sovay | But if you're lucky, you might find someone

Current Music: The Hunt, "I Can't Stand"

But if you're lucky, you might find someone

I don't think I have ever done a meme for Pride before. As expected, it is about half relevant to my life. I got it from

minoanmiss.

Sexuality: I have identified as bisexual since it was relevant; I also call myself queer. The shortest version I have come up with over the years is that I am interested in people, they come with the bodies they come with, and sometimes those bodies change. If the person changes sufficiently to the negative, the interest goes regardless of the body, i.e. when a former partner of mine became a stalker that pilot light just blew out.

Gender Pronouns: I use the female pronouns I was assigned at birth, but do not use them parenthetically because they are not an accurate signifier of my gender. I answer to singular they, but would have switched over to it full-time if it made me feel the most like myself. A conversational mix is comfortable but not compulsory.

Gender: BLARGH.

Relationship Status: The fact that I have two husbands will almost certainly never cease to be hilarious because I expected for most of my life not to marry or even be partnered with anyone at all.

Celebrity Crush: None. I have been at great pains since elementary school to explain that I am not attracted to people I don't know and celebrities by default fall into that category.

Crush: None. I have never been sure how a crush is meant to be differentiated from an attraction in any case.

Best Friend: I did my best to dodge this question all through middle and high school and in college it blessedly faded from social importance. I suspect I have several. I am married to a couple of them.

When I came out: Insofar as I did, my senior year of high school. It came up more conversationally than as any kind of announcement. I am not sure it was very surprising to anyone.

First Person I Came Out To: My parents, because it was tremendously awkward to be dating one person while attracted to another and I wanted some advice on the situation; it was almost incidental that one of these people was male and the other was female except that the latter was the first person for whom I felt physical attraction and the former was the person I was unfortunately dating. Part of the reason I credit the idea of knowing one's sexual orientation before the experience of sexual attraction is that I had never assumed I would be attracted to anyone, but once it happened I did not then expect an exclusive attraction to women; the notion of an exclusive attraction to any gender already made no sense to me.

First GF/BF: Rather thematically, I should not have been dating the person I dated in high school because our relationship was a product of heteronormativity: he was my best male friend and he asked me out and in the absence of experience to the contrary, I assumed that was all that was necessary. He almost broke up with me at the end of our first week because I was not sufficiently girlfriendish and I should have agreed with him. Instead we lasted through two proms before I finally broke up with him. The entire thing was appallingly like a '50's melodrama right down to the revelation of what it was like to be around someone who made my brain turn to lemon pudding while romantically-socially bound to someone with whom I had less chemistry than wet papier-mâché. I have never made the mistake again. [edit] If this question is asking about my first queer relationship specifically, we celebrate our twelfth anniversary this year.

First heartbreak: Yes.

Crush on a straight person: Reciprocated, even.

Fallen for a friend: All of my romantic relationships have developed out of friendships.

Cool straight friend: Er . . .

choco_frosh? Some people who are not on DW?

Cool queer friend: Most of them? I am not generally friends with people if I don't think they are cool.

Person that made me doubt my sexuality: In the sense that I first read this question, no one. I have had difficult interactions with both queer and straight people about the validity of my sexuality, but I have always thought they were wrong. In the sense that this question is conventionally meant, also no one. I would have been a lot more surprised to turn out to be straight.

Am I proud of my sexuality: In the sense that I like it and am not ashamed of it, yes, although it doesn't feel especially like something I can take credit for.

Am I comfortable with my sexuality: Yes. It has never given me any stress in itself. I am frustrated by some things about my body, but that's different.

Describe myself: I rather like

selkie's address of me as "gentlethem."

My queer hero: I have no idea. It is not a way I necessarily think of people. Based on glancing over my shoulder at the number of volumes on my office shelves, Derek Jarman and H.D. look like strong contenders, although the counterpoint is that I own almost everything by Mary Renault and I would not exactly call her my hero. Alan Turing was talismanically important to me in high school and has never really stopped being so.

Favorite part of being queer: My godchild appears occasionally to regard me as a queer elder, which is tremendously fun.

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You are certainly the only parent-caliber adult they don’t regard as Truly, Regrettably Deficient, Touched By The Gods, We Must Pity Them.

*gently plants a li’l climbing vine next to the rock under which your gaydar summers*

I can tell I am one of your several best friends because you get so ornery when I have heart attacks. *hugs* Edit: also your dossiers of my enemies
Edits: Also, also, I appreciate your embrace of meme culture here. I might make the child do the meme. BAHAHA.
Also also, also, I fairly-automatically say my favorite part of being queer is the ladies, except this has not been correct in any real sense for such a while. I will have to find a new conversational shorthand for "if I have ever wanted to express my attraction to you, odds are 10/10 you should find a good gender clinic."

Edited 2022-06-06 14:18 (UTC)

You are certainly the only parent-caliber adult they don’t regard as Truly, Regrettably Deficient, Touched By The Gods, We Must Pity Them.

It remains an honor!

I can tell I am one of your several best friends because you get so ornery when I have heart attacks.

