Dating a man is a great way to figure out that you aren’t gay. But it still took me a long time to fully come to terms with bisexuality. At no point did I think I was straight again. I was dating a man, but my feelings for women had been too strong for me to be straight. It didn’t feel like I aligned with the popular version of bisexuality, which for many women means fooling around with other women for fun and then marrying a man. Calling myself bisexual felt like a betrayal of the sum of all my relationships — the real feelings I’d shared with women.I continued to struggle with this, but as my relationship with Harris passed the one-year mark, and then two years, I started to make my peace with bisexuality.I realized that I had hesitated to use the word "bisexual" because of all its negative connotations, but that seemed both unfair and like a symptom of an internalized bias I wanted to eradicate in myself. I considered calling myself "queer" to make space for the multitude of sexual and gender expressions present in my social circle. But despite recognizing the limitations of the gender and sexuality binary, I decided to make "bisexual" work for me. Language is constantly shifting to reflect society, so I’m just co-opting and accepting the word to reflect me.The truth is that I believe bisexual expression is as varied as the people who claim it as an identity. In my case, I tend to prefer women as sexual and romantic partners, but I happen to be happily dating a man. Some bisexual people I know go straight down the middle, and some only fall in love with one gender but can sleep with anyone. I also happen to know a unicorn in the LGBTQ world: a bisexual man, currently involved in a serious relationship with a woman, whose own bold declaration of his complicated sexuality helped me feel more secure in my own.In my everyday life, I make a point of coming out when I can. I don’t want to take part in bi-erasure, and I never want others to assume I’m straight. But I also recognize all the straight privileges I carry with me. When I used to walk down the street with my girlfriend, I’d look around nervously before holding her hand or showing any affection. This was to avoid any uncomfortable stares or lewd comments, both of which we were quite used to receiving. When we rented a hotel room while on trips, we’d more often than not be offered two twin beds, rather than a queen. At the time, gay marriage wasn’t legal, and workplace discrimination was ( and still is ) permissible by law.With my boyfriend, I was surprised to notice that I felt no hesitation about holding his hand, even kissing him, in public. When we go out into the world, I don’t have to worry about encountering someone who disapproves of our relationship. It’s just expected, normalized. I can travel anywhere with him, whereas with my girlfriend, I’d have to consider the region, or the country, and whether homosexuality was taboo or even illegal. Those are huge quality-of-life issues, and I got to shake it all off when I took up with my boyfriend. That will never be fair.It’s likely that I’ll stay with my boyfriend, because he’s the kind of person I can see myself sharing a life with. But that doesn’t change my orientation. I struggled so much to come to terms with what felt like a constant uncertainty, but I finally got there. I had to accept what I once thought was just ambiguity. I’m not straight or gay. I never picked a side, because it was neither one nor the other. It’s become cliché at this point, but people often really do fall in love with the person, and not their gender. I’ve just had a lot more options in my life than most.