Rejecting Myself

Photo courtesy of Maggie Mancini

By Maggie Mancini

I first had a crush on a girl when I was eight years old, sitting in her royal blue room, dancing while playing dress-up with her mother’s old clothes. She was my best friend, and I loved her. I had my first crush on a boy way before that, on the first day of kindergarten, at first glance. We actively disliked each other, though I pined over him for six years following that. The difference? I didn’t need to second guess myself when I liked boys, and so I admitted to myself and to my friends that I liked many more boys than girls. 

Though I don’t like to get into percentages—it wouldn’t result in perfectly whole numbers, for sure—I have always been very publicly boy crazy because it was always OK for me to feel that way. Growing up in a Catholic school environment, everyone always seemed more ordinary than me. But over the course of my school experience, my interest in girls was always much more romantic—we would brush each other’s hair, talk on the phone for hours, and sing to one another. And so, if I were getting into percentages, I’d call myself 60/40.  

I don’t like the idea of dating. As a severe introvert, I care way more about my relationship with my bed than I do about my relationships with any people. Save for a handful of isolated hookups that leave me unsure of myself, I tend not to date. 

However, over the past few months, I decided to re-download the dating apps for what feels like the hundredth time and try it out all over again. What I’ve learned more than anything else is that the discomfort of putting myself out there in public results in longer flings than the endless swiping and mind games of trying to leave someone on read for longer than five seconds after they respond to you. 

When it comes to rejection, nobody is rejecting me as much as I am. Being as deeply introverted as I am, self-sabotage is a must. Ghosting when you realize that you may actually have to have a second date with a girl who is too nice or who you think won’t like that you’re also into guys is a distinctly bisexual trait, at least as I’ve experienced it. 

To be clear, many more people both within this community and in the world face more social rejection than I do. I do most of that on my own, from avoiding contact with people for long stretches of time, to not believing when girls are interested in me as well. And that social rejection does for me what I’ve been doing to myself since I was a child: convincing myself that there is something wrong with my bisexuality because I have a preference of one over the other. Convincing myself that I am not queer enough because I have been in loving relationships with men. And convincing myself that women will have a problem with me being interested in men, but that men will be okay with me dating women simply because it’s overtly fetishized is something that takes control of my brain every time I come close to a second meeting with someone. 

Yes, I am a mess. Sexuality is a mess. But sometimes messes are fun and spontaneous and the kinds of things people write poems and songs and books about. So I think I’m good being messy, even when it’s not always in my self-interest.