The Girl From Spain (girlxgirl)

Day 10: Mila/Sally

Being an outed bisexual woman was weird.

To Camila's relief, everyone, even her most conservative relatives, had accepted her sexuality in the blink of an eye. It was only now that she was beginning to realize that the people in her surrounding didn't treat her exactly like she wished.

She was on the train back to her parent's place, which was her current but temporary home, her mind busy evaluating the conversation she had led with some of her friends earlier.

There were two options: Either they had forgotten that she wasn't straight, or they had decided to ignore that.

The question, "Have you met any guys in the UK?" objectively wasn't a big deal and there certainly weren't any bad intentions. But when Camila thought back to how many times people she was outed to had assumed she either was with a man or wanting to be with a man, she was a little shocked.

She wasn't like Sally, mentioning her sexuality immediately and over and over again to make sure no one could forget it. But maybe, she should be a little more like her. Because frankly, even though she was aware of how privileged she was, she felt invalidated.

Upon telling her friends that she had indeed met someone - a woman, they had been so surprised that she had needed to out herself a second time.

Even though she had said the words, "I am bisexual", seconds ago, one of her friends had immediately asked, "So, you are gay now?"

No. She wasn't gay, she wasn't straight. She was bisexual, regardless of who she was currently dating or having feelings for. Honestly, she didn't know who she would end up with. Male, female, nonbinary; she didn't know and didn't care. Currently, it was hard seeing anyone by her side that wasn't an infuriatingly beautiful, blonde Brit.

Being fully accepted as bisexual was still important to her. Especially as recently, Camila had understood just how much she had been pushed towards heterosexuality her entire life.

When she had told her mother she liked a boy from school at the age of 12, her Mum had squealed and enthusiastically started a conversation about first crushes. When, a couple of months later, she had told her Mum the same thing about a girl, there barely had been any reaction. "Why don't you invite her over some time?" had been the reply. "Maybe you can become friends."

Young Camila had been so confused with her feelings, she had only managed to say she liked the girl as much as the aforementioned boy. Her Mum had only smiled. "Nothing wrong with boys and girls being friends."

These sorts of things had happened all the time. As a teen, Camila had continuously mistaken crushes for simply liking a girl. Only with 20 years, she had accepted her label and announced it to her loved ones. By then, she had been so used to dating men, the idea of meeting and asking out women had been insanely intimidating.

What angered her the most was that people, even after the outing, just seemed to assume that her attraction for women would fade away, that she would marry a man, own a house with a garden and a set of swings and have at least two kids.

She had heard these predictions all her life and as a young girl, she had nodded along. She was supposed to want all that so she probably wanted it.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized she didn't. House - maybe. Garden - obviously. Kids - most likely not.

And she didn't care for the pressure. Camila didn't want to be pressured into being married at 30 to a person with a dick, she wanted to live her life and see which opportunities presented themselves.

She was fully convinced that the weirdly normalized pressure made women do one of the worst things they could do. Settle. Settle for less than true love, for less than what they want, for less than what they deserve.