I was curious about boys from an early age. Whenever I heard of homosexuality in the news or in books, I was intrigued. The idea of being gay fascinated me, but I was also attracted to girls. I fantasized about both guys and girls from the beginning, but I kept my gay thoughts to myself in the homophobic environment of junior high. My romantic and erotic feelings for girls made it easy to discount the boy thoughts as just a quirk. Meanwhile, I was experimenting all over the map at home, too young to drive and with the house all to myself for several hours every day. I fantasized about guys and girls equally, making a game of it. I wrote a program on my VIC-20 to randomly select the age, race, hair-color, and gender of my fantasy partner. I flirted with cross-dressing, but it was a short-lived phase. I was a horny young boy. I read everything about sex I could get my hands on: Penthouse Forum, mom's Cosmopolitan, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know...," etc. If they mentioned it at all, most 70s/80s-era sex reference books briefly described bisexuals as shallow, physically-centered individuals or self-delusional gays who would eventually give up the opposite sex altogether. The descriptions didn't fit me, so I rejected that little part of the book and read the rest for entertainment.

I got crushes on girls I knew; I pined for them and imagined romantic scenes, if not always sex. I put girls on a pedestal, but most of the guys I knew were just goofy. I liked famous, unobtainable guys like John Lennon and David Bowie, and I could get off on nameless guys in underwear ads, but never an actual guy I knew. To get a crush on a real guy would bring gayness too close to home. I always felt gay until the point of orgasm, and then I'd take it all back and reassure myself that I really preferred girls. My internal explorations had little to do with my love life. The idea of a woman to love, marry, have kids, and grow old with was so strongly ingrained in me that anything else was unacceptable. Homosexuals were tragic figures who would never know the joy of a happy family life. To pursue a boyfriend was to waste valuable romantic bandwidth better spent finding the perfect girl. Besides, it would mean coming out to my family and virtual estrangement from everyone I knew.

I was never really happy unless I had a girlfriend. I wanted her badly enough that it was no great effort to push boys out of my mind, at least until the next time I masturbated. My first time with a girl was like water to a man dying of thirst. Sex with a girl eventually became familiar, but it's never lost its thrill. By the time I was in college, I masturbated about guys almost exclusively. If I looked at male pictures, I'd imagine sex with him. If I looked at female pictures, I'd imagine turning her down and going for her brother or boyfriend. I accepted my interest in guys was more than a phase. I checked out books on homosexuality from the college library. I was running a computer BBS at the time, and I added gay/lesbian message areas where people from campus would post to one another. Hiding my gay activities from my girlfriend was easy because she went to school 60 miles away.

The BBS gave me a number of gay friends, and I grew more comfortable and open with myself. I came out to a few close friends, with overwhelming success. I felt ready for a boyfriend, and I started chatting and exchanging messages on my BBS with another bi person. Ironically, she was female, and she was six years older than I. She was unlike the girls I normally dated; she could look butch one day, and then she'd wear a dress the next. We'd talk together about guys, and we'd both get excited. We had a brief fling behind my girlfriend's back, doing things I'd never done with male or female. She liked me to pretend she was a guy, which I'd often done with girls but never openly. She'd imagine I was a girl when I went down on her, and I took it as a compliment when she said I'd make a good woman. I'd never had sex outside of a romantic relationship, and I felt cheap and uncomfortable with this strange woman. I grew sensitive to little things she did that would bug me, like a phrase she kept repeating or the way she made everything into a sexual innuendo. When she said "We've gotta get you a boyfriend," it sounded like the most unappealing idea in the world. I broke it off with her as gracefully as I could.

The next person I met was actually the right gender. He was reasonably attractive, but I liked him mainly because he was sensitive and seemed to instinctively understand me. We started hanging out and going to meetings of the campus gay/bi association. Gradually, our nights together began to feel like dates. He showed me all the gay hangouts in the city, taking me to a place where I was not afraid to buy gay porn. Our first kiss was passionate and exciting, driving down the interstate at night after he bought the car I helped him pick out. We started having sex within a week. I enjoyed everything we did except for the kissing, as I started noticing his bad breath. I wondered if the real "breath issue" was that I didn't like guys as much as I thought. Immediately after orgasm, I'd start feeling guilty and ready to leave, but I'd come back for more a day or two later. The lovey-dovey endearments he started using made me extremely uncomfortable, and I was aware I was sending him mixed signals. I was embarrassed at being so wishy-washy with him. He wanted a straightforward, romantic relationship I was unable to give him. I had no idea I had so many hang-ups until I actually started making it with a guy. I broke up with my boyfriend, but we remained friends. He helped me get my first real job, and we kept in contact for years afterward.

About a year later, I married the girl I'd been dating off and on through college, and we began a happy life together. I was still attracted to other women and men, but I wasn't concerned about it. I could keep fantasies private, and no one I didn't want would have to know I was bisexual. A guy from work would share a pitcher of beer with me after our monthly meetings, and we'd talk about guys. I had a major crush on him, but no stronger or different from the crushes I'd get on women occasionally. When he changed jobs and moved out of state, I had no one in my life who knew. When we got on the Internet, I looked for information resources about bisexuality and marriage. I found mostly porn, too free and too available to ignore. I looked at everything: Girls, guys, she-males. Girl pics were everywhere, but a decent male-male set was a rare find. I became obsessed with men, and I spent all my free time looking for good oral sets that weren't too grainy or for women that struck my fancy. I had to hide all this from my wife, and I grew secretive and irritable.