Are you straight or just lonely?

In 2019, I was a first-year commuter student with high hopes for my future years at UofT. I dreamt of being able to live on residence and do everything my two-hour commute time and unforgiving Go Train schedule prevented me from doing. Then, of course, came the COVID-19 outbreak, and my college-life dreams were shattered. I had missed out on dating and hooking up in my first year, so I felt like I had missed out on experiences that other people my age already had. Being a commuter made it hard to meet up with friends, or to participate in extracurriculars to make new ones. But maybe if I’d just made it work somehow, I wouldn’t be so lonely now. Maybe I’d even have a boyfriend. Now, with no foreseeable opportunity to cultivate a normal social life, I was sure that I would be well into my 50s without ever having kissed a man on the lips.

Then I realized that the reason I didn’t have a boyfriend in my first year was because I didn’t care to look for one. Several of my friends who were commuters like myself managed to fit plenty of clubbing, hooking up, and Tinder dating into their chaotic schedules. Meanwhile, the only non-academic plans I made when I came to campus wasto bring Tupperware on Wednesdays so I could hoard free pancakes from VUSAC.

In fact, romance with guys was never something I cared to pursue. In middle school, when my female friends swooned over One Direction, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I was repulsed by pictures of shirtless men, while my girl buddies squealed and blushed at them. I was proud to be a “quirky” straight girl who wasn’t boy-crazy like other girls my age. It was only when I got to high school that I started to understand I was not quite as straight as I had thought.

So, if I’d never been interested in relationships with men, why was I suddenly yearning to have one? While pondering this, I stumbled upon a public Google Doc—also known as the “Am I a Lesbian” masterdoc—about compulsory heterosexuality, or “comphet” for short. The guide explained that compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that our heteronormative society forces us to be straight. Women, in particular, are pressured to be straight by the sexualization in our culture, which teaches us to place our self-worth on our ability to please cis men. If we can’t attract male attention, or simply don’t desire to do so, then we’re told that we should feel empty, like we’re missing a crucial part of who we should be. This implies that we need men to feel complete.

When these messages are internalized, we begin to believe that heterosexuality is a default part of our identities and we lose sight of who we really are. Comphet thus makes it difficult for us who identify as anything other than heterosexual to feel valued in the world.

The sexualization of women is all over the media, and quarantine only makes it easier to be exposed to the toxic messages that the media spreads to women. Not long after quarantine began, I came across countless articles and Twitter threads about how to get a “quarantine glow-up,” all pressuring me to worry about how people would perceive me when I saw them again. I wanted to be that girl—the girl who turns heads when she walks into a socially distanced space, the girl who made her home a cocoon and emerged from quarantine a butterfly. The articles and threads had convinced me that all I wanted was for boys to flock to my yard as soon as the lockdown was lifted.

Being stuck at home also means having more free time to scroll through social media.  Many aspects of social mediaallow women to compare themselves to beauty expectations that are unrealistic, unsustainable, and unhealthy. Some days, I would spend hours on Instagram watching K-pop fancams, longing to look more like BLACKPINK’s Rosé. On top of that, my quarantine lifestyle consisted of snacking out of boredom, lazing around, and suffering the dreaded “maskne.” I believed that if I kept up this lifestyle, I would never be able to achieve clear skin and a slim body. Living in quarantine put me on a downward path away from the beauty ideals that social media taught me to aspire towards, and the further I drifted from those ideals, the harder I believed it would be to find someone who loved me.

It’s time we stop perpetuating the idea that the only way for women to feel loved and appreciated is to seek validation from men. To end heteronormativity, we first need the media to reflect the truth that not everyone is straight and cis. We need every medium, from movies and books to the news reporters we see on TV, to openly represent and celebrate all sexualities and gender identities. If we saturate the media with visible queer diversity, we can counter the heteronormative narrative by encouraging people to be comfortable with however they choose to identify. We need to end the sexualization of women that heteronormativity thrives on by challenging beauty standards in the media. Depictions of women have to stop pandering to straight cis male audiences. We need representation for fat women, women with disabilities, women with marks and blemishes, and women who don’t express themselves in a traditionally feminine way. By diversifying rather than sexualizing, we teach women that they are worthy of love and appreciation, regardless of how attractive men perceive them to be.

My sexual identity is like a pendulum. I swing different ways all the time. Sometimes I rest in  asexual bliss. And then there are times when I’m circling everywhere all at the same time. Quarantine has only complicated my journey to search for a label that fits, pushing me into a comphet trap that has invalidated all of my previous efforts to find myself.

When quarantine made me feel isolated and lonely, I believed that getting a boyfriend or hooking up with guys would make me happier. What I really needed was to love myself. I want all women to know that it’s okay if you live your entire life never having kissed someone. It’s okay if you don’t want what the media expects women to want, or if you don’t know what you want at all. Use your time during quarantine to pursue things that you’re certain will make you happy, whether that’s a Zoom chat with a friend, a board game with a family member, or a second slice of pie. No matter how attractive you are to men, or if you’re even attracted to men at all, you do not need anyone to feel complete. You are already whole.