(no subject)

[sciatrix]

 I just got out of a really interesting conversation about queerness and community and access to easy entry points of community, and one of the things one of the participants in that conversation said struck me. They said that when they're lonely and looking to make specifically queer friends, they feel like the only way they have to do that is to use Tindr to find people to potentially date, and then maybe see if friendship comes out of that. Or maybe otherwise to go out and be attractive and potentially available, and maybe make friends that way. 

I'm sort of personally horrified by the notion, in part because it's so inaccessible to me and in part because that's some heavy pressure to be available and attractive in exchange for affection and intimacy. And I'm newly really grateful for the people in my life and the set of circumstances that has let them be here for me, both personally and in the aggregate. 

This isn't intended to be a judgement on anyone who feels that way or anyone who that idea would work for or anything. It's just a system that would not work for me, and one I'm glad not to currently find myself in. 

Comments

[lazaefair]

At some point I'm going to write up my theory of detoxing to explain the phenomenon I often observe where people who have been prevented from expressing a part of how they feel about something run into other people who agree and immediately overcorrect enthusiastically in the opposite direction entirely.

Oh, I have no doubt that accounts for a lot of what I've seen. And it often shades into an almost spiteful "fuck you" defiance. Which I totally understand because I've felt that impulse myself for various aspects of my identity, but it's not great when I'm on the receiving end because they've assumed I'm straight. Doubly not great when it's a rich, cis gay white man who acts like he has the absolute last word on oppression because he's gay. >_>

Anyway, like--I tuck a lot of myself away until I can be sure it's safe, and I wonder if that isn't part of it.

Same. But also, I've increasingly found that I'm more likely to be friends with someone based on personality, thought patterns, conversational styles, intelligence level, etc. rather than a demographic identity or a shared interest. I can't force a connection with a boring or incompatible person just because they're queer (or Asian, or a nerd, or...)

On top of that, rather than feeling free to be myself, sometimes I feel like there's this pressure in Queer-With-A-Capital-Q spaces to perform a certain level of queerness that's more than what I want to do or that would be authentic for myself. Which just compounds the sense of being an impostor.