#tl;dr is that i like typing to procrastinate on actual work and you shouldn't bother reading any of this LOL

[piltrafas]

Biphobe anon here. I have a question, but no hard feelings if you ignore: What assumptions am I making? Is it because I don't expect people to see things from my perspective?

I saw your RB on my initial ask. I can clarify:

attraction inevitably leads to action

bisexuals are promiscuous and less prone to monogamy

bisexuals are more likely to cheat

[some] bisexual women are just quirky straight women (or the flipside of bisexual men are just gay men in denial)

I don't buy into these points. Maybe I'm not communicating well enough to get that across. I sometimes suspect the "quirky straight woman" stereotype on account of having dated somone who fit this profile.

When I talk about uncertainty, I mean that I expect most bi partners to want a straight relationship for the long term. It has nothing to do with cheating.

Hi, anon! I can try and explain ~ To get it out of the way, let me just say: in regards to your messages (when I commented on your assumptions/ask ratio I was thinking of the previous ones too) I made a lot of assumptions myself because I genuinely can't connect the dots of the stuff you talked about so it became a game of free association trying to understand. I have no doubt I'm misreading, overthinking a lot of it, you might disagree with your own phrasing or my interpretations, etc and as you say, you apparently don't recognize in yourself the biases I mentioned, and that's fair, I don't know you so I can't judge.

I decided to break down all my initial impressions so at least you'll have an easier time seeing what it looks like from my side. This is long as fuck because I had fun breaking it down. Gives me an opportunity to examine my own thought process, ya know?

how do you deal with the uncertainty of dating someone who is bi?

Uncertainty when dating someone bi is far from universal. When reading the message it seems you think that that uncertainty is, well, a certainty. I'd expect someone who is aware that this is a personal thing might phrase this differently, something like: "I have feelings of uncertainty in regards to dating someone bi, how can I deal with it?"

so how can you not be wary of a bi partner?

You're wary, you assume others would be too. If you wanna expand on how these things connect I'd be very curious. It's never occurred to me that a relationship's dynamics might change based on my partner's sexuality. In fact, I have never even asked what sexuality label anyone used? I have never been asked either. If someone hits on me they're attracted to me, that's all I care about. I actually don't think I've ever said the word bisexual aloud in my life outside of memeing. It's hilarious how it's just not something that organically comes up in conversation in my experience.

Is the fear that they will break up with you eventually? I genuinely don't understand what the wariness is about.

When I talk about uncertainty, I mean that I expect most bi partners to want a straight relationship for the long term.

Why do you expect that? I think this just comes across to me like you're projecting, that maybe if you could choose to be in a straight relationship you would and you can't see why everyone else wouldn't. You mentioned you live somewhere conservative, so I expect that plays a role? Then again, wider society is more socially progressive here, but my area is actually full of religious people that wanna make their faith everyone else's problem and none of the bi people I know or their partners think this and I'm struggling to think where this idea comes from. The people I know that have a set idea about who they wanna date long-term decide it more in terms of things like: whether they want to move abroad, want to marry, want to have children, are okay with adoption, and things of that sort. This doesn't automatically make their ideal partner the opposite gender. If anything, the reverse of what you propose is more familiar to me, because a couple of bisexual women I know exclusively date women (for different reasons iirc). I guess the point is that people with a long-term gender preferences are bound to exist, but they're certainly not the majority or even common ime, and because of that the expectation you have that most people want this seems out of proportion. But yeah, for the record, the qualifier of "long-term" is what gave me the impression that cheating and/or promiscuity play a part, by the way. It's a common stereotype that people say they're bi in their youth just to slut it up but will go have a "respectable" relationship once they settle down a bit. I don't know how you think of sexuality so we might be operating on completely different frameworks here but I think if you wanna make out with women, for quirky reasons or otherwise, then you're not exactly straight to me. (To each their own, I'm not gonna tell anyone how to identify, just a personal appraisal I guess). You said you knew someone like that, but I don't, so I'm not sure how one defines who fits the stereotype: bi women that abandon that label later? The ones that get cold feet about being out? Bi women that end up in long-term relationships with men? I know a malicious version of these people exists, I know they do. There's 7 billion people in the world and there's bound to be a subsection of people roleplaying at any number of things to get whatever attention/power/money they think they'll get out of it, but how statistically significant is this really? Is it worth even thinking about when dating? For me, no. YMMV.

