AutumnLeaves
New member
I’ve decided to start a blog here because I’ve found other blogs helpful and because writing about things really helps me process my thoughts. I apologize in advance if my life is largely boring. The fault is entirely my own. I mostly like it that way. And please pardon this extremely long first post!
People:
Autumn: As I posted over here, I’m a bisexual female. I said late twenties there, but I’m starting to consider myself thirtyish. Nerdy, intelligent, introverted.
Guitarist: Husband, long-term partner, best friend. Thirtyish, male, hetflex, formerly monogamous. Nerdy, intelligent, introverted, brilliantly creative. Social justice warrior and feminist in all the best ways.
Purr: Guitarist’s girlfriend. Thirtyish, female, pansexual, polyamorous. A kitten in the shape of a human adult female, very fluffy, very snuggly, so cute you just want to pet her and protect her from the world.
Marian: Current interest. Mid-twenties, female, bisexual, polyamorous. Well-read, intelligent, articulate, fun.
Flame: Long-distance best friend. Male, fortyish, straight, monogamish. Nerdy, intelligent, fun. Emotionally bent but unbroken. All around cool guy.
Then:
I identified as lesbian from ages 9 to 19. My first crushes were all on really hot celebrity women, and it took a long time for me to realize that in real life tend to want to be physically intimate with people I’m emotionally intimate with and it doesn’t seem to matter what their plumbing looks like. In middle school, I secretly dated another girl until she broke my heart. It’s hard to hear that every lesbian lives a horrible and persecuted life, and that the girl you’re totally in puppy love with doesn’t want to be one. It didn’t help that my parents are homophobic and I was extremely closeted.
I spent most of high school being nerdy, introverted, and pretending to be straight. I’m not sure I was very successful at it. I had to break up with my first boyfriend when he wanted the sex. I had to break up with my second boyfriend when he also wanted the sex. By the end of high school I’d settled into a comfortable sexless LDR with a much, much older man I’d briefly met on the local college campus. I was 17. He was 26. After it was completely legal, I discovered that I enjoy physical intimacy with people I’m emotionally intimate with, regardless of what their plumbing looks like. But it stayed an LDR because he was not financially independent from his parents. We’ll call him FirstFiance.
I went to college. It was an eye-opening experience. Even my small, conservative, religious school was awash with anti-authoritarianism, sex, and homosexuality. I cautiously came out to my friends. They were overwhelmingly supportive.
I applied for a study abroad program for my minor in a foreign language. FirstFiance urged me to fully explore on my study abroad. He said that he didn’t mind if I had a romantic or sexual relationship, as long as I didn’t tell him about it. I was completely flabbergasted. I’d never heard of any such thing before. After lots of reassurances on his part, I took him at his word.
I had an amazing relationship with a woman overseas. We briefly kicked around the idea of her coming to study in the US. I was full of young love and I was sure I could make something work with FirstFiance. But at the end of the study abroad, I again found myself heartbroken. Due to the conservative nature of her culture, she was expected to get married after she received her degree. She was not willing to turn her back on her traditions and family, particularly not since the US wouldn’t recognize our relationship as valid. She didn’t want to stay in touch, a decision she phrased as something that would be less painful for me. It wasn't.
FirstFiance and I moved in together. We lived together for two years. His dishonesty and my inability to emotionally handle the toxic combination of his bipolar disorder and my depression pretty much ended. We eventually parted ways on bad terms. He now helps other bipolar people navigate the illness. We email occasionally.
My younger sister outed me to my conservative Christian parents as bisexual after college. They did not take it well. They still love me very much, but we also don’t speak about it. I find it really ironic that my mother is embarrassed about my grandmother’s rabid racism, but doesn’t seem to realize the parallels between that and her virulent homophobia.
After that, I had several relationships, some longer term than others, until I met Guitarist at a board-gaming group. At the time, I was dating someone and he was engaged. We became very good friends. After a while, we were both single at the same time and we started dating.
On a roadtrip to visit friends shortly after that, Guitarist said out of the blue, “I don’t do threeways.” That sparked a whole conversation about bisexuality and what it does and doesn’t mean. The conversation went along the lines of how you can have different interests, and one person might not fill all those interests, but you can still love them and want to be with them. Some of my statements nibbled around the edges of nonmonogamy, which at that time Guitarist was very against. I started joking that he was more monogamous than I am.
