By Xénia
Where do I even begin? Although I know now that I’m bi and ace, relating a lot to the split attraction model, my pieces came together a little bit slowly.
In high school, I had a friend who was very open with me about her attraction to guys, so one day she swooningly messaged me a photo of a man who just came out of the shower and was supposed to look attractive. My honest, immediate reaction was “Eww, take that thing away from me,” which didn’t surprise me much because I already suspected I was asexual, but I also knew I could definitely imagine myself having a romantic relationship with a guy. The emotional attraction was always there, but then it hit me: Wait a minute… if there was a girl in that photo, I would have no problem with it; I’d actually find her beautiful.
After that fateful picture, every related past experience came back: “Oh, so this is why I repeatedly watched so many music videos with a focus on girls, especially with dancing or kissing scenes.” Avicii’s Addicted to You stood out to me the most. As a teen, I had watched it so many times, thinking to myself, “That connection the girls share—it feels so normal, so deep. They must be very close friends. It’s beautiful.” Very close friends, for sure. That’s why I had read every news article I could find about female celebrities who were rumored to have a girlfriend. That’s why I’d watched female ballet dancers and ice skaters on TV in awe, but shrugged at men, why I’d looked forward to the girl characters’ screen time in cartoons as a kid, and stared only at women in fashion magazines, admiring their features. All the while, I’d had crushes on guys in real life—quite confusing.
But after realizing I was bi, after letting myself be open to girls (as well as becoming more confident in myself as a person), I developed girl crushes and found that I felt the emotional connection with them even stronger than with guys. Wanting to make a girl feel happy and loved started to feel extremely right. This is what I was searching for all along! A burden, heavier than a mountain, was lifted off my chest. With guys, love never felt so complete. I fell for them fast, liked watching them from afar or listening to their soothing voices, enjoyed the romantic daydreams… but that was it. I always thought, “If something happens, cool—if not, it’s okay, too.” Sometimes I started feeling more friend-like feelings towards them after getting to know them better. As a result, I took about a year to experiment with the label lesbian, which still resonates with me a little, yet my recurring crushes on guys kept showing me that I am, in fact, bi.
I decided to collect as much information and as many descriptions online as possible to see what felt true for me. LGBTQ+ social worker Zoe Stoller’s (@zoestoller) Instagram posts helped me the most. I learned about the aromantic spectrum and learned to make the distinction between how I experience—if I experience—the different types of attraction towards different genders: I’m ace and frayromantic for men, demiromantic and on the ace spectrum for women, and moreover, I can experience aesthetic attraction to all genders. For simplicity, I finally chose the labels bi and ace. (To an extent, I relate to the term non-binary as well). I’m so, so happy and content with it that I even keep using the flag colors in some of my DIY projects.
Looking back, I realize how much more difficult it would have been to understand this without the little signs and pieces of information the media and the internet provided me. But now my puzzle is complete, showing the intricate details of my soul I never thought I had, and I’m forever grateful for it.
Xénia is a translator-interpreter student in Hungary, thinking about switching to a career in visual arts.