Change Yourself to Fit Your Life, or Change Your Life to Fit You?

Hey, Papabear, new reader here, and I had a question regarding relationships. 

I'm at a crossroads in terms of my sexuality, and have been for a few years since my first semester of college. I find it hard to identify myself as bisexual since I try to date girls, but at the same time having experience what it's like to make love to a man, and striking out seven times with girlfriends has resulted in me becoming lonely, and making me wonder. 

What makes things more difficult is the fact that, while I do have a male friend I might be happy with, and who I care a lot for, the fact stands; my life revolves around me appearing to be straight. 

My boss hates homosexuals and the career path I'm taking doesn't take kindly to that either, I don't know how my entire family would react, especially my super-Christian Nanna and—being a part of another fandom entirely—I don't know how many people would feel suddenly uncomfortable around me. 

I want your advice as to what I should do. Should I continue to try and pursue women and possibly remain lonely, go after the man I have in mind, or something else? 

Bifurcated Gryphon

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Dear Gryphon,

One reason that the conservative argument that people “choose to be gay” is so ludicrous is demonstrated by what you are going through right now. Coming out gay and trying to be accepted by family, friends, and society is, to put it bluntly, a bitch. You will be constantly faced with prejudice, hatred, and ignorant fears. Why would anyone choose that if they didn’t have to?

The alternative, though, for gay people is to stay in the closet, never being who they truly are, and when you can’t be who you truly are you will discover a misery far more profound than facing the judgment of the ignorant, close-minded people around you: you will be rejecting yourself. No one on the planet is harder on us than ourselves. I can certainly attest to that. Because other people reject us, we conclude, “There must be something wrong with me.” We begin to hate ourselves, feeling we don’t deserve happiness because we are immoral or “broken” somehow. Once you go down that path you set yourself up for depression and possibly worse. Many gay people (even moreso in the past in America before we started to gain at least a little acceptance, but still true today) ended their own lives.

Judging by your letter, you are just fooling yourself trying to convince yourself you are bi and could manage to date and marry a woman. I suspect that this is why you have had no luck dating girls. Believe it or not, people have a kind of sixth sense and they can often detect whether you are being sincere or not. You cannot effectively pretend an attraction for the opposite sex if, deep down inside, you don’t feel it. Of course, even if you were bi, bisexual people are not accepted by society either, by and large, so that would still leave you with the same difficulties. You could maybe marry a woman, but you would still want to have a man, at least part of the time, which would likely put a strain on any marriage you had, unless you also married a bisexual woman!

I could speculate on different scenarios for quite some time and get really creative, but let’s stop there. The essence of your question is this: Should I try and live a lie so that I can get along with my family and coworkers, or should I be my true self and then adjust my life to fit who I am rather than the other way around?

I think you know the answer without Papabear telling you.

I wish you luck and love,

Papabear