Many bisexual bloggers have posted about their gripes, so I decided to make a masterpost of sorts about all the ridiculous things people have said to me upon finding out that I was bisexual before I discovered the college party scene.

“You’re so lucky! You have twice the options!”

First of all, I like to tell people that being bisexual is twice the disappointment, because people of all genders have the potential to find you unattractive. Plus, we all have standards. I have no more options than anyone else. Also you’re taking genderqueer people out of the equation, who have the same potential for attractiveness as anyone else. I could write a whole page about transphobia and bisexuality but I digress.

This will be on my tombstone.

“You’re dating a man, I guess you’re straight now.”

I mean, I can see where this logic comes from. I’ll give you the fact that walking down the street with my large, masculine boyfriend gives me “straight privilege” or what have you. My relationship means that the part of my brain that’s attracted to women has been completely shut off. Right.

“You’ve never dated a girl, how do you know you’re bisexual?”

Because I can look at both girls and boys and say “gee whiz, I’d like to take them out for pop and a cheeseburger”. Come on, this is first grade stuff.

Are you seducing me?

“You can’t call yourself queer because you dig the opposite gender”

First of all, don’t tell me what to identify as, because I’ll get an entire queer army to come to your house and toss sharpened unicorn horns at you. Second of all, I’m not even totally comfortable with the term “bisexual” because I feel like for me it excludes trans* people. So queer is a better catch all.

“The pride parade isn’t for bisexuals”

This was said to me during an LGBT workshop. I deserve a medal for not throwing a table at this kid. The LGBT community’s unwillingness to accept bisexual people because they aren’t gay enough is just as bad as everyone else disapproving of us because we aren’t straight enough.

That being said, I usually prefer to fly the rainbow flag to the bisexual one. Because, you know, I’m for everyone’s equality.

Rainbows are more fun anyway.

“You’re just experimenting because you’re in college”

I’ve known I was bisexual since I was thirteen years old and saw Kat Von D on whichever tattoo show she was doing at the time. I didn’t come out to my friends until my junior year of high school and didn’t come out to my parents until I turned eighteen because I didn’t want to risk being cut off from them as a minor. That didn’t happen, but it’s sort of a given that coming out is hard. Anyway, experimenting is perfectly fine for some people, it’s just not what I’m doing.

On another note, I’ve encountered two girls who pretended to be bisexual for attention. That shit isn’t cool and it makes us all look bad, not to mention the women they had hooked up with felt incredibly blindsided and had an understandably biased opinion of bisexuals. Don’t do that.

“You must be pretty confused.”

Attraction isn’t a very confusing thing. It’s basic biology. I don’t know if there’s a gay gene or anything, but being attracted to someone is hardly confusing.

“Did you cut your hair off to look dykier?”

This shit bothers me a lot. Lesbians are just as varied as bisexual women are just as varied as straight women. I happen to present as feminine because wearing pretty dresses and loading up makeup on my face makes me feel good about myself. I cut my hair because I was sick of dealing with my poofy 80s looking mop and wanted a change. Also, gender presentation and sexuality are two different things. Please go back to Queer 101.

Imagine trying to mow a cornfield. That’s what brushing this was like.

You don’t need me to tell you to be confident in yourself and your sexuality. Not everyone is as open about their issues as I am, and obviously not everyone who is bisexual feels the same way I do about certain things, but bear in mind that one reason it’s difficult to come out as LGBT is general misunderstanding of how this stuff works.

The LGBT community could take a lesson from Bill and Ted: “be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!”