Sorry if this is the wrong comm, but I had to get this off my chest. I am so sick and tired of dealing with bi-erasure. I am a bisexual man who is I'd say 90% attracted to women and 10% attracted to men. Best I can explain it, I am mostly attracted to women and occasionally attracted to a man. It really is that simple, but for a lot of people I might as well be explaining calculus. I understand if most straight people can't fathom it, after all they are straight. But what really irks me is when other LGBT people erase it, telling me I am "in the closet" or whatever. It makes me so damn angry because I am not in the closet, I am open about my bisexuality, yet no one believes it. I have only dated women, but everyone in my life off and online including my gf who herself is LGBTQ+ thinks I am gay. I'm so sick of it I think I'll either just tell people I am straight or become gay.
It's not that surprising. Try asking a grounded conventionally attractive straight woman to give online dating advice to a grounded conventionally attractive straight man and watch how the difference in lived experience just grinds the conversation to a halt teetering on the edge of mutual recriminations. The amount of times I've heard women tell men to 'try dating themselves first' (which is what they are already doing, dinner and treats etc.) is honestly hilarious.
People, for the most part, don't really go out of their way to imagine what the lives of other people are like, and therefore are only really able to empathize with people who share common backgrounds and experiences with them. As soon as they are confronted with real, substantial differences they just start to assume that the other party is lying, or exaggerating their problem. There is just a complete lack of trust and zero communication skills. Nearly total alienation.
Try adding in stuff like gender and sexuality and it just becomes an even more complex gradiated nightmare. Not that it should be if ignored, but it is a huge Gordian knot for modern discourse.
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Exactly! And, importantly, this social set-up is also mentally punishing for those that do their best to empathize because their genuine attempts to empathize are rebuffed with hostility or 'seen as weird', which is painful for those that are attempting genuine interactions.
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Lol, thanks. I was born with and have mastered one skill and that is multi-media observation with interpersonal and societal analysis.
To quote the great Glenn Braca, I'd sell out anytime but nobody is buying.
Word. The complete disinterest in empathy and understanding the Other that is so common in the real world is mentally scarring. Finding out so many people are totally indifferent to the suffering of people who aren't just like them hurts, and it keeps hurting every time I encounter it.