A half closeted bi says hi.

Hi everyone. I'm new to this server and I wanted to introduce myself.

(WARNING: Long, convoluted and sometimes touched with strange pseudonyms.)

I'm Australian. I recently moved from an international school in Germany back to my old high school in Australia. I had already spent the entire first year in my Australian high school with my very, very openly queer friendship group, and before that I spent my entire last year of primary school strolling around the running track with my best friend at the time talking about how gays should be able to marry. Before my family left for Germany, that same old best friend (we grew apart in high school) came out to me as bisexual. I kinda just shrugged it off and, thinking back over it, I cringe- but I had no real frame of reference for what to say when someone comes out to you; again, that all seemed normal, or like to deny it was a big deal to come out was to normalize it. I also remember being with my high school buddies, and I said that I didn't really care about sexuality and that I "don't want to label myself".

We arrived in Germany and I quickly realised that people didn't really get macdoesit quotes and gay pride there. People weren't homophobic or anything, but there just weren't any LGBTQ+ people. At least, if there were any, they weren't out. The first year was uneventful, despite all of the culture shock, and I settled into my new school as well as I could. The class was quite small, and due to this international school being split into three seperate language groups, we only really had each other to befriend. Therefore, I was friends with all the girls and some of the boys. I struggled with the curriculum, but I didn't really have any trouble with my social life. At least, I didn't, until the bomb dropped.
In February of 2020 we went into lockdown and commenced online school. I really struggled and kind of drowned underneath the schoolwork and the emotional drainage of this common era. On top of this, I think I then started to look further into different sexualities. Please forgive me if I'm vague on the details. Quarantine really blurred time.
Anyway, after the summer holidays, the COVID situation in Germany seemed to improve enough to have the German government let us go back to school, with masks and social distancing to match. Here's where things started to flip a little, in terms of my relationship with my identity and, consequently the conservatory of butterflies that were to build in my stomach.

A new girl arrived, called Grades. She was American, and a lesbian. Those were her only two personality traits. Just kidding, she was a very loud and proud out lesbian but she was also fluent in German, excelled in Spanish as well as all her other subjects, and had a knack for cleaving the joint class brain in two. She completely changed the dichotomy of our little bubble in the school. She touched everyone- not, like metaphorically: she would just come up to you and hug you, caress you, play with your hair without asking. Not a great quality to have, especially in the middle of a pandemic and obviously not everybody was cool with this. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that most people were uncomfortable- at least some of the time- but they were all too polite to pull back or even say anything at all. This lead to a lot of pent up resentment in quite a few people against her. I unfortunately joined this group when we sat next to each other in physics.

This particular lesson was pretty cool. Physics was always rather boring at best and distressing at worst, due to the woeful behaviour of our class combined with the ineptitude of our teacher. She was the kind of teacher who just screamed at the class if they didn't follow her inadequate instructions to a tee. That being said, she was quite nice, just a little insecure and it seemed like struggling to control a class of irascible international teens was not her dream job.
Anyway, this class was significant for being a "fun" lesson. It was nearing the Christmas holidays, and so we just played with magnets and electric shots instead of doing any actual work. While everybody was taking turns at using the conductor at the front table, Grades and I were sitting next to each other and got chatting. We started talking about our mutual interests, which led to *speaking gay*. That's how I term the way you can kind of slip into a seperate dialect when talking to people in the LGBT community. You know, the codewords and discreet cultural references ('Do you listen to Girl in Red?', 'Friend of Dorothy' etc.). So, we got to talking like that, and I mentioned cuffing my jeans and her eyebrow raised, and I felt like we were kind of... flirting? Not gonna lie, it was really exciting. I mean, I hadn't really flexed my gay lingo skills in a while, and on top of that, I felt like she was interested in me. Then I felt her hand caressing my leg under the table and as uncomfortable as I felt, I reciprocated it. She mostly just looked pleased with herself, and after class just kind of acted like she owned me; just held onto me and didn't really let go. Afterwards she acted like nothing had happened at all, but my mind was racing. I just wondered what it all meant.
I have never had a crush on anybody before, and I kind of felt like I should of had. I'm not aromantic or asexual- I love Love! But it just hasn't happened yet, so I think I was kind of trying to trick myself into believing that I had feelings for her. It didn't work. I tried to force myself to pine after her for a week, and then I gave up trying.

