Give It to Me Bi: I Have a Crush on a Friend. What Should I Do?
At this point, we're professional bisexuals. Give It To Me Bi is a bi-weekly advice column in your favorite Bisexual Killjoys answer all your questions about being bi+.
Q.
Dear Bailey & Jace,
I’m a 36 year old cis woman and I’ve recognized my bisexuality for all of my adult life. However, I’ve never dated or had sex with a woman. I guess I was socialized to date men and am comfortable with that. I’m also aware of overly sexualizing women in our culture and I don’t want to do that which makes it hard to approach women at all. I’ve been on dates with and kissed women, though.
About 6 years ago, I got out of an abusive relationship with a guy and I’ve been on dates since but haven’t seriously dated anyone.
I recently developed a crush on my friend of about two years who is a woman who also is bi+ and is more sexually experienced than me with women. We don’t live in the same city so when we see each other I’m always gearing up to tell her I like her but always lose my nerve. Honestly, I really enjoy being her friend and just am nervous about the potential of rejection, having almost no experience with women, and ruining the friendship. Plus, since we’ve been friends for a while, I don’t know if we can casually date at this point.
How should I go about this? We met on HER so I feel like she was probably attracted to me at one point...
Any advice for me?
Crush on a Friend
A.
Dear Crush on a Friend,
This is a very bisexual dilemma. There’s desire here, but there’s also a real awareness of what’s at stake emotionally. You’re not spiraling because you’re confused. You’re spiraling because you’re thoughtful and you don’t want to hurt anyone, including yourself.
You’ve known you’re bi+ for a long time, but you’ve mostly dated men, and that matters…but not because it disqualifies you from anything (babe, it really doesn’t), but because it shapes how much weight you’re putting on this crush. When you don’t have a lot of lived experience with women, it’s easy to let one connection start carrying way more meaning than it needs to. Suddenly this isn’t just “Do I like her?” “What if this is my only chance?” “What if I mess it up?”
That’s a lot to put on one person.
You are allowed to want women without knowing how it’s “supposed” to go. You’re allowed to be attracted without being particularly smooth about it (but who is when it comes to dating?). Bisexuality is not a skill you level up in private and then debut when you’re confident. It’s something you learn by being a little awkward in real time. This is something that a lot of women I meet are afraid of (i.e., being awkward), and that’s what’s keeping them from kissing ladies. If I may be so crass: Be weird; kiss bitches.
Your concern about sexualizing women isn’t a sign that you don’t know how to desire them. You’re not treating this woman like an experiment, right? You like her. You respect her. You value the friendship. That’s not a barrier to intimacy; that’s a foundation for it.
At the same time, I want to point out that staying silent doesn’t actually protect the friendship in the long run. It just means you’re carrying all the tension. You’re already doing emotional labor around this: rehearsing conversations, managing your feelings, holding back. Naming what’s happening doesn’t create risk; it just makes the existing risk visible.
And naming it doesn’t have to be dramatic. You don’t need to frame this as a confession or a turning point. It can be as simple as saying you’ve developed feelings, that you don’t expect anything from her, and that you care about the friendship regardless. That’s just letting her know where you are.
But here’s the part I really don’t want you to miss: this crush doesn’t have to “work out” to matter.
Even if nothing happens with her—because of distance, timing, or because she just doesn’t feel the same—this still counts as movement. This is you letting yourself want a woman in a real way, not just in theory. That’s huge!
And that wanting doesn’t need to stay attached to this person forever. In fact, it might be doing its job simply by reminding you that you’re allowed to pursue women at all. Including women who live closer to you. Including women where the stakes aren’t quite so high. Including women who don’t also carry two years of friendship and emotional history.
So if you tell her and she says yes, great. You can take it slowly and see what unfolds.
If you tell her and she says no, that’s not a dead end. It’s permission to take this part of yourself seriously enough to give it room elsewhere.
Either way, you’re not ruining anything. You’re learning how to let desire exist without immediately shutting it down. And for a lot of bi+ women, especially those of us coming out of harmful and toxic relationships, that’s the real work.
Regardless of the outcome, I’m very excited for you.
Take good care of yourself,
Bailey
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