I joined a couple dating sites and was asked if I’m looking to meet men or women or both.  It takes me less than 30 seconds to click both.  I like both.  Well, I am curious about both.  Growing up my typical crush was usually male, extroverted, had a ton of friends and had no idea that I existed.  I was more of a loner as a young kid.  I had about one or two close friends.  I thought I looked different than everyone else.  My hair was so curly and my glasses were so thick.  I was tall and gangly, I guess you could say I was more of a “tomboy”.  I liked to wear baggy pants, big shirts and play sports.  I hated wearing dresses or doing my hair.  As young as I can remember I felt ugly and I knew exactly who was pretty.  

I was terrified of the other kids.  I would sit at recess and watch everyone play and I’d wonder how they did it.  “How do they all play so well with each other?  How is everyone so confident?”  I felt paralyzed when someone would try to talk to me.  My best friend in elementary school wanted so badly to be a part of the “popular girls” crew.  We’d watch the popular girls with long perfect hair practice their dance moves in unison.  I was so relieved they didn’t know I existed because there was no way in hell I’d ever want to practice dance moves during recess.  I did not want to attract any sort of attention to myself.  Then one day my nightmare came true.  For whatever reason the popular girls decide to invite my friend and I into their dance troupe.  The “leader” walks up to us and asks us if we wanted to dance with them.  My heart started beating super fast and my hands were immediately drenched with sweat.  My friend leaped up off the ground and said, “YES!”  She looks at me with wide eyes and gestures to me to stand up.  I roll my eyes and say, “Okay, sure.”  

I’m now standing amongst the popular girls with their perfect straight hair and perfect fitting clothes.  I feel like a potato.  I look down at my outfit and know I do not belong here.  My friend has the biggest smile on her face.  She has been waiting for this moment for years.  She is finally one of them.  This makes my heart sink into my stomach.  I can’t help but feel like she is abandoning me.  She’s already in line with the other girls dancing in perfect unison like she has been practicing in the mirror for months.  The “leader” of the group grabs my arm and pulls me so I’m in line with the rest of the girls.  Her hand sends shock waves up my arm.  Her hand is so soft and her nails are perfectly manicured.  “How do her nails not have any dirt in them?”  I’m now in the very back behind all the other girls.  The leader starts counting, “One, two, three and go.”  All the girls start waving their arms and shaking their hips.  I’m moving at a completely different pace than everyone else and I feel like an absolute fake.  This is so not me.  I glance to my right and see all the boys and a few girls playing handball and tetherball.  I want so badly to run over to them and join their game.

I look over at my best friend and her perfect blond ponytail is bouncing along with all the other perfect blond ponytails.  I look down at my body and I’ve stopped moving.  I can’t keep up with these dance moves.  My body doesn't move like theirs.  I slowly start to back away into the shadows and eventually I’m able to sneak away and find a quiet place to be alone.  I watch as my friend becomes one of them and I’m now invisible to her.  They’re all so perfect and clean.  I’m neither.  I’m a soccer ball kicking, dirt in my fingernails kind of girl.  I don’t belong in that line full of perfect bodies.  I notice my crush watching the girls dance.  He’s smiling and his friend punches him in the arm.  I wonder what it’s like being a boy.  It looks so much easier.  They get to wrestle and play spots all day.  When I try to join the boys playing soccer or flag football, they all say “no girls allowed”.  I try to convince them that I am good enough to play with them, but they ignore my pleas.  I look at the girls dancing and the boys playing and I’m just over here playing in the mud wondering how they all do it.  How do they all fit in so well?

As young as I can remember both boys and girls made me nervous.  Boys always seemed like they didn’t care about me, which made me want them more and girls were just so soft and perfect, I couldn’t wrap my head around how they looked so untouchable.  As young as I can remember, girls made me more nervous.  I didn’t know how to act around them.  They liked to talk about makeup and MTV and I didn’t know much about either.  They also liked to touch each other and show each other their boobs, which I didn’t have any of those either.  I always had this yearning inside of me to act on my instincts.  And my instincts were to love everyone and to not just have crushes on boys, but girls too.  

