Dear Prudence,
I’m a queer man in my early 20s. I’m primarily interested in other men, but I always figured I was a little bit closer to bisexual than gay. I’ve been with a few women and enjoyed it—it wasn’t a cover while I was closeted or anything—but most of my relationships and sex partners have been men. A few years ago I moved for work, and all of my friends here have only known me to date men. As a result, they’ve come to think of and refer to me as gay. That always seemed fairly close to the mark, so it didn’t feel like a big deal. However, I recently (and unexpectedly) found myself interested in a woman, and it made me stop and think about how I’m perceived here. I think my female friends are a little more comfortable around me in certain contexts because they believe I’m exclusively gay. I have a close circle of friends, many of whom are gay and lesbian, and that shared sense of queerness has generated a particular sense of closeness.
I worry that if I were to date a woman, my friends would feel in some way betrayed. Worse—and I hope that I am simply overthinking it—would be if they felt that I was “pretending” to be gay or queer, particularly the gay male friends I have here. The whole thing has made me feel oddly uncomfortable with myself, and I wonder whether I should have been correcting my friends when they called me gay. I don’t necessarily feel right doing that, since I also don’t feel like I have the right to call myself bisexual when I’m largely attracted to one gender. Should I give up on asking this woman out? Should I change the way I describe myself to others? Am I overthinking everything?
—Queer and Confused