I've noticed that some people make assumptions about my sex, my gender, my sexual orientation and my sexual preferences based on the way I look, walk, talk, behave and dress.
In 2010, a bi-curious 21-year-old girl from an Eastern European country told me that I'm "visibly gay". I took it as a compliment which pissed her off because she had tried to offend me. She confided in me that she was straight and bi-curious only for one of her female friends. Prior to that I had wondered why she thought that she had any right to tell me that I should try dating and having sex with men. I explained to her that I don't feel sexually attracted to men and that it therefore would not make any sense to sleep with a man. After her "confession" I realized that she was dealing with internalized homophobia and that she had difficulties accepting the fact that she felt attracted to a woman. She was quite frank and let me know that she finds women's bodies far more beautiful than male bodies, especially from the waist down, but that she will only marry a man and have a family with him.
I remember telling her that I don't like people who are superficial and who have prejudices and put me in a certain category without even taking time to get to know me. She had expected that I always take the initiative and make the first step because of the way I look. In her opinion my outside appearance didn't match my inside (character). I found it very amusing when she advised me that I should either adapt my outside more to my inside (by dressing differently [more "feminine"], letting my hair grow etc.) or the other way round. Her reasoning was quite heteronormative.
She told me that her parents are homophobic and that they had warned her that she might get raped after she had let them know that she was going out to meet a lesbian woman. I had never heard such a negative and unfair prejudice. I explained to her that rape, as far as I know, occurs mostly in a relationship between two women and only rarely outside of a relationship.
What perplexed and surprised me the most was that she thought that I didn't like to cuddle. I love to cuddle - of course, not with everyone. :-) She told me that her first impression of me was that I'm cautious and reserved and that I appear to live in a bubble. We were on our third non-date and she already knew that I was going through a very hard time and that I was devastated because of a situation with my "best friend". Even though I don't like to generalize it's true that I can be careful and shy when I'm just getting to know someone and that I need some time to open up. However, some of my friends find it difficult to believe that I can be can quite chicken since I'm "such a confident" person in their opinion. I know that I can be very brave, forward, and assertive if I like someone a lot.
She claimed that she had told me things she had never told anybody before. I assume that she did because I didn't know any of her friends (so that her "secrets" were safe with me) and because she thought that she would probably never see me again since we don't live in the same country.
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