Perfect on Paper

by Sophie Gonzales

Okay, just because I’d happened to like a few girls in a row now did not mean I couldn’t like a guy.

“What is it with guys calling their girlfriends psycho? It’s an epidemic.” “If there’s one thing guys love, it’s an excuse to avoid accountability for their own role in causing the behavior they don’t like,”

Isn’t it more stubborn to use pronouns we don’t know, when our language caters to neutrality?”

The Q&Q Club’s reaction if I announced I was a girl dating a guy. The world’s reaction if I sat down at queer events and told them about my boyfriend.

do you think there’s a chance that—with Brougham and Brooke, anyway—you’re intellectualizing things so you don’t have to, you know, feel them?”

Maybe Brooke was a fantasy for me. One that felt exciting, and a little breathless, but, most of all, safe. In real life, though, she wasn’t my imaginary wife. She was my best friend, a real person. And in real life, I didn’t challenge her, or light a fire in her the way she needed and deserved.

Maybe I was just … fearful. Because if I liked Brougham, and he liked me, I could get hurt, the kind of hurt that unrequited love couldn’t compare to. Right now, I was sitting in the space between a sound and its echo. Brougham had asked a question, and I had to answer it. It was that, or keep dreaming about love, and working toward helping others find it, while never letting myself risk it.

But you weren’t a good person because you wanted to be. You were a good person when you did good things.

in some ways, we mirrored each other. We shared cracks in complementary places.

“Don’t gaslight her. What she’s describing is internalized biphobia, and bi’s didn’t invent this shit. Society sends us that message. We’re made to feel like we’re not queer enough to hang with queer groups all the time.”

Bi erasure and internalized biphobia

bi people are part of the queer community, and their identity does not change depending on who, if anyone, they happen to have feelings for or date at any given moment.