Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Never Lie About Who You Really Are

blogs.hbr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 227 posts

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#71

Post by jiggy2011 »

danabramov wrote: post #50
jpwagner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm having a bad day and a stranger asks "how's your day," I don't invent a good day.

Yeah but your day is not something that differs you from the most people, something that many people don't accept, something that you probably have been humiliated for. You're not a “faggot” in high school because you had a bad day. It's something you chose to accept and tell your friends and parents and see some people sneer at you. I think that pretending to have a wife for the sake of smalltalk feels like going in…

Why would you need to invent a wife?

Usually when you are making small talk with someone who you will most likely only be in the company of for 5 minutes they are more interested in avoiding awkward silence than actually finding out details about your life.

If you don't bring up a wife they will just as easily assume that you are single or divorced as much as gay.

Besides , people who work in a public facing role like a cab driver or florist will most likely meet gay people all the time and won't find it the slightest bit novel.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#72

Post by jpxxx »

fallous wrote: post #64
elemenohpee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.

Why would my "sexuality" be a topic for anyone other than those close to me? If my wife and I like to dress up as robotic ninjas in order to get satisfaction, well then that's between my wife and I despite how "out of mainstream" it is and is no business of anyone else. I tire of the "acceptance" desire of so many people in so many areas of their lives. Tolerance != acceptance, it merely means that someone can tolera…

Your sexuality doesn't come in air-quotes, and you're teetering dangerously close to the word "choice" in a topic where no such thing exists.

Your sexuality informs and alters 100% of your life.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#73

Post by elemenohpee »

theorique wrote: post #65
elemenohpee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.

Privilege/oppression may be a real thing, but this isn't an example of it. No one expects absolutely literal, radical honesty from a simple inquiry like "how's it going?" Just because I'm gay doesn't mean that I go around proclaiming the fact to others unless it's relevant to the context of the conversation.

Your comment makes zero sense in the context of the submitted blog post. Where did you see anything approaching the exchange "Hey, how's it going." "I'm gay."?

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#74

Post by DougBTX »

jpwagner wrote: post #24

I hope I'm not insensitive, but if I'm having a bad day and my cab driver (or just about any total stranger) asks "how is your day" I am not compelled to tell him about the intricacies of being me. It's not about fighting for "the truth", it's simply practical. This is generally how to behave for all matters of sex, politics, religion, and anything else personal. Small talk is small talk.

cab driver asks "how is your day"

That's miss-representing the example. In the article the cab driver, "Then asks about your wife." Answering that question by saying that he doesn't have a wife isn't the same as talking about "the intricacies of being himself," just basic facts.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#75

Post by mtrimpe »

fallous wrote: post #64
elemenohpee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.

Why would my "sexuality" be a topic for anyone other than those close to me? If my wife and I like to dress up as robotic ninjas in order to get satisfaction, well then that's between my wife and I despite how "out of mainstream" it is and is no business of anyone else. I tire of the "acceptance" desire of so many people in so many areas of their lives. Tolerance != acceptance, it merely means that someone can tolera…

We're talking about sexuality in the sense of the physical sex of your partner; not your fetishes.

Unfortunately that's a difficult topic to avoid since we can hardly start referring to our partners as 'it' when the topic comes up.

Choosing to answer vaguely and switch the topic is the easiest way for gay people to get out of these issues, but it is also how you end up staying in the closet to a lot of people.

This article talks about choosing, in those situations, to not closet yourself and let the conversation flow as though the sex of your partner were a normal thing, knowing full well that it isn't for many people.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#76

Post by DannyBee »

elemenohpee wrote: post #40
jpwagner wrote: post #24

I hope I'm not insensitive, but if I'm having a bad day and my cab driver (or just about any total stranger) asks "how is your day" I am not compelled to tell him about the intricacies of being me. It's not about fighting for "the truth", it's simply practical. This is generally how to behave for all matters of sex, politics, religion, and anything else personal. Small talk is small talk.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.

I understand your point, but it seems a bit laborious in this case.

If a cab driver asks me how my day was, and i'm exhausted, I say "good" and stop talking. This is true whether you are gay, straight, or whatever.

In the example in the article, if he was too exhausted to tell "the truth" (as he calls it) and have a "transformative conversation", he should have just said "i'd rather not talk about it". This does not require denying anything, pretending about anything, etc. It's unlikely the cab driver cared either way, to be honest, and if you give them the hint that you'd rather just drive in silence than spend your energy , they will.

Again, it just seems the author acts as if he has to educate everyone, and it's a laborious process. I agree there are plenty of cases he needs to educate people, and that is laborious. But I think it goes too far when he gets into the realm of people just trying to make small talk, who actually don't care one way or the other.

The cabby is likely just trying to stave off boredom and get a good tip, not an ignorant person whose mental state about the world needs to change. In all likelihood, he's probably playing a probability game (IE i'm sure he asks young drunk looking college kids about women or partying, forlorn looking businessmen about where they are traveling from, etc). You can see this as offensive if you like, but it's really not about ignorance.

As the parent said, small talk is small talk.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#77

Post by jpxxx »

monochromatic wrote: post #38
mhurron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Straight people don't "come out") Well yes they do, it's just that they can do it by bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend to meet the parents or whatever you want to consider normal first steps in expressing your sexuality. In a large part of the world though, probably most of the world where you can, if you are gay you basically have to explicit come out to your closest friends and relatives to get over whateve…

bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend to meet the parents or whatever you want to consider normal first steps in expressing your sexuality Saying that this is "coming out" doesn't make it true.

But it is true, so think about it until you get it.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#78

Post by carlob »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #10

In the UK I've run into people who use the term `partner' for whomever they are in a non-married exclusive relationship with, regardless of whether they are gay or straight. I don't know how common that is, or how it got started. I wonder whether it will ever catch on in the US?

Unfortunately not all languages give you that level of neutrality: in romance languages the word partner has a gender attached to it.

I guess we'd have to use some sort of periphrasis, which is not very common raising a red flag anyway.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#80

Post by ry0ohki »

mmahemoff wrote: post #25
michaelfeathers wrote: post #10

In the UK I've run into people who use the term `partner' for whomever they are in a non-married exclusive relationship with, regardless of whether they are gay or straight. I don't know how common that is, or how it got started. I wonder whether it will ever catch on in the US?

The bad thing is when people say "my partner" now, I think they might mean their bf/gf even when they mean business partner. I guess it got started in non-gay context because it's awkward to describe someone of a certain age as a boy or girl.

Hah yes, that's why I started switching to saying "Co-Founder", most non business people assuming you are a couple when you are two guys (or even a girl and a guy) and introduce the other as your partner.
Post reply on HN