((Originally written in September 2020 for Bisexual Awareness Week))

I cringe at the memory of how I reacted when Tommy (not his real name) told me he’s bisexual.

It’s 1997, and while I’m deep in my closet, I have an intense crush on him.

My scared seventeen-year-old solution is to deny those feelings and, at the same time, reject Tommy’s identity. At this time in my life I did not possess any framework or education about being bi. Instead, I ranted myths at him (the same I now fight) while privatley dreaming of having something more with him.

Five years before this, the fundamentalist cult I was raised in disbanded. While I was free of the messaging, the ease of their grip was only just beginning. Tommy was showing me the much-needed way out from my purity culture; if only my anxieties and defensiveness would shut up! Naive and clinging to scripture, I couldn’t fathom in that moment, I had a real source of education and safety standing right in front of me.

When Tommy and I first met, we immediately hit it off. I wanted to be around him all the time. Here was this new and fascinating person who made me laugh. He always gave off this excited energy that was intoxicating. It took me a beat to realize; I liked him, and when I did, (cue religon) I felt guilty about it. He would find me after school or at my house and whisk me away on an adventure in his rickety jeep. From my sheltered worldview, these moments would shake me up. One night we were out late wandering a dark beach. I tripped over a rock and lightly cut my hand. When he took his flashlight out to review the damage, I instantly fainted. He gently tapped me with his steel-toed Doc Martins, thinking I was pretending. Eventually, he had to wake me properly. He then took me to the hospital, where I got stitches and had an awkward call home to my dad at midnight.

I thought Tommy was everything I couldn’t be; cool, seemingly relaxed, and he was freely out. I was the Felix Unger to his Oscar Madison. Even though I was a nervous wreck, I tried to be more relaxed when around him. He was outdoorsy and talented in everything he did, not to mention firecly intelligent and funny. He stood up for his beliefs and he never backed down from a fight. He was tough, yet he had this twinkle in his blue eyes when he’d smile. It was the kind of smile that either meant he just did something to fuck someone up, or we were about to do something crazy.

I’ll never know what he saw in me — a walking panic attack, but he laughed at my jokes. I always felt safe with him, especially in the emergency room. My “church” programming made me terrified of the world around me. Moving out of a fundamentalist Christian school, my parents gave me a long leash for public school. They expected my anxieties (and God) to keep me in check. It worked; I never did anything too stupid.

Whenever I sat with my feelings towards Tommy, my inner religious trauma told me it was game over. Here he was, the safest person in my life to ask about these feelings that have plagued me, but I was also scared to lose him as a friend. The anxieties were overwhelming, and I panicked at his coming out moment to me.

I was a horrible friend that day.

For the late 90s, this was the most honest conversation someone could have about being bisexual. My denial tapped all the classics; that being bisexual wasn’t real. I told him he was making it up. I told him he had to choose — just one misinformed thought after another. I hate the person I was that day — denying his existence, his reality. I was a walking algorithm of all my fears. They were all slipping out cruelly to my friend. I regret everything I said and did. I especially regret not listening. Had I just been quiet and opened myself up, perhaps, I could have accepted myself.

To his credit, Tommy didn’t outwardly react. I wonder now what he was thinking and feeling while listening to all this nonsense. It never appeared to affect our friendship, but I still regret it. I couldn’t handle it. It felt “too-close call” to my feelings being found out. Instead, I declared my affections for his ex-girlfriend (who did not need that).

While I still carry the guilt of how I reacted to Tommy sharing his identity with me, I also continue to learn from that moment. Now, much later in life, Tommy is on my mind when I share my identity. He taught me at that moment how to handle the reactions, whether positive or negative. Tommy taught me to be patient with the people I love but not stop being my true self. Tommy continued to tell me stories of various relationships he had over the years.

Sometimes I wonder if I missed out on a relationship with Tommy, I regret not having the chance. Or perhaps he was trying to live his life and be out while educating his problematic friend?

After my first year of college I lost track of him. In recent years we reconnected on Facebook and Instagram. Our reconnection has been the generic “hey, how are you?” like two old acquaintances passing on the street.

I suspect I’ve given this memory, and these feelings, more weight since then. If he ever does wonder about it, I want to apologize for being a bad friend (and a bad bi) and possibly for how it impacted other aspects of our friendship. There’s no right way to have this conversation these many years later — especially over Facebook or Instagram. I do want him to know how much he helped me, though. I want him to know how important that moment in time was for me, albeit too soon. When the penny finally dropped in my early 30’s, I immediately returned to this day and this conversation with Tommy. I wish that epiphamy happened when I was 17, with Tommy, but I got there in the end. I’m grateful for the brief time we had together as friends and that I had someone in my life to normalize our identity.

This is also why we celebrate Bisexual Awareness Week/Month/Day. We need the stories, the education, and the normalcy to break through, so every Bi+ person sees themself.