Bi Men Everywhere?

I guess my mom was right - everyone's a little gay.

I’m in the sandwich generation. Watching the older generation get older. Watching the younger generation come up. And with that comes a kind of acceptance — a reflection of life, of where we’re at, of who’s still here and who’s not with us anymore.

It’s an examination of curiosities. Some are stronger than others. Some new. Some that were always there but misunderstood — or never acted on. Curiosity is like moving to a new state, trying a new activity, or diving into something you never gave yourself permission to explore. I don’t want to narrow the lens through which curiosity might be understood by each person. It’s wide. It should stay wide.

But here’s where I am right now.

I’m in a moment — and I’m loving it — where men I know, most of them are not as close to me as you’d think, but men who are straight or in heterosexual relationships or not in relationships at all, are coming to terms with something and feeling comfortable enough to share it with me. Same-sex attraction. SSA. In the last eight or nine months, I can count at least six or seven people who have.

And for me, the first feeling is: how lucky am I? To have friendships where someone feels like they can trust me with that. To hold it. To hug it in.

But then the questions start.

If I had asked these same people ten years ago — five years ago — would they have answered the same way? No. They would not have. So what changed?

Is it the stage of life? The direction and age? Is it the understanding that emotion and sexuality are fluid and complicated — that this is part of what we all go through but just don’t communicate? I also think there’s a “why not” factor. Unless there’s a strong sense of knowing — or religion drawing a hard line — a lot of guys are realizing they’re curious. Curious in the way that some might want to explore more food, more wine, more of what life has to offer.

I think it goes back to that word: curiosity. And I think a lot of us tend to look at curiosity as something you can acknowledge, something you can see, but not something you touch or take action on. And maybe none of those have to be against the rules of your relationship. That’s the conversation that should happen.

But what I find really fascinating is this era of realizing that I have a role in my work, a role in my relationship, a role as a friend — and somewhere in all of that, I also have a role in just being someone people come to. How is it that more than a handful of friends are confiding their attractions to me? What does that say about the rest of society? What does it say about the relationships people are having? How they show up in their conversations?

I don’t have the answers. I’m sitting in the questions.