I met my ex-husband as a teenager. We got married in our late twenties, had a baby and then got divorced. Now I have a girlfriend. Admittedly, being a divorced single mum in a queer relationship wasn’t exactly how I pictured my life as I approached my 36th birthday, but there is nothing about how my life is shaping up that feels particularly shocking to me. But, from the various responses to my relationship that I’ve received over the last year, it is clear that to some, it is.
While I love the ‘late life lesbian’ trope, I am actually bisexual. And, this is not the first time I have felt compelled to explain my sexual preferences since I got a girlfriend, and it will not be the last. For people who know me well, the surprise is that I have gotten into any relationship at all, not that my chosen partner is a woman. But it seems that people are fascinated by the idea of ‘going gay’ later in life. Questions I’m sick of answering include, but are not limited to: ‘do you prefer men or women?’, ‘but men and women completely different?’, ‘how many women have you been with?’ and ‘do you still fancy men?’
