I'm about ten years old, and I'm giggling nervously in an abandoned bathroom. It's dark, and I'm waiting for my best friend to sneak out of art class and join me. She and I decided we had to practice kissing for the boys, you know, just to see what it was like. Apparently, we couldn't do that any of the other times we were together. No, it had to be done there. I remember laughing and the clashing of teeth, and us jumping apart when another girl showed up and asked us what we were doing.

Lily and I were exceptionally close. So close, in fact, that people joked about us being joined by the hip and that teachers believed they had to separate us because we relied too much on each other. We cuddled, and we had sleepovers in the same bed, and I would get unreasonably jealous whenever she'd met with her former female best friend. We play-acted getting married and doing all sorts of relationship stuff, with usually one of us being the guy, and I remember wanting to kiss her so many times because it'd make the whole thing more realistic. According to her, I even told her once I was in love with her.

I've always been protective of her; I wanted to shield her and help her, and I was sure no one understood her the way I did. We didn't go to the same secondary school at first, and she found a new female best friend, Mira. They were as close as we had been, always together. I was so jealous, and I had a weird rivalry thing going on with Mira. Most people liked her, but I didn't, and I was sure she hated me because I knew Lily the best. I thoroughly enjoyed that thought. Our secondary schools merged at some point, and I set my sights on 'stealing Lily back'.

A few years ago, Lily and I had a fallout. She'd lied about something to me, something that seemed big at the time. She'd introduced me to a guy friend of hers, and he was cool, so I decided I was going to fall in love with him, and so I did. A month or so later, he confided in me and told me he had a thing with her the whole time, and I was shocked. She'd betrayed me. I was so heart-broken I described it to a friend as "discovering your partner is cheating on you and getting a divorce after twelve years of marriage". I had no idea about the truth of that statement back then. It was just how I felt. That the guy didn't feel anything for me didn't really shake me, to be honest. "Shit, now I'm not going to marry him and have his babies!" was the extent of my hurt. The one who had actually broken my heart, after all, was my best friend of so many years.

Eventually, I forgave Lily, and now we laugh about it together, especially now that I've burst out of the closet.

When we were kids, I used to like being in love. It was a flavor of the month kind of thing, boy edition: who was I going to like this time? I'd pick a guy from our class and spent most hours at school running after him on the playground. Even as a teen, I once or twice found myself comparing the guys in my year to see who was most suitable to like.

At thirteen years old, I fell in love with a girl in my class. She was cool and pretty, the sporty, popular type, with short hair and wide hips she was self-conscious about but I thought were attractive. I was so confused. I went from admitting to myself that I like-liked her and fantasizing about us kissing to convincing myself I merely admired her and wanted to be her. Going back through my old stories of that year, a fictional copy of her is in each of them, usually called Jill.

Usually, Jill would never sit still. She'd be leaning backwards and following Van Hemelen with her light blue eyes while rolling a pen up and down in the palm of her hand. Julie kept staring at her, lost in thought. After a while, she felt someone looking at her. Mindlessly, she turned around. Ivar was staring at her. He was almost smiling, raising his eyebrows at her twice. She rolled her eyes. She was very aware of what he thought of her. She never tried to talk him out of it, but she had no idea if that was because he was hard to convince or because it might be true. [...] Deep down, she knew she was lying to herself. That it was true.

So, yeah. Apparently, I was having a tough time admitting to myself I liked girls. There's a story where Jill is a closeted lesbian side character whose ex-girlfriend has a name that closely resembles my real one, and there is a story where a girl named Belle-Emm gets arrested for being a lesbian and dreaming about marrying Jill. I'm sure you might be reading this and thinking: "why did it take you so long to come to terms with your sexuality when you already knew back then?". Believe me, I'm confused about it as well. I even told a friend of mine I was in love with this girl, and she was like: "Yeah, I figured. So, are you gay?" I didn't know. She asked me if I was going to tell our other friend, who wasn't always accepting of queer people. Right when I decided that I would, the friend said something homophobic, and I completely backtracked. I took everything back, convinced myself it hadn't been love but admiration and tried to ignore all of my feelings. Apparently, it worked, because I'd buried it so deeply I only remembered ten years later. Turns out, the friend who had said something homophobic is a lesbian, by the way—the irony.

Only now, knowing I'm gay, I recognize all the crushes I've had on girls over the years. It's strange to only see it in hindsight. When I was only just figuring out I was a lesbian, I struggled a lot with the fact I thought I'd been in love with a guy twice in my life. Well, one of them was Lily's friend, so we already established that didn't count, but the other one is more tricky to unpack.

