Well THAT'S a question I haven't gotten before.

[cupcake_goth]

The scene: The Infamous BlueJay and myself, standing at a bus stop in downtown Seattle after getting our badges for Sakura-Con. I am dressed in my usual manner, BlueJay is wearing skinny black jeans, black Converse, a black hoodie, and a black double-breasted wool pea coat.

A guy in his early 20s, looking like he fell out of a Hollister store, walks up to us with a confused look and asks, "Can I ask you two a question? Are you, like, lesbians?"

::cue blank stares from us::

Me: Why are you asking?"

Him: "Well, you're standing together, and you're wearing black."

BlueJay: "So when you're hanging out with your guy friends, do people ask you if you're gay?"

Him: "But I'm not wearing all black!"

Me: "...what?"

Jay, with a tone of you are a moron: "Son, wearing all black doesn't equal gay."

Me: "Look, there's the bus!"

What. The. Fuck? I don't care if someone asks if I'm queer (but randomly asking strangers at the bus stop is rude), but assuming two women are lesbians because they're walking together and wearing all black? Whaaaaat?

Life is never boring around here, that's for sure.

Comments

[sara]

When I took Ann the Daycare Lady to the hospital for some appointments last week, the nurses all thought we were a couple. They kept referring to me as "your...friend," which...yeah.

We agreed, as we drove home afterward, that it was probably easier to go with that than to explain the deep bond between a person and her daycare lady. Or, alternately, that we run a cemetery together. Because lesbianism's pretty normal, but sharing children and responsibility for a thousand corpses is, well, a bit odd.

[movingfinger]

"Because lesbianism's pretty normal, but sharing children and responsibility for a thousand corpses is, well, a bit odd."

I want to read a dark fantasy mystery series with that for the back-cover blurb.

[cupcake_goth]

SO DO I. Quick, someone get FayJay to write it for me!

[sara]

I think I do, too.

[cofax7]

Because lesbianism's pretty normal, but sharing children and responsibility for a thousand corpses is, well, a bit odd.

Quote of the Day, here.

IIRC, you haven't (yet) met my sister, right? Well, she's blonde & a few inches taller than me, and it's my impression we are regularly mistaken for a couple. It's a thing I have adjusted to.

[sara]

I haven't met your sister, but I have slept in her bed.

Which is not weird at all. Not in the slightest. ;>

[meara]

Oh, if only it were that easy. Then I'd have a LOT more choices in this city! :)

I admit, I walked past all the teenaged Sakura-con registrees as I headed into a movie and rolled my eyes a bit.

...but I AM wearing black! Well, jeans. And black. I MUST BE GAY! No, wait, I need someone to be gay with. NEVERMIND, IT WAS ALL A RUSE.

[cupcake_goth]

I am still bummed that my other cute gay friends are probably not the type you're looking for. Dammit, I want to matchmake for someone!

[cofax7]

WTF. That's one well-sheltered fellow, there. Oy.

[cass404]

That is creepier than when I was just told by a stranger that I obviously like black but, "not in a goth way."

Jay, with a tone of you are a moron: "Son, wearing all black doesn't equal gay."

All colors together = black. Rainbows = all colors. Rainbows = gay. Black = gay. Trust me, it's math. (Okay, it's shitty math and totally wrong but I am trying to prove something utterly ridiculous so I can't use real math. That'd just prove he was a moron.)

[zenkitty-714.livejournal.com]

I'm wearing all black right now, and I'm sitting next to a cat!

OMG that explains everything

[-dante-sparda-.livejournal.com]

what is this I don't even

[girlgoth.livejournal.com]

And the full moon's not even until tomorrow night! ;)

[kambriel.livejournal.com]

But what do the ruffles mean???

Perhaps he should consider doing that with conservatively dressed politicians instead... might increase his odds.

What's even better is when a guy & a girl are together and get called lesbians. It's kind of awesome in its wrongness (& generally an inadvertent compliment to the guy as far as I'm concerned) ;)

Ah... I love you my little queen of the lesbian vampires!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

But what do the ruffles mean?

You're too young to know.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

Wait....WHAT?

How narrow is this guy's brain that it thinks: "People dressed slightly unusually = gay"? How long has he been in Seattle, for that matter? It's a big city! Surely he has seen unusual-looking people of all kinds before, hasn't he? Or did he just fall off the metaphorical turnip truck from some tiny town somewhere?

