National Coming Out day! I’m bisexual and a cisgendered woman. I’m married to a man, have another male long-term partner (who is sadly long-distance), and have dated women both seriously and less seriously at various points in my life. I will likely date women again and possibly also non-binary folks in the future, if I ever have time for dating new people again! Right now, I’m mostly (mostly-happily) drowning in work and kids.
(As a side note, it’s notable how Kevin and Jed both massively decrease my workload and stress load and open up time for me (they are very self-sufficient guys, which helps), and presumably other relationships would do the same (yay, poly), but of course, new relationships are notorious time-sucks, and also it takes a while to figure out, generally, if these new people are also making your life better / easier or not. So even if the net effect on my life of other romantic relationships would be positive, the short-term time investment can feel unmanageable. I think that’s probably a fallacy. When I first met Jed, almost the first thing I said to him was that I didn’t have time to date him. Oops. Thank god we ignored that.)
(Side note two: the above also applies to friendships, though I am trying harder this year to both pay attention to established friends and at least open doors a bit for new friend possibilities. Meeting for coffee / wine is one of my new favorite things this year, as it is a lovely one-hour manageable moment in my life, and generally yields positive results in net happiness.)
(Side note three: I don’t really think of all my relationships as cost-benefit calculations, despite what you just read. But our time on this earth is short, and sometimes, time pressure just creeps into everything. Also, I overthink things!)