Was I ever straight or was it all comphet?

After a decade of trying to capture the boys attention in the playground, I found myself typing 'girls kissing' into YouTube. I never could have imagined what would come next.

I was ten.

I was in trouble.

A crime punishable by a month without access to a computer.

I was terrified my Club Penguin puffles wouldn’t survive and endured many sleepless nights until logging in to see they had in fact just run away.

It was a dagger to the heart.

As you can see, a lot of my internet searches were incredibly innocent. I wanted to find spaces online to play and nudge the boy I seemingly fancied on MSN. We dated for a magical 10 minutes before he got cold feet and dumped me in a series of panicked messages.

The highs and lows of young love, am I right?

After my dating misfortune with the XY chromosome, I got curious, mistyping my other favoured game ‘Stardoll’ for ‘girls kissing’ on YouTube.

Easy mistake.

I won’t go into the details of what I saw, but it involved two mouths and, let’s just say, I was bewildered.

I can’t say I felt a tingle or even a romantic twinge for that matter. To be completely honest, I’m not sure my young mind could comprehend such a thing. I was simply fascinated by a reality I didn’t know was available to me.

In a world defined by strict binaries and gender roles it never seemed like being defined by pure exploration or love was possible.

I was also little when my solo sapphic search transpired, so perhaps I wasn’t fully conditioned by the parameters of patriarchy yet, or consciously aware of the comphet that surrounded me.

Which, by the way:

Comphet, short for compulsory heterosexuality, is the idea that people are pressured to live by heterosexual norms and behaviours, even if they don't want to. It's based on the idea that society is heteronormative and patriarchal, and that this leads to people being forced into heterosexuality.

Something that Disney and Pixar have a lot to answer for.

Many of their stories following the simple equation: Girl meets boy. Girl and boy fall in love, they live happily ever after. The end.

Here’s an example of some wild comphet:

Human woman falls in love with a bee? Yikes. But they’re straight? We’ll allow it.

After countless animated romances between beast and woman, or just your average man and woman, I didn’t think there would be anything wrong with me searching two women kissing.

I logged off absentmindedly, threw on my muddy boots, and dashed down to the park to play until the last light of day kissed my skin.

Unaware of the bin fire I’d started and left behind.

Let’s just say, my Google search alarmed some people.

*cough cough* my step dad of that time.

*cough cough cough* who my mum divorced a year later, only to host the most iconic separation party known to man kind. Too right, I thought.

But before that, my search went down like a lead balloon.

You see, he was very upset with me.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought my potential interest in women could have been something we could have bonded over?

Alas…

We sat in the living room, awkwardly twiddling our thumbs, and avoiding eye contact at all costs.

Nothing too suss at that point, just your average experience of British hospitality.

That was, until the conversation ended as miserably as it began.

After a torturous exchange of words, all I felt was shame.

Shame in the bright red of my cheeks, hot to the touch like pools of lava swelling across my face.

Shame in the tears that made a bed in my lower lash line.

Shame in the tremors that rippled through my body like an earthquake.

Shame for being curious and for straying from the heteronormative script I’d been given since birth.

The humiliation did for a number of years instil a belief in me that two women being together was indecent (Insanity, I know), putting me on a path to carry a hefty dose of internalised homophobia that I’ve since unpacked and thankfully left behind (Phew).

That said, I still think about that conversation from time to time.

If it hadn’t happened then I maybe wouldn’t have spent 99.9% of my teenage years absolutely boy crazy. Obsessed with your average Joe, James, Charlie… [Insert other generic male name here].

Now, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right, it’s not healthy to exist in the realm of what' if’s. But, I think it’s fair for me to speculate what my early years could have looked like had I been met with curiosity and, ultimately, encouraged to be whoever I wanted to be.

I saw a TikTok video recently where a young girl dropped off flowers for her first girlfriend. Her mum mouthing nothing but encouragement from the side lines.

Needless to say, I wept.

Could that have been me?

I’ve had more situationships than I can count on one hand (not proud, just stating facts) and what non-committal, heart-wrenching flings with men have taught me most:

I, too, was incredibly emotionally unavailable.

Call it childhood trauma, or a sign of the times we live in. I think something in me knew that I never felt quite at home with a man.

17 years on from my ‘girls kissing’ scandal, I’m in a healthy, committed relationship with my girlfriend.

Much to Disney and Pixar’s dismay I didn’t meet the bee man of my dreams and much to mine my puffles never returned.

Despite all that, I think 10 year old me would be pretty proud of where we ended up.

- Should have stayed in the notes app