I never properly came out as bisexual – I spent too much time trying to work out how to flirt with women

I spoke to an impossibly beautiful Brazilian woman and my attempt to flirt with her began and ended with, ‘Your skin is quite oily so you will age well’

It’s easier to be open about it these days, but there were very few role models in the Nineties (EPA)

I don’t like to think I’m in a vastly different generation to my children because, dammit, that would mean I am old and I can’t be because I can name at least two and a half grime artists. I am a different generation, though, as I was reminded this week when my four-year-old daughter said to me, “Mummy, did you know that Sammy is a boy and a girl?”

Sammy is my children’s old au pair and gender non-binary. Sammy bought my children a beautiful book called My Princess Boy and my children have been enlightened by Sammy while their mother awkwardly shuffles around because she’s still not 100 per cent sure which pronoun to use when addressing Sammy.

I did ask Sammy once and Sammy said, “Either is fine.” But I think Sammy was just being polite so I just write or say Sammy’s name a lot when I am talking about Sammy. Here’s another one for good measure: Sammy.

My children inhabit a world where some of our friends are men who have husbands and some are women who have wives and both kinds of couples can make babies. This sort of information when I was a child would have blown my mind.

My awareness of homosexuality came from whispered rumours about so-and-so “batting for the other team”. Gay people in the Eighties were portrayed on TV as the camp-as-Christmas flamboyant men or the dungaree-wearing, short-haired Millie Tant from Viz comics.

I kept my own crushes on women very quiet in my teens. I wasn’t a lesbian, after all. I knew I wasn’t a lesbian because I went to bed every night imagining I was sleeping in Sylvester Stallone’s arms (as Rambo, not Rocky). So if I wasn’t a lesbian, and I fancied Rambo, then why did I have incredibly graphic thoughts about Wonder Woman and the girl who worked at 7-Eleven?

Back in the mid-Nineties, when I’d just left university and Time Out magazine was the bible for happening Londoners, I went to a meeting in a room above a pub in Holborn which was advertised in Time Out as a “weekly meet for bi Londoners”. I was beside myself with excitement that I was going to meet some real-life bisexuals.

I told my friends that the gathering was just a way for me to meet some new people in London. This was partly true. It was lonely being home from university. My friends had all skedaddled to the different parts of the country where they were from and got jobs.

I had no intention of getting a proper job. I paid the rent by working as a life model – it suited me as I could listen to the radio as I worked and I didn’t need to get a new wardrobe. But mostly the truth about the bisexual meetings was that I was hoping to meet nice girls to kiss.

I think some kissing went on that evening when we moved on to a lively gay bar, but sadly not by me. The other women were older than I was and seemed immensely confident about their sexuality. I spoke to an impossibly beautiful Brazilian woman and my attempt to flirt with her began and ended with, “Your skin is quite oily so you will age well.” I traipsed home on night buses alone, inadequate and frustrated and firmly in the closet.

It’s common now for straight women to talk about having a “girl crush”. They mean they like and admire another woman so much that they would fancy her if they weren’t totally into penises.

My “girl crushes”, however, have always meant I like and admire another woman so much that I’d like to hold hands over dinner, stare into her eyes and later go home and get all naked with no penis in sight.

But there were no “out” bi people that I related to at all back in the Nineties and I felt out of place in London’s lesbians bars. (Gay friends of mine now assure me that all lesbians feel out of place in lesbian bars.) I didn’t know how the dating scene worked with women. How do you even flirt with a girl? What if she’s straight and thinks I’m a total perv? Can I borrow her clothes?

Eventually, in my late thirties, I actually dated a woman. Some of my straight women friends immediately asked me about the sex and told me that they could possibly kiss a woman but would draw the line at oral. It occurred to me that when a friend has told me she is dating a new man, I have never dropped my fork and gasped, “Really? So do you go down on him?”

I have been marching for gay rights since I was 17. Despite all those years of marching and getting drunk at Pride, officially coming “out” as bisexual seemed like too much of a fuss. People make assumptions: “You’re bi? Oh. Well I hope you don’t fancy me. I’m straight.” If you have ever said this to me, please know I would rather date a penguin.