Now that I’m opening myself to the endless possibilities that is love, I’ve discovered that I’m far less picky when it comes to men.  However, when it comes to women, when I think about what my “type” is, I feel so nervous.  Like my breath gets taken away.  Men don’t do that to me.  They haven’t for a long time.  I don’t want to say I hate men, because I don’t, but it’s clear how much of my past experiences with men has affected my building relationships with them.  

This reminds me of an experience I had with one of the first guys I dated after having a baby and being sober for the first time in over a decade.  We met at the beach, we hit it off and decided to meet up the next day.  The date went well so we decided to head back to his place.  It was the middle of the day and I felt somewhat safe and comfortable with this person.  Fast forward we are in his room getting cozy on his bed.  He starts kissing me and I kiss back.  It’s slow and sensual, starting off at a good pace.  Then all of a sudden he decided to get on top of me in a missionary position, we still have all of our clothes on mind you, but for whatever reason I hear this voice in the back of my head that screams. “HE’S TRYING TO RAPE YOU!  GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”  So I push him off of me and tell him to back the fuck off and I start crying.  Immediately I can see that his intention was not to hurt me by the way he looked at me.  He looked terrified, like he had done something wrong.  I explained to him how he made me feel and he backed off and we talked.  However, this set the tone for the rest of the relationship.  We dated for a couple more months but I could never shake that first encounter.  I could never fully trust him after that day.  It was nothing he did.  He was a very kind and fun person, yet I felt like he was trying to take something from me that was not his.  I was so incredibly afraid of intimacy because I had never been in control of what happened to my body.  The rape, the alcohol, the substances, the out of body experiences that was sex, this all made me dread sex.  I’m trying to take back what is mine.  I listen to my gut.  If something doesn’t feel right, then I try not to do it.  I’ve spent most of my adult life silencing that feeling with drugs and alcohol.  I could never hear my insides telling me to run because I was so intoxicated.  I’d just lay there and wake up in the morning wondering who and what the fuck happened.  

I’ve been revisiting past relationships and trying to figure out why none of them worked out.  Every time I’d end up in a monogamous relationship and the routine would unravel, I’d know that this is not me.  I’d be out at a party or a bar and I’d see all the boys and girls playing and flirting with each other and I’d want so badly to run over to them and join their game.  I’ve never felt “normal” when it came to love and intimacy.  I’ve never been satisfied with one partner and the same positions every night.  I tried and tried to be what I thought was “normal” but it’s become clear that I haven’t been honest with myself.  I figured out that each time as soon as my partner started dictating what I can and can’t do with my heart and my body is when I would lose all interest in the relationship.  It felt like being in a relationship meant you had to throw all of your humanness out the door to make your partner feel like they are the only one in your world.  Once I felt trapped, I’d do things to “break free” like flirting with other guys and cheating behind my partners back. This doesn’t feel good to me and I don’t want any part of it.  As young as I can remember, I never wanted to be with just one person for the rest of my life.  I remember feeling attracted to both guys and girls and wanting to get to know many people at once.    

I remember being that tomboy and wanting to hold a girl's hand.  I remember wanting the boy to notice me and hold my hand.  I remember wanting it all and feeling like that was impossible because that’s not how things work.  That would be selfish and unfair to love multiple people.  You must choose one and only one.  The anxiety I have when lusting for a woman is still very much there.  Like it’s not allowed.  I’m slowly unlearning all the stories I was taught as a kid.  I’m unlearning by actively participating in my life and my desires.  I search for like minded people and I don’t shy away from my truth.  I tell them what I want.  There is no wiggle room anymore.  I refuse to put my longing on the back burner.  I refuse to let someone tell me what I can and can’t do with my body and who I share it with.  

Maybe that’s what I was feeling all of those years ago when I would watch the girls with perfect hair dancing and the boys playing flag football without me.  I wanted it all.  I felt so weird and out of place.  I didn’t just have crushes on the popular boys, but the popular girls too.  I didn’t know how to feel about it, so I just kept being nervous.  I just kept telling myself to pick one.  Just choose one or the other and be happy with the one and do whatever it takes to make that one happy, even if you aren’t happy.  I love seeing the bigger picture.  I love seeing that love looks different to me.  I love actively unlearning the things that aren’t me.  I love finally admitting to myself that it’s okay to love people.  Whatever person you want.  Guy or girl or both. Love is love…