I actually know a guy who thinks bisexuality is completely made up. Straight? Fine. Gay? Fine. Bisexual? FAKE.

He thinks that you are either attracted to “male” or “female”. But both or anything else is completely invalid.

Not the only absurd opinion he holds though so I wasn’t that surprised when he came out with this shit.

"If I have a preference for a gender, probably more so bi than pan right? "

Roughly, yeah, but that’s not a hard distinction, as you highlight in your comment. Identity labels can get pretty wibbly wobbly, even besides the “objective” definitions of the terms. Leaning into that fact is how I find peace with the indefinite nature of labels.

For instance, if I look at just the definitions, then I would probably be considered pan. However, I prefer to call myself bisexual, for a few reasons:

• Identities mostly function as an outward facing thing — cis-het folk are way less likely to know what pansexual means, and I don’t want to have to define stuff.
• I learned about bisexuality before I did pansexuality, so I have irrational emotional attachment to the label “bisexual”
• I prefer the bi flag. I made a dress in those colours once, and it looked like a regular nice dress. This is a silly reason, but that’s exactly my point.

I find it useful to think of identity labels as being a thing we wear, or use, more than something we are. This distinction between bi and pan that you highlight in your comment didn’t always exist, for example, but this developed organically through discourse. That means that someone could identify as bi, and later find that, due to the changing of word meanings, that pan is the one that fits them better, even if they haven’t changed at all during this period. This means that even people who find that they have labels that perfectly capture their identity may not always find that to be the case.

That’s why I like leaning into my own subjective preferences. It frees me somewhat from being beholden to the changing meanings of things. I can’t really form a stable sense of identity if I’m trying to cling to objective definitions, because they don’t really exist. I’ve had people tell me that I’m pan, not bi, but they can’t take my identity away from me. It doesn’t matter if the reasons for identifying as bi are silly and arbitrary, because they’re mine. I tried on that label for a while, and it felt right in a way that pansexual didn’t.

TL;DR: it’s okay to go by vibes

I ended up picking the bi label because im attracted to all (and null) genders but the attraction is different between them. I guess that’s “omni”, but I’m old and like the bi label more. The flag is also excellent.

Like you said, the distinction is mostly arbitrary and will differ between any 2 people. Whatever fits your vibe at the time, no reason you cant reidentify later.

As a bi/pan person myself I’ve always seen them as meaning the same thing, the difference is maybe in connotation.