This is basically my "coming out" story; it's cadged from two separate posts I made in my blog.

The initial post (edited to make more sense in this context, and to reflect that it's a past event):

Many of you know that I'd been yakking about figuring out whether or not I am in fact, bi, ever since my wife and I decided to open our marriage. I never discussed it with anyone but her prior to our deciding to try polyamory, as it seemed likely to remain moot. However, once we had opened our relationship to the possibility of other lovers, it suddenly became permissible for me to experiment and actually figure it out. I wasn't overly concerned about it; I supposed that I would eventually figure it out when the opportunity presented itself ("it" being the comparison of fantasy to reality). Said opportunity presented itself back in early March of 2002. I had a very, very nice time with two good friends. Now, in all honestly, I now this really wasn't a big deal, but it certainly felt like one for some reason. It also felt weird to me to just suddenly announce "hey everyone. guess what?". On the other hand, it does appear to be a genuine part of my sexuality, despite my realizing it at the age of 36.

The second post, made to a community blog:

The basics: I'm male, 36, married for ~7 years, married polyamorously for a little over a year... ...and self-identifying as bisexual for about 10 days.

I just started to self-identify as bi last week, after finally having a comfortable opportunity to find out how much my imaginings were matched by reality (pretty closely, for the most part). I've been "trying to figure out" whether or not I'm bi for a number of years now. For me , the transition point from "am I" to "I am" was having sexual contact with another guy & enjoying it enough to want to continue having that sort of contact as a regular part of my sex life. I seem to have managed the transition fairly easily; my wife is bi, and many of my friends are also (this is one of the benefits of being poly in the Bay Area, I suppose) - this gives me a fairly large group of people that I can talk to about this.

But it's really hard to get this stuff across coherently in a conversation. Hence this post.

There are some things that are surprising me - and I'd like to hear any relevant feedback that anyone would like to post. When I first started considering trying to find out if I actually enjoyed this sort of thing (it coincided with my wife & I trying to figure out whether or not we wanted to attempt being poly), I spent a lot of time thinking about what it was that was drawing me toward this. My conclusion at the time was that it was essentially narcissistic - men's bodies for the most part didn't really do much for me, and most of the fantasies centered around specific sexual activities, not around the people. I figured that if I actually got around to having sex with another guy, that's how it would be - not much other incidental touching, certainly no kissing. I figured that I'd likely not be interested in a "big R" relationship with another man, given that the interest is narrowly focused sexual gratification.

In fact, that's pretty much how it was, as the fellow involved (an old friend of mine) pretty much is that way.

However, in the intervening days, I've been thinking about this a lot. I've certainly never been adverse to being affectionate with my male friends (I'm very touch oriented, and pretty secure in myself - hugs, massage, and such have never been a problem), and the restrictions (for want of a better term) that I detailed above seem kind of silly. While I'm not actually seeking out a romantic relationship with a guy, I can see how it could happen, though I've no idea how likely it is. And as far as I can tell, I don't think that I'm as "restricted" physically as I thought I would be. And that's the main thing that is currently digging at me; I was dead wrong about where this would lead. I'm not all that worried about it - I do understand that this process is likely to take a long time, and that I'll go through some more changes in my thinking about all this - but I am certainly surprised .

Of course, it doesn't help that this whole situation has kicked my libido up a couple of notches (I assume it's due to the newness of all this), and that the extra horniness doesn't have any specific focus (this is really distracting) at the moment - not that I'd likely have the chutzpah to directly act on it if it did. So I'm a bit frustrated, as well.

So - that's the story, so far. Things have progressed. I still don't have any major relationships with other men, but the possibility is still there. And I've not suffered one bit of angst about this. It just seems to be a natural extension of how I already viewed myself.