I’ve been identifying as Bisexual since I was 12. Recently because I discovered the flags actual meaning, I also discovered maybe I actually don’t know my sexuality. I thought I just didn’t resonate with the flag but people don’t experience attraction like I do so that’s confusing me.

I know I’m not pan, I know pan people irl and our sexuality works very different, but nobody else bi experiences heterosexual and homosexual attraction simultaneously, what I thought was bisexual attraction, so maybe I’m not bi either.

Explaining further:

1. ⁠I don’t like “anything.” I thought this was in contrast to pansexual, because I’m attracted to and appreciate gender. I can briefly be attracted to someone with no gender or a non-human gender at first but:

A. it’s hard to see someone as without gender, and I feel awful about being attracted to someone if I can’t see them as their true self so that’s a turn off.

B. I am turned off by even trying to see someone as a mere object like a chair additional to it being hard for me to do in the first place. It/itself pronouns and object identifying is outside the scope of my attraction. Yes, I’ve met people irl with this gender.

1. ⁠Gender matters: I enjoy and appreciate gender performance and it’s an aspect of my attraction. Androgynous people are attractive to me because they are androgynous. It is not an ignored side fact about them. When I see my friends looking extra ambiguous I hype them up about it. okay yesss queen, king, gender nondescript monarch. We can’t tell what’s in your pants but let. us. eat. CAKE. Mmm I can’t imagine not doing that to a partner.

I also thought this too was unlike a pansexual person.

1. Sex matters over Gender Identity??? Homosexual and heterosexual refers to sex not gender.

2. Let’s pretend it does apply to gender, homo-same, hetero-opposite. I am realizing in the bi community people care deeply about the historic definitions. Here, people do not ameliorate definitions. Can someone answer for me the bigender problem and the agender problem? I don’t understand.

Two bigender people date, is it homosexual or heterosexual?

A man is attracted to a object oriented gender, is it homosexual or heterosexual?

The thin purple stripe was never meant to stand for experiencing both at the same time. It was meant to stand for the ability to experience either and to seem in the moment of the experience either gay or straight by a viewer, going unnoticed as a bisexual. A “bisexual experience” as a singularity was not something Micheal Page thought existed. Also it is unclear if even simultaneously experiencing homo and heterosexual attraction would describe a binary gendered persons attraction to a chair identifying person.

I’m just confused about my sexuality for the first time in 15 years which is wild to me. It’s honestly kind of heartbreaking that I thought this was an aspect of myself I deeply understood and would never change, but nobody else feels the same so it’s hard for me to hold on to it.

If anyone can suggest a better label for me, I’d appreciate it. Language is really complicated. If anyone actually is out there who feels the same way please let me know. I don’t care about the flag situation anymore I just need to know if I’m just a quirky bisexual or if I’m just not bisexual. I don’t mind being the only one using certain symbols to represent myself, I think that’s kind of cool honestly, but I can’t be the only one experiencing attraction the way I do in an attraction based label… that just means I don’t belong.