I’m not trying to hate, so please don’t insult me or give rude advice. As a bi girl myself, I’m genuinely just trying to understand and get input from other people here respectfully.

This one girl at my school, Ana, says she’s bi because the topic came up. I told her I was too, and that’s cool and all, but what I don’t understand is that Ana also says she doesn’t really find women attractive. She’d like to be friends with them, she finds them pretty in a platonic way, but she doesn’t want to date them. There is no female character she’d be attracted to, nor a celebrity, nor anyone. Ana says she’s kinda “ehh” on women romantically.

However, Ana is very obviously attracted to men. She often has a new male crush every two weeks or so, and finds a lot of celebrities (such as actors), fictional characters, and boys at school attractive and would definitely date them.

Again, I’m genuinely confused, so if you guys could help me understand, that would be greatly appreciated. I don’t understand why Ana says she’s bi with no gender preference. At first, I could see bi with a male preference, but she told me she straight-up doesn’t see women romantically and finds them “ehh”.

  • i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    There could be so many things.

    Maybe your friend finds women attractive but doesn’t really want to internalize it, but claims the label. I did that when I was young… I was told by many religious adults that I was confused. So I kind of carried that with me until I found my own way… Which includes me saying that vulvas were not attractive. (I most definitely do not think that.)

    Maybe she doesn’t actually like men at all and is trying to figure out which ones are attractive to her. (I did this when I was young. I tried not to be a lesbian so hard.)

    Or she has a certain type of women she likes. She could like em butch but she is mostly around femme women.

    Maybe she doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe her attraction to women if she is.

    Or maybe she has other reasons why she claims bisexuality, like she likes men and NB people.

    Maybe she’s struggling with her gender identity too, and these thoughts are bleeding into her feelings about her sexuality.

    Or she is confused about labels. Or she’s just experimenting with labels to see what fits.

    It’s really hard to guess, and all of the above is wild speculation. (Most would be rude to accuse her of or ask her about… Let her lead any of those conversations if it comes up.) At this point, it’s best to accept what she labels herself. Discovering is hard (and she sounds like she is in the thick of it) and gatekeeping makes it harder.

    • insomniacalmond@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Tysm, makes perfect sense. I haven’t brought it up to her but she did mention it in conversation. I’m just trying to understand but I haven’t and cannot tell her that she is straight or not.