There’s the impression people have of you, and then there’s how you feel about yourself inside. 4) People anxious to inform you of what you are usually aren’t the best listeners when it comes to discussing how you actually feel inside. 3) There’s nothing quite as unnerving as feeling misunderstood sexually. 2) Chatty, hopeful emails have an uncanny way of transforming indifference into repulsion. Disappointingly enough, I am one of them. 1) Some people are just flat-out straight. (I also felt horribly guilty when I’d get a chatty, hopeful email the next day that sounded like every chatty, hopeful email I’d ever sent to a man.)Īlthough my whole bisexual experiment was an abject failure, I learned a lot from it. Oh sweet god, the panic of that! As badly as I wanted to be a devil-may-care bisexual, I was just a very straight woman who not only wasn’t remotely interested in naked women, but absolutely hated being cast as the lanky, boyish heroine in these scenarios. The initial titillation was always fueled by boozy banter, but it inevitably gave way to awkwardness and a complete absence of desire on my part, paired with the uncomfortable feeling that I was expected to play the butchy conquistador. My boyfriend at the time had never managed to attract such pretty women, so he wanted to live vicariously by encouraging me to encourage them. I went through a phase where I kept getting hit on by beautiful women who assumed I was a lesbian. We all have lots of reasons for wanting to be something other than what we really are, too. Your parents, on the other hand, are just trying to be good parents. Some of the women are hoping you’ll be the gay confidant of their dreams, or maybe they want to be the one who gracefully ushers you out of the closet. Some of the men who keep asking you about your sexuality are probably just attracted to you. We all have lots of reasons for wanting other people to be something other than what they really are. My question for you is: is there anything I can do or change about myself that will stop all of this asking? How can I change the impressions I give on people in that context? And if nothing, am I really gay? I’ve never liked men like that, but you never know. The asking just kept coming, and it has now come to the point where I had a talk with my parents over Christmas about how “they will always love me, no matter how I live my life.” I have had enough. It still really hurt, but I tried to shrug it off as best I could. However, people I had barely come into contact with began walking up to me and asking if I was gay. I rejoined the chorus and began playing piano again, while joining the hockey team at the university, and I met my amazing girlfriend in the chorus and we have been dating since August. I left for college far away from home, hoping to maybe get a fresh start. It also didn’t really help my case that my best friend came out that he was gay senior year. It came to a point junior year that I had to have a “talk” with my football coach, since he had caught wind of the rumors and wanted to make sure it was okay that I was surrounded by men all the time. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, people would still assume and ask. I joined both the football and hockey teams. In high school, I tried as hard as I could to rid myself of the label people had given me. I found a great girl sophomore year and we dated up until senior year, but the asking still continued, some of which was coming from my closest friends. I realized after a while that most of the people asking me were genuinely curious, and it made me even more self-conscious. When I got to high school, the asking increased, as people noticed when I discovered fan fiction, the piano, and numerous other “non-masculine” things.
I can kind of see where they got their opinions of me, but it made me enormously self-conscious. I’ve never liked violent video games or talking about sex. I love to cook, and have been singing in school choruses since 4th grade.
#When everyone thinks your gay memes full#
My iPod is full of Ellie Goulding, Florence + The Machine and Norah Jones, but utterly lacking in Korn, Metallica or Aerosmith. I love to read and write, and a lot of what I read is somewhat romantic. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve never been the most “masculine” individual.
Back then, the other kids thought any person who was any bit different from them was gay, and attached a bad meaning to the word. I finally garnered the courage to write to you about my particular problem, and I hope you can shed some of your wisdom on the situation.Įver since the 6th grade, people have been asking me if I’m gay. “Does your soul ever feel, you know, not so fresh?” Appearing here Wednesdays, Turning The Screw provides existential crisis counseling for the faint of heart.