Literally nobody else acts like this is the case outside of the internet.

That's. Simply not true? Just. Even virulently homophobic communities have queer people existing, living content, if private, lives. Some of them are even out and proud and fight for queer rights publicly. I just don't know how to disprove this one, short of dragging you to dinner with me and my friends. About half queer, half not. When conversations touch on sex or romance, no one is playing the pronouns game, no one blinks an eye, no one is worried or ashamed or self-conscious. "Out and proud" looks different for everyone. People who are content with their queerness exist where you are too, you just can't tell on sight. And I mean, personally, I feel no more pride in relation to my sexuality than I feel in connection to anything else I am (that I haven't achieved through hard work), the 'pride' of queerness for me is a direct counter to the shame people try to give me. But I'm certainly not unhappy or ashamed or would pick anything else if I had the choice nor have I mentally locked myself into a relationship with someone of a different gender just so I can pass for straight. In my life I've met exactly one person who agonized about their queerness.

I’m not going to blindly uproot my beliefs and agree to everyone’s outlook just because that’s the polite thing to do.

… is that the polite thing to do? No one responding was asking you to uproot your beliefs for their sake, and if they were they had no right to. But someone challenging what you say, disagreeing, explaining how they moved past their similar feelings isn't demanding anything of you in terms of character growth, in fact, dare I say the outlook most people have on anyone magically changing decades worth of feelings is uh, pretty bleak? It's a nice fantasy to think if you phrase something juuuust right, just persuasively enough that it will make a difference, but it's a fantasy, and I bet the average person reading wasn't holding their breath or grabbing the pitchforks. But for what it's worth, I agree with the overall point you made. We shouldn't blindly accept people's words.

I seriously doubt that half the people who go around telling others to go to therapy have actually done it themselves.

I mean. I hate therapy, I undiagnosed myself and stopped going at multiple points. It's painful and expensive, and that's a feature not a bug. I tell people to go to therapy because I have been to therapy and it's a great tool to change your life for the better. It's hard. I only manage it because I have a group of people that hold my hand through all of it, answer all my questions, helped me find a good professional, taught me how to judge that, taught me how to make the most of each session, and so much more. Accessibility for this kinda stuff is shitty, it sucks, I found it in internet friends that don't even speak my native language. But anyway, yeah, this one, this one is just wild to me because IDK about where you live, but where I live it's actually a stereotype that people who go to therapy get a lifetime debuff that makes them unable to shut the fuck up about it. I think you probably got a lot of words about therapy on account of the aforementioned debuff so I won't go point by point on what you think a therapist does and such, because I bet people have explained, but yeah, your ideas regarding that are disproportionately cynical and at times just plain wrong.

I think it’s important to be honest about my feelings, even if that means being an ass.

No one with a brain is gonna think you're an ass for being honest about your feelings. It's about context. I don't think you're an ass but if I did it would have more to do with your generalizations than with your honesty. You didn't come across badly imo in the offensive sense, just like you were spewing BS.

I don't think the appeal of this is something that anyone here has the background to really grasp.

I think you'd be surprised. A lot of people that I know that hang out/lurk that tumblr (and that are hardcore socialists or anarchocommunists for example, ideologies I don't share) have backgrounds of having been anti-sjws, or hanging in far-right crowds. So did I! A lot more people than you think get the appeal, either because we were there in the past, or our friends were or are attracted to certain parts of it now. Like you said, though, it's not an ideal environment, so people move away. And listen, maybe people won't admit it aloud or whatever, but that doesn't mean it's a category of people that doesn't exist.

I'm sleep deprived and English is hard and a bunch of this probably sounds condescending, so I'm sorry about that. Feel free to come back and call bullshit on all my stuff now (and name yourself something other than biphobe anon if that grates lmao)