As someone who (a) feels like I'm not very good at reading people, and (b) lived in the closet for 25 years worried people might know something about me I didn't want to face myself, I'm interested in the scope and boundaries of this idea, and who it does and does not apply to.
Yeah I’ve been thinking about a lot of counterexamples since posting this. But do you know think people did in fact know you were gay when you were in the closet, or do you think you were successfully hiding it?
Hard to say if a 15yo boy calling me a faggot 'knew' anything about my sexuality. But many people even after college would assume I was gay when I wasn't. Or, well, 'wasn't': I was more in denial to myself than in a closet where I hid the truth from others. I worried I was gay, but didn't want to be. People assuming I was gay meant that I was acting the wrong way, or saying the wrong things. But also, there's no set way or ways to 'seem gay'. My whole thing after coming out was that you have to assume everyone's straight until they explicitly tell you otherwise. There's no hints you can accurately deduce anything from. Now in my 40s I'd revise that to: you have to assume everyone's queer until they tell you otherwise, which I like because of how it reframes heteronormativity as a secret many people end up revealing about themselves.
real!! " “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
As someone who (a) feels like I'm not very good at reading people, and (b) lived in the closet for 25 years worried people might know something about me I didn't want to face myself, I'm interested in the scope and boundaries of this idea, and who it does and does not apply to.
Yeah I’ve been thinking about a lot of counterexamples since posting this. But do you know think people did in fact know you were gay when you were in the closet, or do you think you were successfully hiding it?
Hard to say if a 15yo boy calling me a faggot 'knew' anything about my sexuality. But many people even after college would assume I was gay when I wasn't. Or, well, 'wasn't': I was more in denial to myself than in a closet where I hid the truth from others. I worried I was gay, but didn't want to be. People assuming I was gay meant that I was acting the wrong way, or saying the wrong things. But also, there's no set way or ways to 'seem gay'. My whole thing after coming out was that you have to assume everyone's straight until they explicitly tell you otherwise. There's no hints you can accurately deduce anything from. Now in my 40s I'd revise that to: you have to assume everyone's queer until they tell you otherwise, which I like because of how it reframes heteronormativity as a secret many people end up revealing about themselves.
i believe this! i think i even know the mechanism - https://x.com/ChrisChipMonk/status/1864380405690061270
Say more?
i suspect a lot of mind-reading occurs through muscle ~vibrations. (but it can also be jammed)
Makes sense