Entry tags:
all the social interaction yesterday omg
So. Yesterday I did all the things. (Seriously, I was on the internet barely at all, which is why I've been so slow with comments and things over on the main blog. Lab meeting, terrifying neuroscience seminar I spent the first hour of wondering whether I'd ended up in a gruadate class by mistake, first classes of the semester--all that kind of stuff. It was a good day, just very very busy.)
One of these things involved visiting my campus queer organization. You know, the one I've been anxiously sniffing around the edges of for the past year and a half. (I was not sure whether I was welcome--the acronym they use is LGBTQA, yeah, but the "A" stands for "Ally" which is massively depressing. And of course I can never be sure that anyone will count me as queer, so it's always possible I fit under none of their categories.)
They were very nice. And in fact, more or less by accident I ended up attending their mixer on Sunday wearing my "Asexual: Confusing the fuck out of your gaydar like a boss" shirt, for which I got several compliments. Which was pretty awesome in and of itself, really.
So yesterday I wandered over to the actual first meeting. One of the people behind me explained the A on the acronym to a freshman as "asexual" while we were waiting for the meeting to start, which was heartening and depressing simultaneously. (They haven't actually changed it--still stands for "ally". She was just confused.) There was a lot of emphasis made on not policing anyone's identity or telling anyone what they were, which I found comforting, and I tentatively like the officers.
The one thing that did bug me was this: we were doing a icebreaker activity, this game called "Where the Wind Blows" where you place a bunch of dots around in a circle, and everyone stands in front of a dot except one person in the middle of the circle. The person in the circle was supposed to call out a trait that applied to them, and everyone who that trait also applied to was supposed to try to run to a new dot. The last person with no dot then became the person in the circle, and they got to call out the next trait. All well and good. (We were specifically asked not to call out "All the gay people!" or anything like that in case people didn't feel comfortable with a particular label yet or were confused.)
Someone called for "all the people who are single and ready to mingle!" Which.... uhhhhh. Define "single." I have two zucchini--am I single because I don't have a romantic partner? What on earth does "ready to mingle" mean? Is it supposed to mean you're looking for someone to date?
I think I ended up waffling and choosing to stand in place, but it was confusing. I'm not used to trying to fit myself into the "single" vs. "dating" dichotomy any more, not least because it feels like it doesn't really apply.
One of these things involved visiting my campus queer organization. You know, the one I've been anxiously sniffing around the edges of for the past year and a half. (I was not sure whether I was welcome--the acronym they use is LGBTQA, yeah, but the "A" stands for "Ally" which is massively depressing. And of course I can never be sure that anyone will count me as queer, so it's always possible I fit under none of their categories.)
They were very nice. And in fact, more or less by accident I ended up attending their mixer on Sunday wearing my "Asexual: Confusing the fuck out of your gaydar like a boss" shirt, for which I got several compliments. Which was pretty awesome in and of itself, really.
So yesterday I wandered over to the actual first meeting. One of the people behind me explained the A on the acronym to a freshman as "asexual" while we were waiting for the meeting to start, which was heartening and depressing simultaneously. (They haven't actually changed it--still stands for "ally". She was just confused.) There was a lot of emphasis made on not policing anyone's identity or telling anyone what they were, which I found comforting, and I tentatively like the officers.
The one thing that did bug me was this: we were doing a icebreaker activity, this game called "Where the Wind Blows" where you place a bunch of dots around in a circle, and everyone stands in front of a dot except one person in the middle of the circle. The person in the circle was supposed to call out a trait that applied to them, and everyone who that trait also applied to was supposed to try to run to a new dot. The last person with no dot then became the person in the circle, and they got to call out the next trait. All well and good. (We were specifically asked not to call out "All the gay people!" or anything like that in case people didn't feel comfortable with a particular label yet or were confused.)
Someone called for "all the people who are single and ready to mingle!" Which.... uhhhhh. Define "single." I have two zucchini--am I single because I don't have a romantic partner? What on earth does "ready to mingle" mean? Is it supposed to mean you're looking for someone to date?
I think I ended up waffling and choosing to stand in place, but it was confusing. I'm not used to trying to fit myself into the "single" vs. "dating" dichotomy any more, not least because it feels like it doesn't really apply.