To be continued, because this is getting awfully long....
People:
Autumn: As I posted over here, I’m a bisexual female. I said late twenties there, but I’m starting to consider myself thirtyish. Nerdy, intelligent, introverted.
Guitarist: Husband, long-term partner, best friend. Thirtyish, male, hetflex, formerly monogamous. Nerdy, intelligent, introverted, brilliantly creative. Social justice warrior and feminist in all the best ways.
Purr: Guitarist’s girlfriend. Thirtyish, female, pansexual, polyamorous. A kitten in the shape of a human adult female, very fluffy, very snuggly, so cute you just want to pet her and protect her from the world.
Marian: Current interest. Mid-twenties, female, bisexual, polyamorous. Well-read, intelligent, articulate, fun.
Flame: Long-distance best friend. Male, fortyish, straight, monogamish. Nerdy, intelligent, fun. Emotionally bent but unbroken. All around cool guy.
Then:
I identified as lesbian from ages 9 to 19. My first crushes were all on really hot celebrity women, and it took a long time for me to realize that in real life tend to want to be physically intimate with people I’m emotionally intimate with and it doesn’t seem to matter what their plumbing looks like. In middle school, I secretly dated another girl until she broke my heart. It’s hard to hear that every lesbian lives a horrible and persecuted life, and that the girl you’re totally in puppy love with doesn’t want to be one. It didn’t help that my parents are homophobic and I was extremely closeted.
I spent most of high school being nerdy, introverted, and pretending to be straight. I’m not sure I was very successful at it. I had to break up with my first boyfriend when he wanted the sex. I had to break up with my second boyfriend when he also wanted the sex. By the end of high school I’d settled into a comfortable sexless LDR with a much, much older man I’d briefly met on the local college campus. I was 17. He was 26. After it was completely legal, I discovered that I enjoy physical intimacy with people I’m emotionally intimate with, regardless of what their plumbing looks like. But it stayed an LDR because he was not financially independent from his parents. We’ll call him FirstFiance.
I went to college. It was an eye-opening experience. Even my small, conservative, religious school was awash with anti-authoritarianism, sex, and homosexuality. I cautiously came out to my friends. They were overwhelmingly supportive.
I applied for a study abroad program for my minor in a foreign language. FirstFiance urged me to fully explore on my study abroad. He said that he didn’t mind if I had a romantic or sexual relationship, as long as I didn’t tell him about it. I was completely flabbergasted. I’d never heard of any such thing before. After lots of reassurances on his part, I took him at his word.
I had an amazing relationship with a woman overseas. We briefly kicked around the idea of her coming to study in the US. I was full of young love and I was sure I could make something work with FirstFiance. But at the end of the study abroad, I again found myself heartbroken. Due to the conservative nature of her culture, she was expected to get married after she received her degree. She was not willing to turn her back on her traditions and family, particularly not since the US wouldn’t recognize our relationship as valid. She didn’t want to stay in touch, a decision she phrased as something that would be less painful for me. It wasn't.
FirstFiance and I moved in together. We lived together for two years. His dishonesty and my inability to emotionally handle the toxic combination of his bipolar disorder and my depression pretty much ended. We eventually parted ways on bad terms. He now helps other bipolar people navigate the illness. We email occasionally.
My younger sister outed me to my conservative Christian parents as bisexual after college. They did not take it well. They still love me very much, but we also don’t speak about it. I find it really ironic that my mother is embarrassed about my grandmother’s rabid racism, but doesn’t seem to realize the parallels between that and her virulent homophobia.
After that, I had several relationships, some longer term than others, until I met Guitarist at a board-gaming group. At the time, I was dating someone and he was engaged. We became very good friends. After a while, we were both single at the same time and we started dating.
On a roadtrip to visit friends shortly after that, Guitarist said out of the blue, “I don’t do threeways.” That sparked a whole conversation about bisexuality and what it does and doesn’t mean. The conversation went along the lines of how you can have different interests, and one person might not fill all those interests, but you can still love them and want to be with them. Some of my statements nibbled around the edges of nonmonogamy, which at that time Guitarist was very against. I started joking that he was more monogamous than I am.
To be continued, because this is getting awfully long....