I'm talking about the Love of my Teenage Life. His name was John, and he was my teacher, twelve years older than me, and I was head over heels for him for years. All the boys in school were annoying and uninteresting, while he was a Real Man™. So, I didn't like that he smoked, or that he smelled like coffee and cigarettes in the morning, or that he could be arrogant and talking over you, or that he shaved his head once a year, but he was so hot, right? I think I mostly valued his intelligence and playfulness— he liked to joke around with me, and I somehow convinced myself that maybe he meant it as flirting (he didn't). I probably just loved getting attention from a dude. I appreciated that he took me seriously most of the time, and I liked the feeling of believing I might be wanted by such an experienced guy (I wasn't; he was a teacher, for god's sake, and a good one). I've always liked flirting with a guy as a teen; it boosted my confidence and made me feel sexy. I wrote some letters to John that I never meant to send (and never did, thank god), and there is a passage in which I describe my feelings for him:

I couldn't concentrate on your class anymore, got nervous when you were around, didn't know what to say to you anymore. I was shaking all over when I was taught by you; it was that bad. At one point I even stopped eating during the big break on Wednesday before we had your class, simply because I was too nauseous to do so.

I'm not sure where these feelings came from. Maybe I'd forced myself to feel that way, maybe not eating was what actually made me nauseous, maybe there was a part of me that was actually in love. I wonder if you're supposed to be on the verge of puking when you're in love though. I've never had that with girls. Maybe I confused anxiety for being on cloud nine. In my letters, I already comment on the fact I didn't even really know John, like here:

By the way, do you know that I don't even know you at all? I have a kind of ideal image of you, but maybe you are a bastard, or unsanitary or not at all looking for the marital life. At least I'm sure you're straight. Sigh. All the things I made up about you...

Yeah, I was sure he was straight. Me, on the other hand... Also, that is pretty sad to be the one thing you're sure of about the Love of your Life. In another letter, I write about the fact he hated little kids, and being someone who definitely wanted to become a mom, I just shrugged that off, saying it would be different if they were our babies. In a way, I'm such a Lorna Morello. I couldn't picture myself with a guy my age because they were a) annoying and b) they wouldn't be ready to settle down and get married. Hilarious. Apparently, guys were people you married and had babies with, because what else would they be good for?

I was always repulsed by real-life man/female relationship dynamics as well. I could never understand what my straight friends liked about their romantic relationships. If that was what it was like, I figured, I'd rather remain single for the rest of my life. When a female friend was mistreated by her boyfriend, I'd often think: "If I was a man, I'd never do that to my girlfriend." In my stories, I depicted my ideal relationships, and they were never like any real heterosexual relationship I knew. Somebody once told me I wasn't good at romance because I wrote my guy characters as girls. Hilarious. Two years ago, I met an older lesbian couple while holidaying in France, and I was strangely curious about them. I just thought they were so cool. Obviously, that was what a relationship was supposed to be like. Yes, you can laugh at me.

With girls, I can imagine just wanting to be together for the sake of it, not for marriage or babies. I've often sighed, wishing men were more like women; how much easier would life be! If only I were attracted to women, relationships would be so great, and I wouldn't have to date men! I'm disabled, and I always thought that was the reason I was awkward around 'attractive' men. In hindsight, it's just anxiety. I'm much more comfortable around women because I just like them better.

The idea of men is nice, but once it becomes a reality, like when I went on a date or slept with this guy, it just disappoints, time after time. When I kissed this absolutely handsome man, I didn't really feel anything, and internally, I was like: "can we skip this whole tongue in my mouth part? I don't think I like it." But the sex was the same. He was an older man, and it was supposed to be a fantasy come true, only I had to force myself to enjoy it, even though he did take good care of me. I felt oddly detached, like I was watching myself having sex, and when it was over, I just wanted him to go and get on with my life. I did feel proud of myself for 'finally' doing it, and I told everyone it was great.

Now, I don't have any real experience with women, though for reasons I'm not going into at the moment, I'm absolutely sure it'll be better (boobs, am I right?). At my high school prom, two girls in my year made out passionately to put on a show for the boys, but I really think that none of them were as obsessed with it as I was. I've never wanted a relationship, though now I know it would be with a girl, I'm suddenly looking forward to it. Hopefully, after Covid, I can add a chapter to this book gushing about my first girlfriend.