Pride month is here, which means brands have popped the Rainbow pill and won’t shut up about being an “ally to the community”, restaurants are offering up special menus and freebies for same-sex dates and suddenly, your timeline is filled with posts about a colourful Pride parade in New York or your friends are planning to catch a drag show in Kitty Su this Saturday. As a bisexual woman, I used to consider June as the annual month of confusion and curiosity, and more often than not, the corporate pride propaganda made me feel even more alien than “included” in the narrative. 

You see, bisexuality has always been treated as the weird middle child of the LGBTQ+ community—too straight for the gays, too gay for the straights. You’re often told you’re just “confused” or “experimenting” or worse, “doing it for attention”. Spoiler: it’s not a phase, bro. It’s literally who I am. It’s my preference, like how you could listen to Kendrick Lamar’s entire discography and switch to a Sunidhi Chauhan playlist and derive just as much joy from both those experiences. 

However, gaining this clarity about my sexuality hasn’t been a straightforward path to enlightenment. Back when I was a teenager, I blamed my all-girls school. It was a convenient explanation—the fact that being surrounded by 800 girls had triggered something subconsciously. Add that to my mildly strict upbringing where my parents expected me to repel boys and where building connections with fellow women was encouraged. I thought maybe I was a product of my environment, like a social experiment gone mildly fruity. However, the attraction to women continued well beyond the age of wearing uniforms. 

But here’s the thing, I never thought I had to pick a side. I was always attracted to women—Kareena Kapoor’s introduction as “Pooh” will always be a part of my sexual awakening. But I never had those deep, emotional, heart-eyes feelings for women. I crushed on boys, I fell for boys, I wrote angsty entries into my dairy about those boys. When I watched Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, I looked for my Jay in my male best friends. Meanwhile, my attraction to women felt... different. It wasn’t emotional in the Bollywood slow-mo rain scene way—it was just hot.

And that made it easier because I haven’t met a woman who hasn’t already experimented with her sexuality and very few would object to kissing another woman on the lips. In fact, my first few tame lesbian encounters were exclusively had in the women’s washrooms post our school-sanctioned swim classes—the existence of which was public knowledge among us students and no one batted an eye. It was like bisexuality-lite—until emotions showed up. Then, the openness sank under that same pool. It seemed like everyone wanted to act gay, just not actually be it. 

I don’t mean to offend my men-are-trash community, but dating a woman can be best described by a line from Taylor Swift: A nightmare dressed like a daydream. The emotional connection and depth? Off the charts. Boundaries? Blurred. Flirty friendships? Constantly turning into ‘situationships’ when they were still referred to as ‘casual hook-ups’. Even being friends with a girl platonically came with it challenges—I was constantly confused whether my curly-haired bestfriend that I was crushing over was just complementing my outfit or flirting with me. I had no answers to give when she questioned why I unexplainably checked out of conversations where she obsessed about a stupid boy that didn’t deserve her. 

Even as a hormone-fueled raging teenager, I grew hesitant to explore same sex relationships because I was skeptical that I would never be fully understood when I told my proverbial girlfriend about how I still craved male attention, even though being with her sexually felt completely different and sometimes, even better.  And all this made me question whether I was actually bi or just… horny. 

So, I exclusively dated men and only ‘slept’ with women. It was just easier that way. Less emotionally complicated, more socially acceptable. The lines were clear-ish. But heterosexual relationships are no less chaotic. Men are less emotionally complicated and usually come in two types—the devoted ‘aashiq’ or the aloof fuckboy. Whatever the breed, the minute you tell a boy you’re bisexual, they will go full frat bro. “Have you been with a woman? How do two women have sex? Have you ever had a threesome?” they’ll ask in fast succession with a twinkle in their eye, as if I have unlocked their favourite porn fantasy. 

These boys thought of me to be “sexier” because they believed I would make out with their hottest female friends after they bought us some tequila shots and in return, let them watch the action unfold. When I was younger, these dumb questions made me feel like I would have to give proof my queerness by having them be witness. I had to first teach myself to stand up for myself and recognise that my sexuality had nothing to do with the man I was with or his fantasies. I had to learn to say, “I’m bi dude, not your favourite category on PornHub.” And eventually, I learnt to recognise these questions as red flags and turns out, I was thankful that my bisexuality automatically filtered out these toxic idiots by giving me the ‘ick’ early on. 

In my late twenties, I finally did meet a man who didn’t treat my sexual preference as a fetish. Neither did he ask for proof nor he did offer to “help me explore it” further. He didn’t think that being sexual made me any hotter than I already was, but treated it like a natural, normal part of it. We vibed, we have great sex, we made each other happy and eventually, we got married. And it wasn’t some betrayal of my queerness or settling as per ‘societal norms’—he was just the right person for me. 

And one of the big green flags for me? He made it clear that if I ever hooked up with a woman, it would count as cheating too—which honestly, sounded more than fair and real to me. After all, if hooking up with a man while being committed to someone else is wrong, why is it not the same when it’s a person of the same sex? Why does that legitimise cheating? Being bi shouldn’t mean that I have a loophole to infidelity. In fact, it means that my “hall passes” include both Matt Rife and Ruby Rose. And on the flip side, being bisexual has meant that my husband and I can enjoy people watching on our holidays and discuss their attractiveness levels without it threatening our bond or insecurities creeping in. 

But having said that, attraction to women just comes easier. Women are easier to love: they’re easier on the eyes, they smell better, they moisturise. They also know when not to send ‘??’ as a reply to an emotional text. Most men, on the other hand, are emotionally constipated, treat emojis like a love language and will show up to a fine dining restaurant in a sports jersey and make you feel like the problem. 

But some men grow up and evolve. They believe in commitment and don’t ghost you when their ex is back in the city. They apologise without being asked. They respect you without needing you to earn it. They learn to understand the difference between “being sensitive” and feeling misunderstood. Some men will take the time to understand you and then love every fibre of your being, even the parts that don’t necessarily align with their idea of a perfect partner. Some will even hold your hand through life’s messiest moments, wake up extra early to just pack your morning coffee into your favourite tumbler before you head off to work and get sweet treats delivered to you when your PMS sets in. 

These types of men are soft, present, loyal and sexy in that “he fills up the petrol in my car without me having to ask” kind of way. The good ones aren’t just tolerable—they’re a pleasure to be around and someone you can find your best friend in. So yes, I married one such man and it didn’t feel like a betrayal of my bisexuality or walking out on my queerness. I fell in love and it just felt right. That’s it. 

But after years of second-guessing myself and even struggling to accept my bisexuality, I finally realised that I don’t owe anyone proof—not through a threesome, not through a wild story, not even by waving the rainbow flag at your nearest pride parade. I don’t need receipts—all I needed was to feel seen and accepted for who I was. Because, after all, love is love.