The Spectrum and the Space Between

At the table, I laugh at the right moments. I tell stories that are just risky enough to make me seem open, but never so revealing that they could get me labeled. The conversation turns to dating, to attraction, to “type.” I edit myself in real time — trimming pronouns, rearranging sentences, steering away from the parts of my life that would change the way they look at me.

It’s not fear exactly. It’s muscle memory. Years of scanning a room and deciding how much truth it can handle.

People love to tell me, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Cute rhyme. Worthless argument.
If you think sexuality is strictly binary, you’re ignoring reality — not just mine, but nature’s. Same-sex pair bonding exists in animals. Intersex variations exist in humans and countless other species. Nature has never played by your neat rules.

And here’s something I’ve noticed: the loudest voices against queer people — the ones who rail about “gay sex” in public arenas — so often get caught in the act themselves. Why? Because they’re repressing their own mixed nature. They fear it, and fear turns into rejection, which curdles into hate. If you’ve been taught your desires make you evil, you’ll spend your life trying to exorcise them. You’ll condemn in others what you can’t kill in yourself.

But I’m not speaking as an activist outside the frame. I’m bisexual.

That doesn’t mean my attractions are perfectly balanced. I’ve rarely felt the kind of deep, emotional connection to men that I’ve felt with women. I’m open to meeting a man I could connect with, but too often, the men I meet are emotionally closed off — proud of avoiding their own mental health work, careless with how they treat and think about other people.

The closest I’ve ever come to a real gay relationship was my best friend for most of middle school. We were inseparable — similar in our humor, our interests, our restlessness. We experimented with each other, but he was like me: much more straight than gay.

When rumors started that I was involved in “gay activity,” he turned on me. Not quietly — publicly. He made jokes at my expense, took shots at me in front of other people, chipped away at my confidence until I felt like nothing. It was survival for him. If he made me the punchline, he could protect himself from suspicion.

We still remained friends into high school, but then came the implosion. He and a few others from our circle got arrested — something I narrowly avoided only because I didn’t trust the guy whose idea had caused the trouble. I dodged a bullet, but the fallout was brutal. My friend group was decimated. Suddenly, I had to start over — either making new friends or trying to reconnect with people I hadn’t talked to in years.

Even though I still had people around me, there was a hole. I didn’t have that main friend anymore, and even if he’d been emotionally abusive, he was mine. The absence hurt in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. Where did I fit now?

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt that kind of negation. My brother had done it too, mocking the way I acted, the way I didn’t fit the mold. I know now he thought he was protecting me in his own way — trying to toughen me up, keep me from getting targeted by others. But it didn’t feel like protection. It felt like being told that who I was wasn’t allowed in daylight.

Growing up, being gay was seen as one of the worst things you could be — worse than being cruel, worse than being dishonest. That belief system got inside me early. It’s still there, even now, in the quiet moments when I wonder if being fully seen is worth the risk.

And then there’s Kate.
If you’ve read The Cancer Diet, you know she was the great “what if” of my life — the woman I loved deeply but never had. For years, she was the measure against which I compared every other connection. That kind of long-term emotional attachment can be intoxicating, but it can also trap you in an idea of love rather than the reality of it.

Where I am with her now is quieter. We’re not in each other’s lives the way we once were. The longing has softened, but the meaning remains. She’s a reminder that love doesn’t have to be physical to be formative — and that sometimes the people who shape you most aren’t the ones you end up with.

And then there’s Ember.

Ember is my friend, my fellow artist, my co-conspirator in surviving the strange drama of life. She’s trans. I’m attracted to her — or maybe I’m intrigued. I still can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. That attraction has challenged me in ways I didn’t expect. Did it make me “more gay” to want her? Could I live a life knowing exactly what society would think if I ended up with a trans partner? Am I even really attracted to her, or is it the depth of our bond, the way we create together, the way she makes me feel seen?

She’s taken now, so there’s no possibility of romance between us. But Ember never pushes for answers. She lets me sit in the uncertainty without judgment. She doesn’t tell me what it means or what I should do with it. She listens when I talk about my bisexuality. She leaves the door open without demanding that I walk through it. And maybe that’s why I trust her — because she makes room for all of me, even the parts I’m still figuring out.

I think my parents suspect my nature. My brother knew and accepted it, but didn’t fully understand it. Mom will probably accept it willingly — and maybe even be relieved I’m “mostly straight” — but Dad is a different story. He’s unpredictable, reactive. There’s a part of me that believes he might disown me. That’s not a dramatic flourish — it’s the kind of possibility you keep in the back of your mind when you’ve lived with someone whose moods and convictions can swing without warning.

I worry about sharing this information, but I’m going to say it anyway. He may never read it, and if he does… well, then he’ll know.

I strive to learn to connect with people more, but my history of rejection, shame, and loneliness has warped me in ways I sometimes think may be unfixable. Maybe I am meant to be alone forever. Maybe God doesn’t accept me, and that’s why I have so many problems in life. I don’t know if that’s true — but I know it’s a thought that visits me often, and it’s hard to banish when you’ve carried it for years.

I am open to new love.
Recently, I’ve been bonding with someone, and it’s making me ask hard questions: Can we? Should we?
I’ve played this game before — becoming close friends, only to realize I want more and finding out that I’m unwanted in that way. It’s a dangerous slope for me, because I value connection so much that I’ll take the friendship even if it hurts — and I know exactly how deep that hurt can go.

We fight for the labels we choose for ourselves. We want to be defined, whole, certain. But our natures are more flexible than we admit. Everyone is capable of anything — it’s just the environment, the experiences, and the chance events that shape what we grow into and what we call “normal.” The spectrum isn’t just about sexuality; it’s about possibility. And that means no one is as far from me as they might like to believe.

Life is a spectrum. Always has been. Pretending it’s not doesn’t make you holy — it just makes you blind.

Maybe my history has warped me beyond repair. Maybe I really am meant to be alone. Maybe God doesn’t accept me. Those thoughts still visit me. But they aren’t the whole truth. The whole truth is that I’m still here, still reaching, still willing to risk wanting someone — even knowing the cost.

Until then, I live here — in the space between pride and guilt, connection and isolation. The space where I am both fully myself and, sometimes, finally seen.