My last long term relationship ended, in 2011, a few weeks before my 20th birthday. I’d had the same boyfriend for the last year and a half. We would spend every weekend together, and I was friends with his mum and his dog. All in all, we were two people who fit very well into each other’s lives. Our relationship was never tumultuous; we were just companions who could easily and peacefully coexist.
We kissed again at party on new year’s day 2014 and we briefly dated again in August and September of that same year. It seemed inevitable that despite everything, one day we would end up together. This was the relationship that had defined the majority of my young adult life-but then I realised I was a lesbian.
I’m not sure when exactly it dawned on me, but I remember going to see Pride at the cinema together, standing at the bus stop and saying “I love you but we can’t get back together because I’m really gay.”
For us, breaking up didn’t result in the routine estrangement. In fact he has persistently lingered in my life in a way that is both comforting and a consistent reminder that once upon a time I was a teenager and I thought I fancied boys.
However, I was not alone in my revelations of queerness. After speaking to him recently, he revealed that he too is not as straight as he once thought.
“So currently my identity is a bit in flux. Sexuality wise I’ve identified as pan or bi. Most times I identify as non binary but I don’t have the means to act upon that because of environment. I prefer finding relationships regardless of gender so it really depends on the person, so my attraction to people has always been a person to person basis.”
This might explain why he never felt insulted or put out by my lesbian declaration in the way that you’d expect from straight men. When I asked him how he felt about me coming out I was genuinely touched.
“Well firstly I’m happy for you, of course and that goes without saying. It’s interesting, because I’ve also been with someone who is bi, and if people find out that I’ve been with someone who is bi or with someone who is now a lesbian, they often react as if I should be upset in some way when they go on to have w/w relationships. I’m not though, it’s never really bothered me. It makes me happy because you’ve come to terms with your queerness which is amazing and great but it doesn’t subtract from what we had as a relationship which I think is what people think I should feel.”
I was even more moved to hear that our relationship was something that he felt like he learnt and grew from.
“I think one of the huge things I did take from our relationship was the realisation of the femininity that exists within me. Being with someone who is quite feminine mirrored a lot of that existing within me, which I don’t think I realised at the time. It also, thankfully, got rid of any of the ideas of masculinity that my teenage brain may have had as you had no concern for it so I could comfortably start to abandon it.”
It might be slightly odd to some people that my high school ex boyfriend is still a significant figure in my life, but to be honest it is fairly standard practice for lesbians to remain friends with their exes.
For me, it seems as if our lives have followed parallel trajectories and although we are definitely not destined to be the end game couple that people we went to school with thought we might be, I think we are both faring far better than we ever might have hoped.
