Feel that gentle thump? That is me reaching through your screen and giving you a fairly hard tap on the nose.
Tell your parents? What for, when you don't know what you want yourself yet. Ye find a woman you want to spend your entire life with - then ye tell them. Not while you are still experimenting and playing the field. Gonna let you in on something that you probably really don't want to think about - both of your parents probably jumped the fence a time or two in their youth, or at least seriously considered it.
And seriously - obligation to the gay community? Sweetheart, most of the gays and lesbians I know flat out detest bi people (hey, I don't make the news, I just report it, and it is a generalization based on people I know personally). Screw them.
The only thing you owe your siblings is to be a rocking good sister. If sexuality comes into it at all, well, there is something wrong there.
The only person you have an obligation to is you. Get out, be happy. You are a nice person to worry about this, but pretty dumb too. Making yourself happy is perfectly OK, as long as your happiness is not dependant on hurting others.
Got it?
PS - If you need a label, a good friend of mine uses sexually polymorphous, as it has no preconceptions attached to it. Though I agree with you on the labels thing - labels are usually limiting. More in how others perceive you than how you view yourself, but we all exist as a reflection of other people's opinions of us.
awesome answer. we worry so much about how the choices in our lives affect others, but this worry truly limits us from making the best possible choices for OURSELVES. hes right. live your life, be happy, be a good sister and a good daughter. the rest is nobody else's business until you are bringing someone home to meet them, and even still, who you choose to bring home is nobody else's business. they love you and want you to be happy, but they don't get to call your happiness on their definition. i've learned when it comes to family and my dating life, and i'm not dealing with LGBT issues, but the less i tell my freakishly overprotective family the easier it is for me to enjoy my dating life. they hate it, but i always say, if you wanna call the shots in someone's relationship, go get one. good luck, and dont worry be happy lol
There's only a few people who know of my orientation. My parents won't know unless I find a girlfriend and plan on a future with her. My brother knows, he seemed to have a hunch so I just blurted it out.
My advice is not to tell anyone if you're not sure. It's your business.
What comes to sexuality being fluid - it is. It's especially obvious when you're a bisexual and years go by. I'm at a very much hetero phase right now, thoughts of girls just don't do it like thoughts of guys. It's been just a couple of years when all I could think of was girls. Thoughts of how sweet it was with my ex girlfriend, dang!
My own decision not to tell people of my orientation is that for some reason people seem to think we bi people are incapable of staying with one partner, that we need to sleep around. My boyfriend says he'd be okay with me sleeping with a woman, but I find it unfair - if he'd sleep with a man, I'd feel jealous and betrayed. Call me old fashioned, if you want to, but these are my feelings. But then, I've never been able to see people as genders, but merely as other human beings. So if he'd sleep with a girl or with a guy, the reaction would be the same. :)
Ranty!