I know there’s one thing I don’t like. Well, there’s many things I don’t like, to be honest; but I know I particularly don’t like this one.

I’ve been noticing recently that a lot of people, straight cis people mostly — friends, family members, acquaintances — once they’re at ease and acquainted with the fact that I’m bisexual, they have this pruriginous curiosity, a query they can’t seem to wrap their head on. They come to me with a body language that oozes a mix of morbid curiosity and the fear of saying the wrong thing. Finally, they build up their pride to drop me this question in a brief moment of silence during a conversation.

They circle around it a bit, still uncertain of the “political correctness” of it all.

“Well, you know…”

“I had a question about this bisexuality thing…”

“Since, you know, I can’t know how it feels…”

“Since, you know, you seem so experienced in being bisexual…”

During the first minute of empty premises, I always tend to think they are coming out to me as bi, but they still don’t know how to feel about it. And then they drop the question.

“Well, how does it WORK? Do you like women or men more?”

I let out one of those brief formal paternalistic laughs that adults use when a kid asks them a childish question. I don’t start from a position of superiority. After all, that’s what I asked myself a lot of times in the years after I came out. And I understand that, with bi-erasure being a thing, many straight people find it confusing and don’t have a lot of information or movie/TV models on that. So I explain that, while any bi experience is different, I personally don’t see myself in quantitative percentages. It’s not like I am 70% gay and 30% straight, or 50/50, I’m just bi.

They still look confused. I try to explain to them that it’s more of a “qualitative difference” than a “quantitative disparity”: I find different things attractive in men and women, and I tend to think of my attraction to a man or a woman differently. I may be more attracted sexually to some women and more romantically to some men, I say.

They still look confused. Their thirst for curiosity has not been quenched, and they fear it never will. They make a last, desperate attempt.

“But have you had more sex with men or women?”

I sigh twice. The first time for my non-binary friends, once again forgotten; the other time because I don’t have sex that often. The data would definitely not tell the truth about my attraction. But at this point, I’m too tired to start a thread on how our relationships don’t define our sexual orientation. I just answer, “Slightly more sex with women.”

They’re satisfied.
I’m exhausted.