Mind Games
The Art of Lying to Yourself (and Everyone Else) About Your Sexuality
All it takes is a complete and utter suppression of your true feelings
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1. Start when you’re young
When you’re six, touch tongues with a girl in your music class. Get in trouble with the music teacher, who’s righteously Christian and angry. Then feel ashamed without really knowing why and blame it all on Hannah (sorry, Hannah) by pretending it was her idea. Feel a little guilty that your sacred first kiss happened with a girl. Even at six, you know it’s not right.
When you’re 10, become obsessed with music videos. Furtively stare at videos that show Ashlee Simpson gyrating in cages. Get in trouble for staring at the screen with your eyes just an inch away from where Ashlee Simpson is gyrating. Feel ashamed without really knowing why. Continue to watch hip-hop videos in secret. Pretend it’s because you like the music.
2. Tamp down your conflicted feelings about girls
Discover a reassuring truth: You hate girls! You just find it easier to be friends with boys. No drama! No gossip! No confusing feelings about wanting to touch them or be with them. No. You’re just jealous that they’re hot because you wish you were hot, too.
You’re angry about their boyfriends because you want a boyfriend. You’re staring at their shiny hair and perfect skin because you wish you had shiny hair and perfect skin. If you had that stuff, more boys would like you. This is important.
Despite what you really want, form friendships with girls because boys keep wanting what you don’t want to give them and that’s not what friends do. Become unreasonably annoyed when your new friends talk about their boyfriends. In spite of yourself, learn the language and mannerisms of being straight. Learn to stare at boys at the mall and learn which movie stars are hottest.
Learn that some boys actually are pretty cute. Not the ones that like you, of course, but you’re still relieved to discover you can appreciate a tanned, toned male body as much as the next girl.
3. Kiss a lot of girls
When you finally start drinking and going out, you’ll find that it’s all too easy to find excuses to kiss a lot of girls. Like, a lot of them. Lie to yourself about why you want to kiss them. Lie to other people about why you want to kiss them. Kiss some boys, too, for good measure.
Feel happy and excited that you’re wanted by people no matter their gender. If boys want to kiss you, it’s because you’re desirable. If girls want to kiss you, it’s because it’s so hot to do it. That’s cool with you.
4. Fall in love with a boy
Hallelujah! There’s nothing wrong with you! You were just waiting for the right boy! And this boy is the right boy. Wonder how it is you’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Feel so lucky that you love him and he loves you and you can finally forget about girls now because you’ve caught a man and he’s perfect.
5. Start thinking about how weird it is that girls are so much more attractive than boys
You’ve finally discovered feminism now so you can set aside your old ideas that women had to be more attractive for “evolutionary reasons.” Now you can blame the patriarchy because women are so often penalized for not ticking the boxes of what society has deemed attractive (hairlessness, thinness, dark eyelashes, and suitably sized breasts, to name a few).
Find it bizarre that while you can immediately tell whether or not you’re attracted to a woman or a man from the second you see them, your male friends seem only able to do this with women. Tell yourself it’s because women are coached from birth to place value on their attractiveness and to see other attractive women as threats to the social standing. Tell yourself it’s nothing to do with eyes that sparkle in the sunshine and the soft sound of laughter that sends chills down your spine.
Watch yourself, as though from afar, watching other girls. Begin to realize it isn’t jealousy that makes it hard for you to tear your eyes away from them, that makes you blush when your eyes meet.
6. Read a book about a character who isn’t straight
You know, of course, that non-straights exist. You know, theoretically, that heterosexuality isn’t the only option.
But you don’t know anyone who isn’t outwardly straight. You’ve never seen a movie from the perspective of someone who’s gay. You’ve never read a book with a lesbian in it. So it’s a revelation to you to read about this female character in your fiction book who kisses a girl and knows it’s just right.
Read the book several more times.
7. Keep kissing girls, albeit guiltily
You’re drunk: You can’t help it, can you? And kisses with girls don’t count. They’re just friendship kisses.
Find more excuses to kiss girls: Because you’re at the top of a Ferris wheel with her and it’s midnight. Because she just broke up with her boyfriend and she needs cheering up. Because she’s your friend, and you like her, and she smells like pineapple and coconut.
Worry that you’re doing it performatively for the boys who watch. Worry when you do it but no boys are around to see it. Worry that your boyfriend likes it. Worry that your boyfriend doesn’t like it. Worry that the girls you do it with take it too seriously.
Start to realize these aren’t friendship kisses.
8. Have a difficult but long-overdue conversation with your boyfriend about why you keep kissing girls
Understand that his views have changed, just as yours have. He didn’t use to think it was cheating and now he does. Understand that there’s pressure on boys, just as there is with girls, to view two girls kissing as just titillation for men. Understand that even though he high-fived his friends whenever you kissed a girl in a club, he was also feeling threatened. It was not just titillation for you and, of course, he recognized that.
Dance around the word. Dance around the topic. Dance around the concept, even though you both know it’s possible you might not adhere to the narrow and rigid confines of what our society understands to be heterosexuality.
Agree that there will be no more kissing girls, just as you would not kiss boys. Feel relieved that you can still love your boyfriend and find other people attractive. Feel relieved that you’re no longer spinning in a free fall, unsure of what’s happening or why you feel like this. There are boundaries and they’re here for a reason. You finally know what that reason is.
9. Say the word, just to yourself
It sticks in your mouth, feeling as odd as a loose tooth. Wrinkle your face, furrow your brow, and try to spit it out but fail.
Look in the foggy mirror after a shower. Make eye contact with your sinful, shameful self and dredge up the strength to say it.
“You’re bisexual.”
It feels hollow. You try again.
“You’re bisexual and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Still, the words trip on your tongue. Your voice wavers. You have doubts. You have insecurities.
Even so, you have the courage to look at your entire life through the lens of your new discovery and understand that it’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only thing that puts your experiences and feelings into the right context. You think more and more, your mind racing faster and faster, and it’s as though your entire life was ever-so-slightly off-kilter and you never realized until just this moment when the whole of your lived experience finally slotted into place. Now, it all makes sense.
10. Stop lying to yourself about your sexuality
Lying to yourself and your loved ones about your sexuality is the easiest thing in the world because the lie is the default.
Without uttering a single falsehood or letting even one lie cross your lips, you can let yourself and everyone around you believe you’re straight. All it takes is a complete and utter suppression of your true feelings.
And yet, releasing that weight off your shoulders happens so suddenly and quickly that you may wonder how you’ve possibly held it in place for so long. It slips off like a sack of rocks you’ve been lugging around, and you stretch up to your full height for the first time in your life.
You meet girls who are bi and boys who are bi. You devour books, movies, and magazine articles about non-straights. You go down the rabbit hole of Tumblr, laughing aloud with delight as bi girls describe experiences that could have been ripped directly from your life. You’re not alone. You’re not wrong. You’re not straight. You like boys and girls and that’s fine.
Yes, you’ll have run-ins with people who say your bisexuality is still a phase. You’ll have encounters with folks who say you’ll end up a lesbian eventually. You’ll have conversations in which you will be informed that it’s inevitable for you to cheat on your boyfriend because that’s just what bi people do.
And understand this: Even though you’ve made it through the dark forest of assumed heterosexuality, there will still be discoveries, twists, and experiences to come. Still, you may fail to feel anything but relief, happiness, and clarity. You know who you are for the first time in your life.
This story is part of The Art Of, an ongoing series that supplies you with instructions for living.
