But Bette was never one to fear knowing herself, or at least examining her innermost self to find out who she was. So she started wondering, early on,
what was wrong with her love life or lack of it. It wasn’t long before the
obvious concern, one of many perhaps, circulated within her mind. Was it her
orientation, she wondered. How could it be? She had never had such an
experience with a woman, and yet, she knew that her only friendships where she
felt very strongly about another person were with women. Even with platonic
relationships it was always women who would catch her eye and arouse her
interest, on an emotional level, intellectually. But that’s different, she
thought- it wasn’t sexual. She found the whole idea of homosexuality
fascinating from an academic standpoint. She felt strongly about “right” and
“wrong” and her Christian faith, the dogma and the traditions. Certainly, she
respected ***** people and had no trouble befriending them or working with them, the few she had met, but she struggled to understand.

One element she found troubling back then was the paradox, as she saw it, of this sort of love, saphic love- two women in love with one another could never really merge she thought. They could pleasure each other, and she had read about how, but never unite in that one, ever so important way that only heterosexual couples could enjoy, she told herself. She could not understand and this was her naive way of explaining to herself why this type of love could never be of her choosing. She thought it was sad, she thought it was unfortunate, and she thought it was utterly devastating for two people to be so in love and not be able to do the one thing they most desired- consumate their passion, their love, at least not in the way Bette thought was the only real, right or proper way for this to happen.

Then, as she got older, she was absorbed in forming her early career. She started to run out of steam in a way because while she kept moving that feeling was still there, that feeling of searching for this unknown element. She was unsettled deep within. The feeling was only becoming stronger. She thought that perhaps the right career move evaded her, perhaps the right person was waiting for her…somewhere, somehow.