Of course you are, but the entire situation seems rather more complex than the bestie jewelry a frightening amount of pop culture and advertising seems to suggest people actually wear.

Edit: also your dossiers of my enemies

Would I be any kind of friend at all without them?

*hugs*

Edits: Also, also, I appreciate your embrace of meme culture here. I might make the child do the meme. BAHAHA.

Offer them the opportunity! Excellence or serious injury!

Also also, also, I fairly-automatically say my favorite part of being queer is the ladies, except this has not been correct in any real sense for such a while. I will have to find a new conversational shorthand for "if I have ever wanted to express my attraction to you, odds are 10/10 you should find a good gender clinic."

You can still say the ladies, just with an asterisk!

Excellence or serious injury is their little mongoose motto. I shall display the meme to them once they have returned from their theyfriend's house. They're going to make ramen. [Minus: fedora unironically worn; Plus: first-chair violinist and all-around dorkface. I do not think they have talked to you about this one unless by email, but it makes a nice change.]

...you've always been so thoughtful about bringing me people's detached faces instead of pop-cultural jewelry, and courtly about hauling me off sit-surfaces, and I will prefer our mode of friendship until the end of looped time! (And refrain from biting you.)

I could go on saying the ladies, yes, but I don't want to limit or insult anybody, so I may switch to "the glorious pageantry of the human form" or something. I sometimes feel caught by a glob of amber about the whole thing.

Excellence or serious injury is their little mongoose motto.

It really is true.

[Minus: fedora unironically worn; Plus: first-chair violinist and all-around dorkface. I do not think they have talked to you about this one unless by email, but it makes a nice change.]

I heard last year that they had a person (and I believe glimpsed said person briefly through the Zoom one of the times they came over), but if this is a different person, I have heard nothing! I would love to hear details if your child feels like delivering them.

...you've always been so thoughtful about bringing me people's detached faces instead of pop-cultural jewelry, and courtly about hauling me off sit-surfaces, and I will prefer our mode of friendship until the end of looped time! (And refrain from biting you.)

Oh, my God, I did bring you the heart of that jerk from the internet.

I could go on saying the ladies, yes, but I don't want to limit or insult anybody, so I may switch to "the glorious pageantry of the human form" or something.

I just meant that most of them were presenting as ladies at the time, it's not like you were misgendering them.

The human form is pretty glorious, when it, you know, works.

I sometimes feel caught by a glob of amber about the whole thing.

It can sit decoratively next to the rock under which my gaydar summers.

*hugs*

Sexuality:pansexual,demisexual,polyamorous

Gender Pronouns: I use he/him and they/them.

Gender: Demi-boy

Relationship Status: The fuck! I’m twelve!

Celebrity Crush: No. you don’t even know them, that’s weird.

Crush: no.

Best Friend: I have more than one best friend. Saige, Maya, Alfie and Arty.

When I came out: A long, long, long time ago. I think I was seven.

First Person I Came Out To: My Mama. Or my friends. I don’t remember.

First GF/BF: None yet.

First heartbreak: not applicable. My heart breaks every time the ice cream truck goes by.

Crush on a straight person: I mean, I don’t think he was straight, but he never said anything.

Fallen for a friend: Yes!

Cool straight friend: ummm. I have cool gay friends. Oh! Andy. He’s cool with people who can manage to deal with him.

Cool queer friend: All of my other friends/Saige

Person that made me doubt my sexuality: myself!

Am I proud of my sexuality: FUCK YEAH

Am I comfortable with my sexuality: Is anyone?

Describe myself: GAY.

My queer hero: Ann Bonny and Mary Reade (the gay pirates)

Favorite part of being queer: finding other queers, my special superpower

*all answers typed by the mongoose in question

This is the best. Thanks to both you and your child for sharing it!

My favorite part was their trying to figure out polyamory, orthographically speaking. We were polyamorphous for a sec there.
(They are so much more comfortable than I could ever hope to be. It’s very cool.

We were polyamorphous for a sec there.

I believe it.

My queer hero: Ann Bonny and Mary Reade (the gay pirates)

Very cool choice :)

They’ve waited their whole sentient life to be a pirate from the Golden Age, ever since seeing the leg-bone fragment of the cabin boy on the Whydah around age 2 (They’re a bit odd).

They’ve waited their whole sentient life to be a pirate from the Golden Age, ever since seeing the leg-bone fragment of the cabin boy on the Whydah around age 2

I will introduce them to my green-glass onion bottle from a seventeenth-century wreck in the Caribbean.

"Baby pirate bones!! A baby pirate also say yyyyarr?"

all answers typed by the mongoose in question

What a lovely mongoose your mongoose is.

They are! I thought it was neat that you and they had some similar answers, despite my not showing them yours until after they'd been surveyed.
(They seem to reserve 'best friend' for 'person useable as furniture in any social setting;' also, they are two inches taller than Alfie including Alfie's fedora and this has led to awkwardness because 'Alfie always lands their face in my BREASTS.' *files nails innocently*)

*beams and beams*

They're worth it. They're such a great kid even when they are in the midst of Teenage.

