Labels about one’s sexuality can be limiting to those who feel their desire is fluid. Photograph: Alamy

Labels about one’s sexuality can be limiting to those who feel their desire is fluid. Photograph: Alamy

I’ve always felt attracted to both men and women, but usually not at the same time. One day it’s more dude-focused and then it’s back to women, but it always feels fluid. This has nothing to do with my ability to be in a committed relationship with one person. Actually, open or poly relationships have never worked for me, and I’ve mostly been in relationships with women.

I came out as bisexual to my mom at the age of 15. Back then, the terms homoromantic, one who dates mostly the same sex, a heteroromantic, one who dates mostly the opposite sex, weren’t around.

We were driving around downtown Evanston, a suburb just north of Chicago, in a navy blue Ford station wagon. She knew about John Turner, my boyfriend from our summer family vacation. But I felt like she must have known that something was going on with my best friend, Eleanor. I’d been fooling around with Eleanor since about age 13. My mom had no idea about any of my sexual adventures and I didn’t tell her that day. I did mention that the daughter of a family friend was bisexual, and that I was “also like her.” This was a strange new queer world to mom, and I felt like I needed to seek another support group aside from just my immediate family and one gay boy bestie at high school.

Read the full story on The Guardian:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/02/i-dont-call-myself-bisexual-i-let-my-stories-tell-themselves