I Think I Might Be Bi. Now What? | What Nobody Tells You

So what does questioning look like? Well, for me, it looked like 1am searches into YouTube or Google looking for content, seeking out content on social media, or looking for answers in podcasts, books, and discussing it with my therapist.

But the problem with the content that I found that was out there talking about this subject really reduced it all to sex.

And sex is great and it's really important, but I was looking for something with a little bit more depth, really focusing on belonging, social connections and tribes and living an authentic life, pursuing purpose and meaning and really doing our best to live our best, most authentic lives.

Because I moved around a lot.

I lived in Boston.

I lived in Florida.

I lived in Pennsylvania.

And now I live in Colorado.

I moved here a few years ago.

And constant loop that was in my head was, what do I say? Do I tell people that I like guys and girls or that I'm questioning or I don't really know what I am? Do they know? If I go on dating apps, do I mark my profile as bi? If I'm looking for women or men or what do I do? I mean, there's so many questions and a lot of it has to do with social connection.

I no longer work a corporate job, but I can imagine at any job, do I come out? Do I tell people? Do they know? What if they find out? And if I'm married and I have a girlfriend, do I tell her? Do I be honest with her? Or if I'm gay or I'm bi and I am out, do I avoid social situations where I feel like a fish out of water? And if I don't know what I am, how am I going to meet a life partner? For a while, I felt like I was the only one like this until I started noticing profiles on dating apps like Grindr or Sniffies or Scruff or Adult Friend Finder or more straight-coded dating apps like Hinge that said like buy or buy curious or straight but just looking for no strings connection with another guy.

And I started to realize, yeah, I'm far from being the only one out there like this.

So I started digging into the numbers to find the actual story.

And here's what the research actually shows.

Roughly 1 in 16 men just in the United States, about 6%, report having had sex with another man at some point in their lives.

But when you ask those same men how they identify, gay, bi, or straight, only about half of them claim a gay or bi label.

That's millions of American men living one life on the outside and a different one on the inside.

And that's just in the United States.

It's probably much bigger around the world.

And that's also just the number of men who are willing to answer that honestly on a survey.

The number is probably much higher.

So the relief here is mathematical.

You're not a freak, you're not alone, and you're not broken.

But you are part of a massively quiet and isolated group.

So why doesn't this group of guys choose to identify as gay or bi? Why don't they just come out? Well, the answer is because they have to have somewhere to come out to.