Sorry, Lamia, I meant “guy riding a motorcycle wearing a leather jacket.”
Straight women go through stages where they date inappropriate-for-life-partner men.
Straight men go through stages where they date inappropriate-for-life-partner women.
From what I’ve noticed, gay people do the same.
Why should bi people be any different? Why does it hurt more when someone leaves you in a gender switch than when they just leave you for someone of your own gender? And going the other way as well - one of my male friends lost a girlfriend to another woman. Eventually, most people settle down with one person - why is the gender of that person the determining factor in their sexuality? The person I chose was male - does that make me less “slightly bi.”
Seems like bi people always get the short end of the stick in this discussion. “it was a phase,” “they weren’t really gay (or straight),” “it was only experimentation.” Gee, I’d get upset if anyone dismissed my former boyfriends in that manner.
When I was a kid (late 50s/early 60s), this was long before anyone was “out” in any way, so I didn’t really know any gay people . . . except for myself.
I’d heard about “homosexuals,” and I knew that they were all thin, blond, and effeminate, they lisped, plucked their eyebrows, wore lots of cologne and pastel-colored cashmere sweaters. They were all interior decorators or hairdressers and lived in Greenwich Village.
So even though I spent every waking minute fantasizing about other boys, I was definitely not “homosexual.”
But I had heard of transsexuals, and I got it into my head that life would be perfect if I became a woman. So for a few years, I had this secret dream of someday becoming a woman, marrying a man, and living happily ever after. Not that I actually felt like “a woman trapped in a man’s body,” but at the time it seemed to make sense.
It wasn’t until I went to college that I discovered that there were other gay guys, and that we were pretty much the same as everyone else, and we could actually enjoy being with each other without half of us becoming women!
I was in middle and high school before there were really any gay people, actual or depicted as such, on television, in movies, or in popular culture. The theory I heard at the time was that saying one was gay/lesbian/bi was evidence of “a phase,” “attention-seeking,” or “confusion.” AFAIK, everyone in my high school who said s/he was gay/lesbian/bi at the time still says so. I certainly am.
BTW, some of the people engaged in heterosexual behaviors in high school wind up identifying as gay/lesbian/bi, just as some who identified as gay/lesbian/bi wind up straight.
Does it have to be logical? It apparently does hurt some people more, and I doubt it would make them feel any better for to be told that their feelings don’t have a sound enough reason behind them.
If I had to psychoanalyze though, I’d guess that it’s for the same reason some people are hurt much more when their partner leaves them for a person of another race, or a person who’s taller or something like that. I think it’s reasonable enough to feel upset if someone you thought you were having a nice relationship with apparently decided to break up with you solely because of traits you can’t help, can’t change, and that they knew about from the very beginning. The message must often seem like not merely “You’re not right for me, so I’m leaving you for someone I think I’ll be happier with” but “I knew all along that you weren’t right for me, but decided to toy with you for my own amusement anyway until someone better became available to me.” This may or may not actually be true, but if that’s what the person being broken up with thinks then they’re probably going to be pretty upset about it.
That’s exactly what I said in my first post. There are people for whom bisexuality really is “just a phase” and who were “only experimenting”. (Or rather, I’d suspect that most of them truly are mildly bisexual but have a strong heterosexual preference that would make long-term same sex relationships unsatisfying.) If these people are honest about what they’re after then they should be able to have their fun without anyone getting too brokenhearted in the process. If they aren’t honest, they’re helping to perpetuate a very nasty stereotype about bisexuals. It’s not fair that some people will hold this stereotype against all bisexuals, but it’s also not fair that some people will live out this stereotype as long as it’s entertaining for them without regard for who might be hurt by it.
Yeah? I’ve heard things about triple C, but not that. There were mostly girls serving with me in Americorps*VISTA too, but we picked up male army reservists during our summer training instead. VISTAs don’t live together, but then I lived in an all girls’ dorm for 4 years, and there were only a few lesbians… all of them that I still know still are bi or gay so I don’t think it was a “stage”.
That reminds me of a goofy converstation I had with my ex-boyfriend. As I’m monogamous, me being bi was a total non-issue (other than the silly conversations about how we have drastically different tastes in women).
But I asked him one day, “So, if I dumped you for someone else, would it bother you more, less, or equally if I dumped you for a woman?”
His initial response was “Hmm… It would bug me more if you left me for a woman, because I couldn’t compete with that.”
To which I repsonded “But, with that competitive logic, if I left you for a woman it would be for something completely different, but if I left you for a man, then it would be because as man you were inadequate…”
“Oh…” he said, “Good point… Hmm…”
Anyhoo, I don’t know why your post reminded me of that. He and I had ridiculous speculative conversations sometimes.
Hee hee… I guess it’s more something we say inside NCCC. There’s definitely a lot of outrageous flirting, and some of the playing around (and dancing!) has a strong homoerotic bent. I think that it’s mostly just raging hormones combined with a liberal atmosphere and lots of attractive people of either gender. I’ve seen straight guys bumpin’ and grindin’ with each other, but a female friend of mine also made out with one of the gay guys one night, so who knows. There’s lots of lesbians in NCCC, but only a handful of gay guys, at least on my campus.
Btw, can’t resist, what kinds of things have you heard about NCCC?
Oh, things like if you were to go into basic training or prison immediately after your term of service was up, you’d do fine since you’d be completely used to people directing your every move… This was from someone who served in DC though, so it might just have been her campus that year - 1998-1999, I think, since she was doing a second year for AC*VISTA instead when I served.
VISTAs don’t live together, but then I lived in an all girls’ dorm for 4 years, and there were only a few lesbians… all of them that I still know still are bi or gay so I don’t think it was a “stage”.