After the huge fight, we had had that spanned weeks, I reluctantly gave him a hug. I was reluctant because even though we had theoretically made up (spoiler alert: not really), I was still really mad at him over the whole thing; he knew that. But as he looked at me dismissingly and playfully gave me a hug, I made sure there was distance. Why? Because mixed in with all the anger and confusion were feelings of love. I met him during the summer of 2014, arguably one of the best summers of my life. After meeting him I told myself that the feelings I had for him were a kind of friend love, but as he gave me that hug, I knew that wasn’t the case.

* * *

The first time I ever thought about another guy, I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I didn’t think anything of it though. I mean, I was so young I don’t think I understood those feelings. I also thought a lot about women. I fantasized about how I’d be a sweet, sensitive guy, and how I’d fall in love, get married, and have kids (4: 2 boys and 2 girls, then 4 boys and 4 girls. 4 was my favorite number). I remember having a huge crush on my neighborhood friend. I really liked her, and around the age of or 5, I had my first kiss. We were playing Lady and the Tramp and — you guessed it — we reenacted the spaghetti scene. The kiss was wet and sloppy, but also kind of beautiful. I was so embarrassed by it though.

Throughout my childhood, I experienced a few crushes on some girls, but when I was 10, I started thinking about boys from TV shows. That terrified me. I grew up in a (kinda, not really) Catholic family, but I did go to a pretty extreme Catholic school. My mind immediately jumped to the conclusion of “oh my god, I’m gay, I’m going to go to hell, that’s bad, I have to stop thinking about boys.” I was also worried because “if I like boys and I’m gay, I will never get married to a girl and have kids like I’d always dreamed of.”

When I was 14 and going through puberty, I really started having feelings for other boys. There were a few girls I kinda liked, but not really. Of course, I felt so much shame about liking guys. I would constantly convince myself that I was just appreciating other guys, or that I cared about them as friends. I would constantly jump back and forth from being gay or straight in my head, but I don’t think I felt comfortable fully accepting the idea that I might be gay. Of course, there was also the fact that I was in an extremely homophobic environment, from my teachers to my church to my family to my friends who would use the word “gay” pejoratively. It was also a confusing time because of puberty, and I found myself comparing myself physically to all the boys around me, so, to say the least, I was confused.

Then came the summer of 2014.

I had just graduated from high school, and immediately got my dream summer job working as a ride operator at a theme park. I met him while working there. Admittedly, he was not the right person for me to fall for. He came from a large Catholic family, and from the get-go of befriending him, he expressed strong far-right ideologies (his favorite president was George Bush). I, at the time, was starting to leave the church and embrace my repressed leftness. Worst of all, he was homophobic — so homophobic.

At any mention of or interaction with any sort of homosexuality, his immediate reaction was complete disgust: “That’s disgusting,” “they’re gonna burn in hell,” “spit on them and slap them in the face with a bible.” When he said things like that, I knew they were wrong, and I told him that, but I think I wasn’t ready to admit that they applied to me. He wasn’t the right person, and I felt it pretty strongly, but I guess the reason why I started developing feelings for him had to do with how familiar he and his background were to me. I felt like I could relate to him in the sense that I was raised in such a strict Catholic environment. Anyway, as I already mentioned, things did not turn out well.

Actually, they went to hell.

We initially started fighting over some girl drama. He started dating this girl that I thought I liked (I didn’t), but he knew I apparently liked her, and he lied to me about dating her, etc. It was a pretty complex situation. We argued a lot, and he gave my number to his friends who sent unsolicited abusive text messages to me calling me “fat,” “stupid,” “a faggot,” and telling me that I “should masturbate to she-male porn.” After several months of fighting, making up, getting ghosted and dealing with flat-out cyberbullying, things escalated. We had one more huge fight, and I sent him probably the meanest thing I’ve ever texted or said to anyone, and our friendship was over.

His psychotic friends, however, still kept trying to send me messages on various social media platforms, even after constantly getting blocked. At one point, months later, after I had already started university, they sent me a picture taken of me walking around my campus. That terrified me. After that, though, they did stop.

After ending my dysfunctional friendship with him, I had one of the worst summers of my life. I was heartbroken, and also got fired from two summer jobs. My best friend recommended I start journaling, and I did, and for the first time, I found myself writing down the questions, “Am I gay?” “Am I bi?” “Am I straight?” I began thinking about those things very seriously. There was a lot of fear around how I could live my life as gay, and the idea of coming out terrified me. I was really confused.

Growing up, some people had speculated I might have been gay as I had kind of a feminine persona and played a lot with girls. But, I didn’t always choose to play with girls, or even be feminine. Sometimes it just happened, despite a desire I had to be more masculine. Then, of course, what about the times that I did like girls? Did I really like girls? Or was I just telling myself that? Did I really like boys? I spent months wondering about those things. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be, and that unfortunately impacted my college experience. While everyone around me was hooking up, I was in a shell of not knowing who I was sexually.

After months of thinking and talking to close friends, I thought to myself that I might be bi, but there was still so much uncertainty in that. I became plagued by thoughts like, “isn’t bisexuality too wishy-washy, neither gay nor straight?” “Am I just a gay and too afraid to admit that?” “Am I using bisexuality to slowly transition to homosexuality?” These constant thoughts furthered my anxiety and depression, and it was terrible.

I started having experiences with women in which I found myself uncertain of whether or not I liked them or was even sexually attracted to them, even though I was. It’s like in my mind, liking men made it impossible to be able to like women, so I’d play this constant game of mental tug-of-war, between gay or straight. Of course, I knew it was possible to be bi by this point, especially after learning of the Kinsey scale, but it’s funny how deeply fear and shame can be engrained in you from your background and past experiences. So, yes, while my parents and close friends know this, I’m gonna put it out here that I am bisexual.

I’ve been almost certain that I’ve been bi for over a year now. I haven’t really explored what that means that much yet. And in all honesty, I’m OK with taking my time right now. But even in the last year, I’ve had some pretty major moments of self-discovery.

Several months ago, I really fell for this girl. I mean really, like I hadn’t felt like that about anyone in years. Sadly, things didn’t work out the way I wish they did, and I might have done a bit of self-sabotaging that I didn’t even tell her about. There was also the recent experience of realizing there was yet another person I had feelings for, another guy. I was also friends with him, but this time I talked to him about it. He was straight, and while we’re still friends, we agreed to keep distance for now. Both of those experiences have been difficult, but they have been postive in that thay really confirmed my bisexuality for me.

Coming to terms with my bisexuality has been an extremely consuming process for me, plagued with confusion, stigma, discrimination, and harassment. To add to all of that, there’s been historical pressure on people to be attracted to the opposite sex and strong stigma, prejudice, and hate of homosexuality. Liking both men and women added another layer to those two pressures that ALREADY existed in my life.

But today I can confidently at least write an article that I’m bisexual, and I’m proud of owning that identity.