The best friend question is one I tend to use most for social convenience when talking to people outside my usual social circles, people I am not close with. My dental hygienist, or cousins I don't see much--people for whom the difference between "one of my friends" and "my best friend" will change the tenor of a particular remark but for whom I don't have the time/inclination to go into "when my hand was on my dying father's hand, her hand was on mine" or "this is the person I write a thousand words to every day" or like that.

This is beautifully expressed. Thank you. (I often refer to S as my best friend in, say, work conversations, despite the juvenile feel of the phrase. It's a bit reductive, in the way you have described, but quicker and more polite than "this person is allowed to touch me, stand behind me, witness my medical frailties, and offer me physical assistance in ways that will get other people bit.")

(I often refer to S as my best friend in, say, work conversations, despite the juvenile feel of the phrase. It's a bit reductive, in the way you have described, but quicker and more polite than "this person is allowed to touch me, stand behind me, witness my medical frailties, and offer me physical assistance in ways that will get other people bit.")

Don't forget "act as bodyguard, terminally confuse relatives for fun and profit."

Ludicrous amounts of fun, dubious amounts of profit. If I can safely contrive for you to be there at the moment the cornfield cracks wide, we will chuck highway litter down at everybody who gets consumed, while standing at the new high ground of the illegal septic tank lid.

OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO TELL YOU I WILL EMAIL YOU RIGHT NOW.
Friendship!

people for whom the difference between "one of my friends" and "my best friend" will change the tenor of a particular remark but for whom I don't have the time/inclination to go into "when my hand was on my dying father's hand, her hand was on mine" or "this is the person I write a thousand words to every day" or like that.

As a form of translation, that makes sense to me. I still don't have just one of them, which is another part of my traditional clash with the phrase and the assumptions behind it. [edit] I did not grow up with a model for one best friend, which I suspect of being relevant. My mother's closest friends were respectively my godmother, my brother's godmother, and our two god-aunts.

Edited 2022-06-06 19:24 (UTC)

Yes, my two examples were two different people.

Yes, my two examples were two different people.

I didn't assume you were talking about only one person, just thinking about my bristle reaction to being asked to name a best friend.

I've had two since the start of high school and am deeply grateful for them every year since. I just skipped the question.

I just skipped the question.

A totally viable option.

I am delighted and unsurprised by how thoughtfully you answered this.

Thank you for catalyzing!

blush Several of my friends answered and I thought it looked interesting. :D

I am delighted and unsurprised by how thoughtfully you answered this.

Thank you! I appreciate you being the vector for the meme.

Seconding Minoanmiss' comment!

Seconding Minoanmiss' comment!

Thank you!

Very fun to read. I knew most of these facts about you, but I like hearing you say them. I like "gentlethem" very much.

Very fun to read. I knew most of these facts about you, but I like hearing you say them.

Thank you!

I like "gentlethem" very much.

selkie mints excellent words and phrases.

Personal crushes, for me, tend to be people who I want to get to know better, who I find very attractive, but who also engage all of my "I am very shy and not nearly as cool as they are" reactions. Which is why I tend to try and avoid having crushes.

Also, thank you for some of these answers.

Personal crushes, for me, tend to be people who I want to get to know better, who I find very attractive, but who also engage all of my "I am very shy and not nearly as cool as they are" reactions.

Ah! I have had something like that reaction without the component of physical attraction. I always thought it was a manifestation of impostor syndrome.

Which is why I tend to try and avoid having crushes.

Legit.

Also, thank you for some of these answers.

You're welcome. If they are useful, I'm glad of it.

"Ah! I have had something like that reaction without the component of physical attraction. I always thought it was a manifestation of impostor syndrome."

It's that, too! (I have a lot of imposter syndrome.) It's multi-purpose!

Thanks for doing this! I've been enjoying everyone's answers to this meme--it's lovely to see all the different ways of being queer--but yours are as thoughtful and fascinating as everything else you write.

I've been enjoying everyone's answers to this meme--it's lovely to see all the different ways of being queer--but yours are as thoughtful and fascinating as everything else you write.

Thank you!

Alan Turing was talismanically important to me in high school and has never really stopped being so.

Oh BIG same.

"Gentlethem" is a great form of address! Semi-relatedly, I've long been fond of Fallen London's gender-neutral character option: "My dear sir, there are individuals roaming the streets of Fallen London at this very moment with the faces of squid! Squid! Do you ask them their gender? And yet you waste our time asking me trifling and impertinent questions about mine? It is my own business, sir, and I bid you good day."

Oh BIG same.

If I had a Turing icon, it would go here.

"My dear sir, there are individuals roaming the streets of Fallen London at this very moment with the faces of squid! Squid! Do you ask them their gender? And yet you waste our time asking me trifling and impertinent questions about mine? It is my own business, sir, and I bid you good day."

Squid!

I do like that..

"Gentlethem" is excellent.

"Gentlethem" is excellent.

I'm very fond of it!

Thoughtful and insightful, naturally.

"Gentlethem" is perfect.

Nine

Thoughtful and insightful, naturally.

*hugs*

"Gentlethem" is perfect.

Thank you!

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But if you're lucky, you might find someone

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