My mother told me that boys would fawn over me in high school, and my father told me to watch out for them. I grew excited, thinking of the fun I'd have and the dates I'd have. Adults at family gatherings asked if I'd found a boyfriend yet. Not yet, I'd say.
In primary school, I began to see this dream boy in other boys at school. I picked a new one every few months to stare at in class. My fantasies always followed things I read about or saw on TV. I wanted to touch hands and feel a spark, and to have that chance-meeting with that perfect boy. My future husband Alex, the one I projected onto the boys I liked. I never saw beyond a blank slate with those boys. Occasionally, it'd even be my best friends, who I'd even sometimes tell. It never went anywhere, and that was oddly relieving to me. Those feelings would vanish the second I was rejected.
The only two-way romantic connection I ever had with a boy was under the table in after-school care, a sheet drawn over the top of it. Our knees were almost touching, the blue carpet under us rough and uncomfortable. I believe I was in Grade 3, about 8 or 9. A boy asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes. Then he asked me to kiss. Discomfort flooded my body, and I told him he could just kiss my hand. I never spoke to that boy again, and soon after, he became my ‘enemy'. But not to worry, the whole time, my family and the media assured me that I would find my Alex one day. Most likely in high school, but maybe, like my parents, I'd meet him in adulthood. I couldn't wait.
I wasn't allowed to use the internet when I was a kid. Well, not without a lot of restrictions. On that whitelist, though, was an online game called Animal Jam. This was when Flash player was still up, and Flash-run MMOs for kids were at their height. I was ten years old, and Animal Jam with its kid-safe chat was my playground in the world wide web.
When I was ten years old, I met someone in the game. I was in another player's 'den' (their virtual house), and a fox avatar on a bean bag flashed me a heart-eyes reaction. I asked her if she was talking to me. She was.
At the time, I had a pretty androgynous avatar on, and she had her settings switched to seeing "animal names", rather than usernames. My username was aussiekoalagirl, which gave away my gender at the time, but I assumed she didn't know that. The two of us added each other as buddies. I went to her den, and we sent some more heart reactions to each other. I'd heard of people forming online relationships in the game, but this was my first "serious" experience with it. And it was with a girl. One day, after a lot of time spent together, she called me her boyfriend, and I was elated. I'd dress my arctic fox avatar very boyishly when I met up with her, and I even ended up giving her a fake name. Alex.
I lied to her for a while, my feelings were too real to just abandon this. But the guilt got too extreme, and one day I confessed that I was a girl and ran away. She sent me an in-game letter later, telling me that she didn't mind. I was elated, and we kept dating for another month before she stopped coming online.
And I still went on longer still thinking I was fully straight! Come on, Fern!!
A year after that incident, my best friend told me about a game that had come out a year ago. An indie RPG game called Undertale. Now I wasn't much of a gamer, but something about this intrigued me. So I agreed to watch her play it (Note: she used different pronouns back then, but out of respect for her I will not refer to her with the outdated pronouns). Long story short, there is a gay couple in the game that plays a major role in the plot, specifically two women. And that's when the concept that girls can like girls really hit me.
A combination of that, seeing a related Undertale character a few months later and getting obsessed with her and finding a cute girl at school made me realise that I was a lesbian. So, working up the courage, I told my girl friends at school about it when they asked who I was crushing on. Immediately, I knew it was different. The first thing they asked me when I came out to them was if they had a crush on them. Then, they started acting more distant. They stopped telling me about crushes and asking about mine, and I was the last one paired up when we went on the bus. This really spooked me, and so I didn't tell my parents I was a lesbian for many months after for fear that they'd act the same way.
In a new year and a new crush, I told them. They'd asked me if I liked anyone at school and I urged them to guess. After many guesses relating to my close male friends, they asked if it was a girl.
Now, my family took it well. Everyone in my family that found out didn't seem to mind at all, and I've never experienced any bigotry from them. In that sense, I am very lucky.
But I was definitely treated differently.
No longer did people ask me silly questions at gatherings about my future family, no one ever told me that the girls in high school would love me. No one told me I was going to find someone great to love me anymore, and when anyone would refer to a group's future husbands or wives, I no longer looked on with my eyes sparkling. They weren't referring to people like me. When I looked at the books, movies and cartoons where the boy meets the girl, it just made me sad. All of the chance meetings I'd dreamed of were gone. Things felt hopeless for me.
For years after I came out, my parents insisted that things may change. But when they realised I wasn't getting any less gay, things didn't exactly improve. My mother told me once that she was upset that I wouldn't be giving her genetic grandchildren, while my father said he was glad he didn't have to worry about me getting pregnant. Both of them said that when I was far too young to worry about that.
There's a tangible difference in the air when you're not straight. The world isn't built for us. Almost every woman is raised with the expectation that they will grow up