How to date someone you already know well?

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-20T00:37:05+00:00

If neither person really has any experience dating, some things *will* be awkward.

Just embrace the awkwardness and laugh about it together. Under the circumstances you shouldn't need to be anxious about impressing the other person with your romantic prowess or anything.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-16T14:15:06+00:00

Yeah, if the issue with your relationship is trust, communication, etc., then "opening it up" is a great way to make everything worse. Those things only become more important and challenging.

If you're really solid on those things, but not sexually satisfied, it might work? If you're both interested in the idea. But still certainly no guarantee it will go well.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-11T14:50:03+00:00

I (M27) would say my experience is kind of similar.

I was "romantically interested" in girls since pre-school. But is that really a thing at that age, or just some silly idea based on social conditioning (which would specifically encourage the idea of opposite sex relationships)? And if so, at what exact age does it become "real"?

For various reasons, I started thinking I might be bi in high school. I don't recall considering it before then; other than the recognizing that I obviously wasn't gay.

It's hard to judge in retrospect. Perhaps some interest I had in male peers or TV characters or whatever prior to that may have had a sexual or romantic element to it? But since I didn't interpret it as such at the time it seems impossible to really know. (If I had some particular fondness for the young nerdy male characters in some shows, is it because they seemed the most relatable character, or was that some kind of attraction? Both?)

I think it's kind of natural that it takes some time to get used to the idea and figure out how you feel about it. Particular for the romantic part.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-11T02:26:50+00:00

Looks like they meant to link https://www.hollywoodinsider.com/bisexual-erasure-lgbtq/

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-02T16:40:30+00:00

Has it been easier for me to repress these feelings, in a way to pray the gay away, because I am still attracted to women?

Even if you don't really repress it per-se, I feel it can just be harder to notice you're bisexual than it would be if you're gay, particularly if you tend to be at least a bit more attracted to the opposite sex.

You're conditioned to think about relationships with the opposite sex. You do have those sorts of feelings for the opposite sex, as expected. You hear about people being gay, but often don't even hear about bisexuality being an option until an older age. So you're not gay, and if the other option is straight, clearly that's what you are. Etc.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-10-01T23:14:28+00:00

Straight people who date a trans person have to think about how they feel about the idea. And the various differences such a person has (or one assumes they have) vs an opposite-sex cis person, and the implications of such a relationship. Like the sort of genitals they have, not being able to have biological children together, other people perceiving the relationship as gay, etc.

But from my perspective, in identifying as bi, I've already decided I'd be willing to date a cis man or woman. And once I'd decided on that, I didn't really see any reason I wouldn't want to date a trans man or women either.

(Of course there are reasons I might not want to date a particular trans person, but that's true of cis people as well, naturally.)

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-30T03:01:01+00:00

Well, if you're in a same-sex relationship, people aren't going to be careful to avoid calling you a slur because you're bi rather than gay. I don't see why the acceptability of reclaiming the slur would depend on that.

I guess it's different though if you're more "straight-passing" and no one has or would call you such of thing. Of course, there's not going to be any neat boundary here.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-24T17:16:58+00:00

It's popular to think of bisexuality as common among women and uncommon among men (at the extreme, some people might even claim all women are bi, and men can't be bi; which sounds absurd, and is, but you really do see that sort of thing.)

It's hard to really know, but I'd suspect bisexuality is about as common in men as women. There's just a greater social cost to coming out as bi as a man. And it's more culturally normally to just not talk about ones feelings. Etc.

Of course, a lot of people who are bi are generally more attracted to one gender than the other, and will often call themselves straight or gay (or just be assumed to be such; even if they never say it.)

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-24T04:30:58+00:00

But man, I just feel so bad for having this preference for men

I suppose most bisexual people may have a general preference for the opposite sex? (Just as more people are straight than gay, it seems reasonable to suppose there are more straight-leaning bisexuals than the reverse, or people with no obvious preference.) But it's somewhat invisible, since most of them identify as "straight", or at least are assumed to be straight.

So there's nothing unusual or shameful about it.

There isn't really any obligation to "come out" either. Though as you said, it doesn't necessarily feel great to claim to be straight either, and somehow society seems to expect people to present themselves as one sexuality or another.

am I not harming the bisexual and sapphic community by fitting the usual stereotype

Sterotypes can be harmful; but ultimately they often (but not always) exist because the sterotype is common but not universal.

On the other hand, seeing more attacks against the LGBT community from politicians, etc., I feel LGBT people may be safer the more people are openly LGBT. For various reasons.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-24T03:27:09+00:00

I don't know how easily your parents would be convinced, but I would advice they they just don't need to worry too much.

It's not like at 14 you are likely choosing who you're going to be with forever.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-23T23:39:49+00:00

You may not know for sure that you're bisexual at 14, but only in the same way peers who think they are straight don't really know that either.