Mostly, all that I learnt from that interaction was that coming out was kind of a big deal. I don't know how else to put it. I had never seriously thought about either my sexuality or the implications before. Like, now I was in this strange, pressure-cooker environment with all straight or closeted people and one lesbian who divided the class. I remember when I first arrived to school and I mentioned to my new friend, Quill, from Singapore that one of my pals in Australia had a crush on both Jughead and Toni from Riverdale and she stiffened up, almost immediately uncomfortable. Maybe this was to be expected- I didn't know until recently that being any colour of the rainbow was criminalised in Singapore- but it kind of threw me for a loop, especially since I had just moved from this very, very gay friend group to this entirely alien situation. I remember one of the more irritating guys in the class, Corkscrew (who thinks dropping sexist and racist stereotypes in a joking tone is the height of comedy) used 'gay' as an insult, which really shocked me. (Although, when Grades arrived, he did say he might be queer... plus, he's very close to his friends- male and female- they hug quite a bit, and just in general, he's fun to talk to, as insulting as he is. I don't know what I'm trying to say here, just that, in short, he's a complicated character.)

The pandemic didn't help matters- mostly it just forced me to stew in this new, embarrassing situation of mine. I basically just tried to focus on myself, but that wasn't always entirely helpful. Before September, when I was trapped inside for the first time with only my family and the internet for company, my mental health rapidly declined. After the Christmas holidays, going back into lockdown, I just had to get used to the worms that squirmed in my stomach at a single thought related to my own sexuality.
All this time, I was still in Germany. Before the pandemic, my family had booked flights to leave on the first of April (this also complicated matters further- I felt like I couldn't start anything even if I wanted to, just more pressure). However, late February, early March, we were told that due to the intensified infection rate, our stopover- Japan- wasn't going to accept any flights after a certain date that happened to be before our original flight. So, we were suddenly told we had two to three less weeks to pack everything up then we had thought, and suddenly everyone went into panic mode. I originally planned to meet up with two of my buddies, Rapunzel (so named because of her super thick, bum length hair) and my best friend Pink Slime (so named because of the musicals we bonded over) before I left. This meet up was now pushed back to one day before our flight. I hadn't seen either of them for a while, and I stewed over whether to tell them or not.

It was dreary weather. Cold, and nothing but grey clouds in the sky. Rapunzel, Pink Slime and I walked from the tram stop and up to the ruins in town and back, joshing all the way. It was so fun. I hadn't been this happy in quite a while. My family is awesome, but even too much of a good thing is a bad thing, y'know? Well, we were heading back to the tram stop and decided to have a rest at the small cafe nearby. I bought a berliner and two hot chocolates- one for me and one for Rapunzel (Pink Slime declined- she said hot chocolate was an abomination, and one can only drink it cold). We sat down on the steps away from the cafe with a sorry excuse for social distancing and resumed our previous conversation. After draining half of my hot chocolate, I took a big bite of my berliner and awkwardly said that I had something to announce. I told them I am bisexual. And, writing it down like that, so simply, it seems easy. It was much harder than I thought it would be. And, in some ways, it was easier. There's just this almost visible sheen of tension that gets popped, and you have to be the one that pops it. I didn't feel ready, but I knew that I had to tell them. It was my last chance, and my only chance of being face to face with these guys, telling them in person. I feel like I built it up too much- I teared up a little while scoffing down the remaining dreads of my pastry. And my friends were really good about it! I knew they wouldn't not be, but it was comforting nonetheless. Pink Slime told me that she was probably a little bi herself, and we then *spoke gay* together, totally confusing Rapunzel. It was pretty hilarious, actually. I never knew anybody could be that heterosexual. They were both great, and I left happy.

Since returning to Australia, I have come out to two people, which I honestly kind of regret. First was my old ex-best friend from primary who came out to me before I left. We saw each other the night we arrived back home because of our brothers being besties- we're not really friends anymore, but I felt like I kind of owed it to her. The second time I came out was more recent, at a friends birthday party. I came out to one person there in a small conversation, and never really talked about it again. I'm back in with my old friend group, by the way. More people have officially come out, some people have joined and some pronouns have changed. It kind of stung a little when my enby friend referred to me as their "one straight friend", even though I haven't come out to them.

So, I left out quite a bit, but that's the grand outline of my story so far. Maybe I'll post something else later, I don't know. Currently, my life is in limbo. We're just coming out of a two week quarantine, and since it's exam season I'm not going back to school until late next week. Therefore, I've been binge watching quite a number of digital series'. I'm in a bit of a mood currently because I'm rewatching Love, Victor after watching Love, Simon yesterday. I watched the first season of Love, Victor when I was moving and was still debating whether or not to come out to my friends in Germany. I thought that it was quite good. I don't really think the same way about Love, Simon. I have... many thoughts about that.
Anyway. Thanks for reading! I hope this wasn't a bore.

-Sommerfugl.