How to Tell Someone You're Bisexual

When you are accepting of your own bisexuality, it may be time to tell friends and loved ones that you're bisexual. Having friends and family members who understand you and know that you identify yourself as a bisexual may help you to feel that you live in a supportive environment. By preparing thoughtfully to tell someone about your bisexuality, you can make the conversation an affirmative process.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Decide in advance who to tell about being bisexual. It is a good idea to begin with someone who is likely to be supportive. Since being bisexual does not necessarily imply that you will act on your attraction to members of one gender or the other, you may decide, with some friends and acquaintances, to handle the information on a need-to-know basis.

2. Consider speaking to a counselor or a close and trusted friend about whom to tell and how to tell them. For instance, if you still live with your parents and you are just beginning to come to terms with your sexuality, a counselor might advise you that you do not necessarily need to share every piece of information about your life with people who still have considerable economic and legal power over you.

3. Express your comfort with your sexual orientation. Let your friends or family members know that you are having this conversation not because you feel a need to explain yourself, but because you care about them and you want them to know who you are.

4. Affirm the fact that you find people attractive without regard to their gender. You may also want to explain that attraction is not the same as acting upon attraction. If you are currently dating a member of the other gender, accepting your bisexuality does not require you to start dating members of your own gender on alternate nights. In fact, it does not require you to do anything.

5. Speak calmly and rationally about being bisexual. Try a little humor if it feels appropriate. When all else fails, there is always chestnut from the old Wood Allen movie: "The good thing about being bisexual is that it doubles your chance of a date on a Saturday night."

Tips & Warnings

• You may find that friends and family are unfamiliar with what it means to be bisexual, and it may fall on you to educate them. If it is worth the effort to tell someone you're bisexual, it is probably worth taking the time to help them understand what bisexuality does and does not mean.
• It is natural to be stung emotionally by a negative response from someone whom you've told that you're bisexual. Try to be patient with your friends and loved ones, because you may find that your honesty with them is the push that they need to become gradually more accepting and tolerant of others.