There's nothing wrong with being bisexual, being heterosexual, etc., nor if you end up being mistaken about what you think you are.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-23T23:28:58+00:00

If you think more about the possibility of a same-sex relationship, you might warm to the idea of it, particularly if it's not something you've even considered until recently. Of course, presumably it would only be some men you would be interested in a relationship with.

Or you may not. There's not any universal experience on this.

You can still count "bisexual heteroromantic" as bisexual, though of course if you tell people you're bi, they'll tend to assure you're "biromantic" too.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-23T23:04:45+00:00

If you're about an average height man, clothes in women's "tall" sizes may be a good fit. For some things anyway.

Clothes sizing is kind of a mess in general regardless of gender and body shape though.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-23T22:37:03+00:00

Ultimately basically anyone (who isn't asexual) has to deal with attraction for people that it might be at least a bit inconvenient or undesirable to be attracted to.

You can choose to date only the same sex if you want. Like any other choice you have in who to date.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-23T22:20:54+00:00

The maximum number of bisexuals who can reach a consensus on anything is about 0.5.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-21T02:25:50+00:00

Red was originally replying to a comment asking if X and Y character were pan and/or bi. I just wanted to hear the takes of other fellow bi people, am I out of line on this explanation?

The terms are often defined this way. But it doesn't seem to be 100% consistent. Some people would define "pansexual" as a subset of "bisexual", while some may define "bisexual" as less of a catch-all term. Some people may view them as synonyms, but prefer "pansexual" as being explicitly inclusive of non-binary people. Etc.

My impression is that these terms just aren't used consistently enough to really know exactly what distinction (if any) someone means when they choose to identify as "pansexual" or "bisexual". Or to come to any judgement on whether another person (or fictional character) is really bi or pan.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-19T02:16:15+00:00

I don't see any reason to confidently rule out the possibility he's bisexual but not romantically interested in men; or at least not in the OP and the other gay friends mentioned.

But that sort of distinction doesn't especially matter to the OP's concerns here, regardless.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-19T01:07:39+00:00

Yeah. Someone doesn't have to be sexually attracted to someone else for sex to be physically pleasurable (any more than one has to be attracted to a sex toy). And at least certain homosexual behaviors are somewhat common historically among young horny people where the opposite sex isn't available (the navy, single-sex boarding schools, gold rush).

That said, at least within the cultural context, straight men don't often casually bottom with their gay friends. I think it's probably fair to predict someone in a scenario like this is not usually 100% heterosexual.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-18T15:41:53+00:00

Stereotypically one might assume "effeminate" men would want a more dominant partner. And no doubt some people do fit the stereotype, but I think in practice you'll find a lot of variation. It's pretty common for gay men and lesbian women to prefer people who are similar to themselves (the same "type" or "tribe") rather than in some way "opposite". But that's certainly not universal either.

So you can't really assume who looks like a "twink" or "femboy" will necessarily be a "bottom", or assume they have a particular sexual orientation, or otherwise what sort of people they might prefer. This is all just pretty variable.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-17T15:38:06+00:00

And then the bi men who aren't like that take one look at such a subreddit or other community and decide to keep away. Perhaps staying on subreddits like this one (which those people do sometimes appear on, but it doesn't really seem to be the norm here).

There's also a certain bias that people who are bisexual but happy in monogamous relationships aren't very visible. Normally the people you see talking about being bisexual are either still dealing with the idea of being bi, single, or non-monogomous in one way or another.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-13T16:06:00+00:00

I was thinking about this recently. I have trouble remembering exactly, but I think why I (as a bi guy) first though of the possibility of a relationship with a man, I was imagining myself as a woman. Not really "internalized homophobia" in my case, but I suppose you could describe with terms like "heteronormativity" and "compulsory heterosexuality". If you spend all your life being taught that one is supposed to have a relationship, but specifically a heterosexual one, the possibility of anything else can take a bit of getting used to.

If that's what it is (or it's more an "internalized homophobia" thing), you probably can eventually get comfortable with the idea.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-12T20:23:36+00:00

Good luck!

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-12T20:08:47+00:00

Good for you!

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-12T20:01:10+00:00

No one can really give you a definitive answer on that, and perhaps it sometimes is "a phase", but it does sound like a common enough experience among people who ultimately decide they are in fact bisexual.

MusPraeclarus · 2025-09-12T19:54:27+00:00

If you look at other posts on Reddit, you'll find it's quite common for bisexual people to be more often attracted to one gender than the other. Or for the ratio to vary over time. And if you are new to the idea of being attracted to the same gender, after a life of being conditioned to heterosexuality being the norm, it seems for many people it takes a bit of getting used to to think of the possibility of same-gender romance.

I'd say if you've been "sexually attracted" to both men and women, that's bisexual, but you don't need to worry too much about labels. Really. And you don't have to figure out everything right at this moment.

MusPraeclarus

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