Not Gay “Enough”

One of the reasons it has taken me so long to start talking about being gay, is that I have always felt somewhat like my feelings are invalid. Like a fraud. I didn't fit the box of being straight, but I didn't quite fit the box of being gay. I just didn't fit. Because I have never lived the lifestyle, and because I was able to ignore it and deny it for so long, and because I dated boys and kissed boys, and am now married to a man, and because I don’t know if I was born that way or if I was influenced by the sexual abuse I experienced, because the abuse happened so young, I can’t really remember before that. I wasn’t sure if that made me less “valid” or not. It just felt like I couldn’t call myself gay, because I wasn’t gay “enough.” And despite wanting to and coming close to, I have never kissed a girl on the lips. I wasn’t gay in the way that other people perceived me. I worried if I talked about it that people would call me out for not being gay “enough.” And because more than one person asked me if I was a lesbian in high school and I told people over and over again that I was not. They asked that question because of how I interacted with girls. I even had a girl feel the need to tell me she didn’t think of me that way. I didn’t feel that way about her either, but I lacked the boundaries necessary to make that clear. I had told myself that the way I interacted with girls was normal so that I didn’t have to face anything different. I wasn’t flirting… I was “outgoing” or my friends and I were just “so comfortable” with each other that we could be physical and it didn’t mean anything. Something. Anything but gay.

In high school I told myself that I appreciated looking at girls bodies because I was artistic and I was just admiring something beautiful. The way you would admire a painting. I ignored the fact that I didn’t look at boys that way. I rushed the physicality of my relationship with my first boyfriend because the only thing exciting about it was trying something new. I didn’t actually enjoy any of it. When I finally told him I was attracted to girls, he offered to bring girls into our relationship. It was awkward because he (like so many others have since) assumed that I was bisexual. The “bisexual” label has never felt like it really fit me though. But this assumption included the idea that I would be interested in a three-way experience.  As tempting as it was to say yes in order to experience kissing a girl, I also worried that I would be more interested in her than him and that that would hurt his feelings. And the whole idea of a guy getting off on two girls kissing just felt like…. So not the context I wanted to experience kissing a girl in anyway. And there was the guilt I felt that kissing a girl would make me a bad person. That wanting to kiss a girl made me damaged. There were times when I felt like I could hardly think about anything else. There were friends that I considered asking if I could kiss them because I knew they would let me if I asked and it wouldn’t make it weird afterwards. In reality, I think that would have been emotionally difficult for me. 

Something that has been healing for me is the realization that I am not alone. There are so many people out there under the “queer umbrella” that do not feel like they totally fit in the heterosexual box, or the homosexual box or the female box or the male box or any box. The boxes are too small and don’t allow for the fluidity in which we all experience the world on any given day. The feeling that you don’t quite fit in is certainly not uncommon. Nor is the feeling that you don’t quite match the expectations people have for you, or that you believe they have for you. 

I remember reading articles on the various labels for sexuality and one particular article said sexual identity is yours to choose. Even if you are sometimes attracted to men but are normally attracted to women, you can still identify as gay if that is what you feel most aligns with your experience. You choose. And it doesn’t matter what other people think. And that helped me a lot. It was probably the main reason why I was able to finally choose the label of “gay” years later because I felt it best aligned with how I felt, even if I didn’t quite fit the norm. 

I’m still trying to feel comfortable in my shoes. I have accepted that being attracted to women does not make me “bad.” But the possibility of that attraction being directed toward a specific person does still make me feel like a bad person sometimes. I suppose that is made more complicated by the fact that I am married. So obviously right now I feel like my attention shouldn’t stray from my husband. But I am also learning that it is okay to acknowledge that I find someone attractive. That doesn’t make me a bad person any more than my husband admitting a certain actress is attractive makes him a bad person. Acting on those thoughts is an issue. Dwelling on them can be an issue. But having the thought that someone is attractive? Not the issue. 

Sometimes I think I might just have to keep telling myself that for a while before I fully believe it in my bones. Another mantra to repeat along with “I am enough,” and “I am loved, and I am wanted, and normal is different for everybody.”