You’re on an impromptu date at the local Starbucks with someone you just met on BLENDR—the all-new, all-straight hook up app taking the Internet by storm. There’s some chatting, some sipping. You’re like, I went to NYU and he’s all, Oh, I went to a small school in Boston. Well, not in Boston exactly, but next to Boston. You have a couple of friends who went to that school, seems like they all say that. But that’s not even the weird part. You ignore the fact that he’s sporting one of those ironic 19th century mustaches—you’re more ignoring that it kind of works on him. You overlook the fact that though he does look exactly like his BLENDR picture, a rarity in online dating, he’s actually shorter than you. You can deal, you’re saying.
This is a great guy, you’re thinking. I’d like to get to know him better, you’re saying. But then out of nowhere at the end of the date he hits you with the whole, Oh-and-I’m-bisexual-is-that-going-to-be-a-problem? thing.
Seeing as how you don’t really want to come off as homophobic, you nervously sip from your double Americano, then: Um, I guess not? I mean, I was in college once so I know how that goes. At the end of the date you give him a big hug—specifically not a kiss, as you are not keen to kiss a guy’s mouth that as far as you know could have had a penis inside of it as recently as two hours ago.
Once you part ways, you immediately send a BBM to Shannon, your girlfriend who always bails you out of dates by calling at a specific, predetermined time to tell you “something bad happened.” You say: DUDE IS BISEXUAL. SMH.
How do you respond to a guy who tells you straight up he’s bisexual? Who just announces their bisexuality like that, like it’s cool, like it’s a new tattoo you just got done in Vegas? Does the bi-ness matter?
You have dinner at your gay (read: specifically not bisexual) cousin’s house the day after bi-gate, and when he asks how your vagina is doing, you ask him what he would do if he found out his boyfriend was bisexual. It wouldn’t bother him, he says. Why should it matter, he philosophizes. Deep inside your liberal, NYU-educated brain you completely understand that there are people in the world who are bisexual. You realize there’s definitely a double standard between guy bi-ness and girl bi-ness. If a dude was on a date with a hot chick and the hot chick was like, Hi I love punanny, the dude would be turned on.
But not you. No. You are not turned on in the least. No bi’s for you. The very idea of your boyfriend getting fucked in the ass or, worse, of performing fellatio on an eight-or-so-inch cock turns you all the way off. A blackout. In the bowels of your ego you rationalize that a bi guy is just pre-gay. You worry that within months of dating he will start wearing your clothes, using your eyebrow tweezer, singing to Madonna in falsetto, going to the gym five times a day.
How can somebody be attracted to both men and women, you ask, frustrated.
The more you think about it, the more you conclude that bi’s are just greedy. You’re like, They will take anything they can get, in any hole possible. A bi’s sole aim in life, you deduce, is to be in a relationship with a woman while having secret sex with men, or to be in a relationship with men while having secret sex with women. See, you exclaim to yourself, proud. The bi’s are just desperate to get their cake and have a three-way with it, too. Happy you’re no longer thinking like a homophobe, disgusted by the idea of two guys getting it on, you tell yourself, I can’t date a bisexual guy because his greedy ass is going to cheat on me with another guy. That’s right, right?
Your gay cousin tells you that everybody is at least a little bit bi, especially in New York. It’s no big deal, he’s saying. Haven’t you ever been with a girl or at least thought about it? You tell him No, No I haven’t been with a woman except for that one time in college. Laughter. He pulls up Craigslist and shows you how many of the m4m ads are looking for gay sex on the premise that “the GF is away/out-of-town.” You’re like, Maybe these are all posted by the same guy, to which your gay cousin agrees is perfectly within the realm of possibility.
You check a message on your BlackBerry and it’s from him. I HAD A GREAT TIME MTING U, LETS HANG THIS WKND? You’re not sure what to type back. You’re into the guy, but you’re afraid the bi thing might be a deal breaker. Do you say nothing? Isn’t that bad karma? In his message you see that, for your convenience, he has also attached a semi NSFW photo, perhaps as an incentive for you to meet him. It’s the bi’s tanned, flexed torso from the perspective of the bathroom mirror, with a pair of green boxers tilted enough to reveal just a few pubes. There is no head. Though you’ve received many headless torso pics and never thought twice, this time the photos remind you of the m4m ads your gay cousin is showing you.
Expecting you to be turned on buy his exhibitionism, maybe taking to your own cellphone camera to send him a tit shot, you reply: “Nice bathroom.” He does not write back.
