Hi there! So neat to find this spot on the internet. I’ve been a long time forum user in other communities, so great to see that they are still around and active—especially for this niche! So my real name’s Hafsah—that’s pronounced how it’s spelled. I’m in my early 30s and based in the US. I’m a career visual and motion designer, and also pursue a number of other creatively aligned ventures. I have a lot of fun at my job and with my other work. Things that occupy me outside of work include screenwriting, listening to lots of music (a little bit of everything but the meat and potatoes lately is EDM, synthwave, indietronica, indie rock, etc), and casual video games to relax. Reading used to be a main hobby as well, but sadly it’s fallen a bit to the wayside...hope to pick it up again though, I love getting lost in some solid speculative fiction or something totally new and enlightening. My signature and username are both from Dune, so...yay literature, see? I have no out story as I’m not out anywhere besides to some internet friends. I’m not ultra subtle about being a little less into guys than your average straight person in my day-to-day, but have never flat out said I’m Bi to anyone I work with. I have gradually accepted the reality of my not being straight over the course of the past 5-6 years. The lightbulb moment came when I got into a TV show that featured a really cool couple who happened to be lesbians, and I kinda realized that it was startlingly close to what I’d consider an ideal relationship. They made me feel something warm, kind and happy unlike a majority of hetero TV relationships. As it goes, I wanted to explore more of those feelings and looked a bit more into what LGBTQ really was thanks to much gayer friends than myself. Little elements of my youth started to click into place...my initial childhood resentment of being a girl because I thought (at the time—I was like 6 ok) that girls didn’t do cool things or have any agency...an abject turnaround to an aggressive girl empowerment phase that I cannot say has ended...some feelings that I now realize were probably crushes on other girls...a lack of physical attraction to or interest whatsoever in most boys. Now at 31 I’m fairly confident that I’m bi with a hint of asexuality in the mix since I’m somewhat touch repulsed. Thing is that I can’t do much with this newfound information because I am a practicing Muslim, my much more religious mother lives with me and it would destroy her to know this about me. And obviously my choice of faith puts a hamper of being completely open in terms of my sexuality. Thus I have rather acquiesced to the idea that I can never escape the closet. Funny thing is that I have an dating profile where I mention my closetedness. To what end? Ha! Who knows. I think more than ever I just want to at least talk to people who get it and can understand the situation. I don’t think I could ever be in a relationship with someone—at least not yet—because honesty is so key in any relationship and I’m just not there yet. But it is something that I think about a lot. So that’s me. It’s cool to find a site like this—everything else on the internet is engineered for dating and that’s not realistic right now. Hope to have some good convos and find some food for thought here. Whether or not you made it through the ramble, nice to meet ya!
