success – Tiggy Upland

Dear Tiggy,

I went to an awesome liberal arts college with a great LGBTQIA community, but I never actually got involved. I have social anxiety – an unfortunate amount of time was spent being terrified of everybody – and I didn’t actually come out until the end of my senior year.

I feel like I missed my opportunity to get involved in the community in general, because now that I’m out of school it’s a lot harder to meet people and integrate into groups of friends. Any advice on how a twenty-something could get started on cultivating this area of life?

-M-Dizzle

Dear Tiggy,

I’m a woman in her mid-twenties who feels stuck figuring out whether I like guys or girls, or both. I feel like I’m getting too old to try to understand my feelings. It seems most people figure this out in their teens or early twenties. Heck, some people are married before they reach my age. I wonder if you can help me to not feel so worried and anxious about this. Thanks for your help, Tiggy.

-Andi

Ellen Albertini Dow, best known as the old lady from The Wedding Singer, died last week at age 101. She was a recognized, working actor — no easy feat. Did you know that Dow began acting at age 72? Do you know how many successful people were late bloomers?

You two see where I’m headed with this? That’s right: you can be successful bisexuals even though you didn’t come out of the closet when you came out of the womb.

There are so many people the same age as you, so many, who are still figuring it all out. In fact, I guarantee that the majority of people are still untangling and discovering their identity and sexuality in one form or another in their 20s. And 30s. And 80s — no lie, life throws you curveballs right up until the end. For cryin’ old loud, Bruce Jenner just came out as trans and he’s* a senior citizen.

In fact, yeah, let’s talk about Bruce. When he was an American athletic hero, when he was eating his Wheaties and guest starring on Silver Spoons, when he was marrying three times and fathering six kids and four stepkids, when he was Keeping Up With the Kardashians — during all that, do you think anyone looking at his life from the outside in had even an inkling that he was trans? No, ma’am. So why do you think you know what “most people” have sorted by your age? Don’t you think they’re looking at you and thinking the same thing? (Oh, and for the record, just because someone is married does not mean they’ve straightened out every last thread on the fringe of their sexual being. Just ask ‘em.)

I suppose you both missed certain opportunities in coming out after your teens. Everything we do has what economists call “opportunity costs,” i.e. choosing one path means not choosing another. I just hope you don’t find yourself stuck on the dock gazing wistfully at the wake of your (imagined?) missed boat. It’s sad to be the person who harps on a past age when they think everything would have been perfect if they were somehow different then. You’ve seen the cliché hetero man in a midlife crisis with the fancy car and the younger girlfriend? Ugh, don’t be that guy. You might feel like if you had come to your sexual identity sooner, life would have been an unceasing party of queer popularity. But you don’t know that. Your experience at that time of your life was the queer experience, just not the one you’ve been sold by TV and movies.

Instead of ruminating on some fantasy era, go after what you actually want. If it’s a relationship with someone of the same gender, then aim for that. Find practical advice on exactly what steps to take here, here, and even here despite the fact that neither of you are “older” by any definition. And if your worry is that all of your peers are paired off and no one is left for you, then breathe easy because this is utterly preposterous. (Actually, there are plenty of people your age who will be in the closet long after you’ve emerged.) I’m sure that once you begin to gather queer acquaintances, friends, and lovers, you won’t care a bit about what might have been.

You haven’t missed the boat. You are the boat. When is it too late to live your life authentically with likeminded friends? When you’re dead, and not one second before.

*Bruce uses the pronouns “he,” “him,” and “his” until he unveils Her.

Oh, Uncle Rico. It will never be 1982 again.

And, thank your lucky stars, it will never be 1988 again either.

Repeat after me: I am the boat.