The mind BOGGLES.

[narwahlz.livejournal.com]

...I have never heard of a story where a person has confused "gay" and "goth."

Yes. That's what I'm going with. To do otherwise just makes me waaaay too sad for the next generation.

[staxxy.livejournal.com]

Which is to say that Jay was dressed in *her* usual way as well. :)

[staxxy.livejournal.com]

and, you know, obviously you have to be gay to wear black... I mean, it IS the color of the corporate world and all (at least around here).

Good lord. I am quite certain that they were HOPING you were a couple because of all the happy little fantasies that would give them.

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

My girlfriend just facepalmed.

Of course, I'm the one in black, whereas she looks like she's been assaulted by a rainbow. He never would have known.

OH MY GOD I AM A NINJA LESBIAN!

[ashbet]

I just splorfled reading this :D

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that I am TOTALLY going to use the phrase "assaulted by a rainbow" the next time I talk to my (determinedly colorful) girlfriend :D

<3!

[lucybond.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Maybe they thought that couples tend to wear matching clothes?

Like the terrifying array of pastel-clad older tourists I encountered one easter in NOLA, at C5?

[ashbet]

Hello, Determinedly Colorful Girlfriend! <3

Still, it's a very odd assumption to make . . . particularly since they weren't wearing matching STYLES of clothes (ruffles and femme vs. jeans and a hoodie, the only similarity being the black color scheme.)

They could have been adhering to the rather odious assumption that lesbians (or girl-girl couples of whatever orientation) ALWAYS have to have a "butch" and a "femme," because one person always has to "be the guy."

Wonder what they'd make of us, in our femme-femme mismatched splendour? :D

<3!

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

Why, if you're femme-femme and don't match, you must just be besties! Whew, homosexuality averted! ;)

While my girl and I fall under the butch/femme stereotype more often than not, we still could have ninja-ed him due to technical bisexuality (though neither of us has a boyfriend at the moment).

<3 back!

[ashbet]

ICON LOVE.

Also, heh. We have occasionally had to choke back laughter at people exclaiming that we're "So close! Like sisters!"

(Just to be clear, was not saying ANYTHING against butch/femme couples, only the assumption that someone is "playing a male role" -- personally, even if someone is standing in front of me in full leather-Daddy gear wearing a strap-on, I am still going to treat her as a woman who is being perfectly legitimately feminine, because femininity has a huge range of expressions . . . unless she TELLS me she's expressing herself as male, in which case I change pronouns.)

Not that I didn't figure you knew that, but I didn't want to be inadvertently rude :)

And I am always amused by randomly ninja-ing passersby who we don't feel need the application of the Clue Bat -- it's amazing what people will unconsciously rationalize unless you bring it to their attention!

*black-clad rainbow-lovin' fistbump*

-- A ;)

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

*fistbumps back*

And I didn't take offense at all; no worries there! She and I constantly joke about me being the "boy" in the relationship (though she deals with the spiders; another gender stereotype we gladly wave our middle fingers at), and that she is my "housewife".

After stalking examining your journal, I'd like to be friends! I'll go prattle on in your introduction post; I don't want to clog up the comments since Jillian already knows all about me. Be there in a bit, the girl and I are just waking up and taking meds (nocturnal? us?).

[ashbet]

A friend of ours in a triad relationship refers to his partners as "Wife" and "Wifey" (Wife, in that case, also refers to Wifey as such -- she's a fully equal partner in the relationship, it's just that only one pairing is legally recognized, and they didn't like saying "wife/husband and girlfriend", because they wanted her to have an equal-perceived-status name.) I think they're adorable :)

We have a bit of entertaining gender- and genre-bending in our relationships, since we have two bi males, two bi females, comprising one triad and one dyad . . . I'm the one that does the spider-scooping (and the moth-catching, since one of the guys is Deeply Not A Fan Of Moths), Lucy does everything else Nature Girl-oriented (I have a black thumb when it comes to plants!), we split up the cooking/childcare/cleaning according to aptitude, my teenage daughter contributes ample snarkitude (and awesomeness), and my partners' 4-year-old daughter's current aspiration in life is to be Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors when she grows up :)

It's an amazing life :D

Thanks so much for the add, and I've added you back!

<3!

[torreybird.livejournal.com]

"assaulted by a rainbow" entirely wins.

