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That's... pretty damn forward.
This seems like a great opportunity to use the "hide" function in the Photos app.
Such a tease, self_made_human, such a tease.
Hm. This seems to suggest to me that the big problem with this group is that they're cheating on women. In particular, STI testing is relatively uncommon among men who date women, and there's a lot of friction to start if you've never done it before. Or, if finding the answer would mean a messy obligation to disclose a compromising health detail to an intimate partner.
I guess it seems to me that they had every reason to be kind to you -- at least some of them found you attractive. You were offered multiple sex acts. Even after they clarified that you were straight, FG still flirted with you: "Such a shame," FG added, "especially when you're dressed like that." FG in particular seems like he had "elder gay" energy, and a kind of leadership over the group, and he specifically had something for you.
And even then, you came from related fields, and could talk about work. So you built a kind of camaraderie on that detail.
It also sounds like their objection to straight men in the bar was about them talking to women there, and you said you did none of that, and even slightly judged a man who was trying to do so. You went to a gay bar and let men flirt with you, and let them down easy... of course they liked you! For the same reason that women who try to be vague and polite when they reject men tend to prolong the interaction. The door could always be more open than you're saying. And gay men are quite reluctant to take "I'm straight" as an answer. "I'm bi" is an invitation to participation in adultery, "I'm straight" is a challenge.
Apparently late July/August has been "how are the _____ doing sexually?" time on the motte. And, as usual, I have no bloody clue how lesbians are doing, except that the one lesbian I was friends with in college was interested in gender transition. I think they prefer it that way.
There's some advantages to knowing op-sec, but there's also some strong advantages to recognizing when future you might be (probably) drunk or half-asleep, thinking with the wrong head, and making bad decisions otherwise, and recognizing that future you will not maintain the right level of op-sec and changing habits around that.
((That's not even just a photo concern. iOS will quite happily take screenshots if you hit the power and voldown button, and boy can you believe how easy it is to get accidental screenshots of stuff you don't want to be sharing with the hets.))
In practice, yeah, the problems that come with guys cheating on a woman with a guy is still some of the motivation. And there's a lot of other gay stereotypes about bi or closeted men, some of them moderately well-founded. The steelman is that even bi or closested gay guys who don't have and aren't looking for a woman still have some pretty significantly different behaviors than out gays do, and put different expectations on their romantic (or not-romantic) partners.
Trivially, if you're with someone that's not out, in their social environment, it puts a significant onus on you to dial down the flame lest you out them in turn. In gay social spaces, they're likely to be a lot less happy with a lot of more flamboyant behavior. Even without all of the frictions and concerns that a positive STI test result would bring to a het relationship, just getting a test done at all even knowing you're clean still involves a) talking to a professional about your sexual history, and b) doing something that's overwhelmingly advertised as important for the gay guys while you're talking to a professional about your sexual history, and having done it knowing that the professionals don't care about anything but the next break, that's really awkward from the closet.
Some of that's just blaming specific person or relationship issues on the identifiable trait -- especially in these fields, there's a lot of dramatically different expectations for how serious a hook-up's going to be open to becoming, even if I've seen almost every possible combination and direction for bi-on-gay pairs. ((Though there's some fuzziness on the edges of that. I'm not gonna say that bi guys are universally happier with the idea of a threesome, because that's probably not even remotely true. But even and maybe especially closeted gay guys will put a remarkable amount of effort into having a woman tangentially involved in ways that most out gay men will run away from.))
At a deeper level, I think there's some level of 'seen the elephant' involved in really coming to terms with being gay, specifically. But I can't say for sure, because I haven't been there.
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Oh no, he made it clear he'd be perfectly happy bending me backwards. Sadly, my yoga days are behind me.
My thoughts exactly. I wanted to give these guys a lesson in opsec.
Really? You're telling me this now for the first time. And here I was thinking he was being polite.
FG actually looked a lot older than he really was. I think he claimed he was 35? I was thrown off by the gray hair. I'm presuming he wasn't lying about his age.
A lot of memories are finally coming back to me:
They'd asked me how old I was. The answer made them gasp, "you're a baby!" Like, come on, I'm on the wrong side of 25. The youngest was HG, who I thought was younger than me, and I think he said he was 32. I was going to add the topic of twink death to my list of nosy questions, but FG straight up told me that gay men hit a wall after 30. That answered things.
(Am I a twink? Goodness, I hope not. Perhaps @Corvos can answer that, he's seen me in person, even if he's straight)
A lack of opportunity rather than interest! The first two people I thought were women were actually trans. I think a total of two natal women walked in, one left while I was still in conversation. The last one? You know how that ended.
I didn't mean to judge the old dude. He owned the dog, it had a rather painful looking wound on its back, and he wasn't trying to hit on the lesbian woman - he was telling her the story of how it happened. He was telling quite a few other people the same story too.
I'm sure that me being attractive had some bearing on their friendliness, but I don't think it really explains the whole story. Even the men who didn't make a move were perfectly welcoming. There's just something about me that has people opening up (it's a good trait to have in a shrink), and their behavior wasn't out of the ordinary (well...) when it comes to having good conversations with other pub goers.
It also seemed to me that their objection to straight men in gay spaces wasn't just the fact that were straight, or after women but other things:
They dilute the pool of available gay men.
They react negatively to being taken for gay men even if it's literally a gay club. I imagine the average chav wouldn't be as polite as me.
They have the potential to get violent even if the gay men are being gay without involving them. I can believe it.
I was indirectly exploring that with my questions about closeted men and bi men. I think that the gay men who actually get a kick out of "converting" straight men are a minority in practice. Sure, they definitely exist, but I doubt they're representative. In a similar manner, most straight men would bang a lesbian chick and brag, but you don't see the majority of us trying.
I think if I'd reacted negatively to FG's attempts at flirtation, instead of taking it in good cheer, he'd probably have desisted.
Neither do I. I assume they're working on project cars, or playing roller derby. I don't think I know a single lesbian, personally or online.
Interesting. Perhaps this relates to their non-use of Grindr: my understanding is that, like with straight people, young gay men are very app-oriented and non-commital. "Sleep around in the most friction-less (cough) way in your 20s" seems to be a pretty broad strategy for people who can pull it off.
Ah, fair enough. Not her scene, obviously, but my mother is the same way. She used to think of herself as an introvert, but I have been telling her most of my adult life how she's extremely extroverted, and people love talking to her. She talks about how when she meets someone who seems gruff or closed-off, she makes it a mission to get them to laugh.
I guess this was my point -- you made it easy to keep going, and that made you fun to talk to!
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