straight?

can someone identify as this and be into me?

I’mma be honest. I don’t think that if you identify as within the binary, whether that be in your gender or your sexuality, I don’t think it aligns for you to be into me.

In the past, the people I entertained... where they landed was never a subject of conversation. Never examined. But I’ve always been me—someone who skated by in the in-between, who couldn’t pick one side or the other in my expression, even if I tried.

Recently, some of the ones I’ve come across—the most considerate ones, at least—have said that the idea of floating in the in-between intrigues them. That, while they haven’t tried, it adds fuel to the fire for them to try. Maybe a dress. Maybe a skirt. I encourage them, of course. How could I not?

But do they mean it? I’m not entirely sure. Do they say it to give me the illusion that we’re closer in thought than we are? Do people ever really mean what they say—or is there always a means to an end? That is the question, I guess.

I don’t entirely perform femininity in the ways I “should”—so how could you? Someone who identifies with the gender they were assigned, as the sexuality that is accepted, celebrated in popular culture, the one thought to be the default. Why me?

I don’t powder myself in the ways I should. I don’t soften my edges just right. I don’t give you the version the world told you to want. So what is it that you see?

Because amongst the array of options, I see other girls. And sometimes, I pair them with the ones I’m talking to—like, this one would fit better. I’m not even entirely sure why I do it. Maybe because I see girls I think are hot, pretty, stunning—the adjectives I never hear.

And it makes me wonder: am I the one they settle for? For a week? Maybe a season? Until the one they want finally reaches back?

Or worse—am I a fetish? A stepping stone to discovering they don’t even really like women? Or not this kind of woman. That’s the thing, though idk if I am even a woman? Not the kind that slips through definitions. Not the kind you can easily show off without explanation. Not the kind your friends will “get.”

It’s hard not to feel like an experiment sometimes—like they want to try on the in-between, but never really stay long enough to know what it costs to live here.