In fact, that's what I'm going to say, in a tearful voice, next time someone looks askance at my Lovely Colors And Patterns.

thanks!

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

I think Lovely Colors And Patterns are just that: lovely. I may not opt to wear them myself (except my hair, which hasn't been its natural color since I was thirteen, and has been every color save for yellow. Current status: purple with highlights of...well, purple. It's complicated), but I very much enjoy seeing them.

And bah to looking askance! No one should look askance at another person, unless they're looking at someone in a blood-spattered clown suit. In which case they might want to surreptitiously move away as well.

[rev-blacky.livejournal.com]

Goth is the new Gay!
Didn't you get the memo?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if he mistook you for beatniks; if he'd only heard of them and Allen Ginsberg third or fourth hand, that might explain how he got the idea that black-wearing cats and kittens are homos and all that jazz.

[falconwhitaker.livejournal.com]

I thought you were only lesbians if you were two ladies walking together and wearing rainbows! MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE.

... just kidding :) The guy sounds like a complete twit.

[nelsolidarida.livejournal.com]

My strangest experience on this score: sitting in the quiet bit of the university bar with my friend, as we'd got out of a meeting with nearly an hour to spare before her bus went. We were both women with shaved heads who were (hopefully) blatantly not neo-nazis. We were not otoh touching or doing anything couply. We may even have been talking about people (of both genders) we fancied.

Enter stage right a dozen or so girls in hockey team uniforms, cartwheeling around the bar with their underwear on display. The captain came up to our table.
HC: ooh are you on a date?
Me: no, we're just friends
HC: aw that's so sweet!
Cue more cartwheeling and showing of knickers. Exit hockey girls stage left.
Me: she fancies you
Friend: no, she fancies *you*
[and so on until friend's bus pulled out]

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Eeesh, some people are so narrow-minded, one wonders if their brains actually fill up their craniums. Sorry you had to go through that, love, though it does make for a funny story.

[jola.livejournal.com]

Whaaaaa? Wow, that is really odd.

The last time I was having brunch w/ some lolita friends a woman gestured to our outfits and asked "your outfits, is it a part of your religion?"

Yes, the church of frilly skirts, duh. I'm always amazed at what contortions of logic people go through to explain anything out of the ordinary.

[ashbet]

*falls over*

That is AMAZING :D

[cherry-faery.livejournal.com]

That is particularly delightful! A part of me hopes that you said yes and just left them to wonder what the hell religion you guys were a part of.

[mimi-monsterr.livejournal.com]

how strange! sorry you had to put up with that!

[prettyshrub.livejournal.com]

This whole thing made me laugh. Although being bothered at bus stops is always annoying, and occasionally unnerving. I confess it is part of why I wanted to get a car those many years ago.

[linneakou.livejournal.com]

I would add a witty response but at the moment my brain is stuck on "dude man whaaaaaat???" I hope you both gave this that guy some serious stinkeye. I also hope that his friends razzed him about it for the rest of the day, because dude? What?

I can't even.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Hey! I wear a lot of black. That means all the queer women can pick me out in a crowd, right? Best news I've had in days.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

And if I'd been there, I could have said, "I am, but she isn't," and put the back of my hand to my forehead.

[ashbet]

That would have been brilliant :D

[cherry-faery.livejournal.com]

That's just bizarre. I've had some people ask questions that didn't occur to me because my friends/relatives/acquaintances know me well enough that they just accept things but I've never heard this before. It does kind of make one wonder where they get their information. It's still funny as hell too but just weird and, like you said, completely rude. (Sorry but I was raised to treat others that their orientation, whether it was obvious or not, is none of my business and that these kinds of things are really only discussed with people if you know them and they are comfortable talking about it.)

[ozitonaranjo.livejournal.com]

I'm both horrified and amused. Now I know why so many have assumed I'm a lesbian (or, occasionally, bi). It's because I wear black!! Who knew?

[teacup-carousel.livejournal.com]

I had this happen to me in high school once. A friend and I were sharing apple slices out of a baggie on a field trip to the Getty and a guy came up and asked us if we were teenage lesbians and did our parents know what we were up to etc etc.

I swear some people are just so intent on seeing something it's crazy.

coming to this late, but y'know

[martygreene.livejournal.com]

I have told you what flagging light pink means, right? Maybe he is gay and doesn't know it yet, and has spidey-sense for flagging?

Or he's just too dumb to breathe.