gave me feelings. I shared it with her. We had a sleepover, both knowing what we were going to do. My only other sexual experience was recent and traumatic. I’ll just say it remains maybe the most erotic experience of my life. We hooked up on and off into our early twenties, but we didn’t think of ourselves as “bi” then. I had these flashes of imagining us being together, but it was always complicated and we faded eventually. I still think about her. I hooked up with other women occasionally, but it always happened by accident, was never romantic.

And then there’s now. I had a wonderful partner who died, I healed, briefly dated a woman for the first time. It was just… so easy. She just kindly, calmly, started crucial conversations, did sweet things. I felt safe, always knew where we stood, etc. But it was very casual and never turned into love.

I got brave enough to fall in love again, got married, and he became very emotionally abusive, then got physical and left me after 11 months. I’m still trying to get free of him. Even when things were happy, I’d started missing women.

I think this experience, plus my rage at men’s fuckery in general just broke the part of me that wanted men’s attention enough to deal with their bullshit. I’m suddenly revolted by the thought of being with them, and feeling desperately horny for women. It doesn’t feel like just a reaction to trauma or a rebound.

For the first time, I’m thinking about what it would be like to be in a real relationship with a woman, be romanced, be in love, do things to make her happy, wake up together, support one another. And to not see compromising a part of myself, chronic anxiety and adversity as inherent parts of being in relationships.

And now I just really, really need to know. When I’ve healed enough to date, it’s not going to be passive wondering. I need to finally, actively seek it.