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Never Lie About Who You Really Are

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Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#131

Post by elemenohpee »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #101
elemenohpee wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that all the examples he gave were cases where a stranger made an assumption that put him in the position of either telling them he was gay or lying about it. It's interesting that commenters here keep having to invent a scenario where the guy was going around shouting to every passerby that he was gay. Yes, there are no cab drivers anywhere who might be perturbed by someone saying they are gay. Thanks jiggy20…

Outside of maybe very conservative areas or muslim countries I would imagine a cab driver being perturbed by gay people would not be in the business very long. I don't hang around in typically "gay" circles or even know that many people in general but I know enough gay people that homosexuality is not surprising for me at all. For the purposes of casual conversation with strangers, if someone asks about a wife surely…

There are a lot of muslim cab drivers, even in progressive areas of the country. I think it would not be uncommon to find ones that are uncomfortable with homosexuality.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#132

Post by brudgers »

jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #124
pretoriusB wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet, the emotional harm of lying about who am is significantly greater than what one person can inflict upon another. Because like truth, that harm is permanent. What about if there's no harm? What if you ENJOY lying about who you are? Or, in another twist, what if lying about who you are opens a new world to you, and makes you a different person, perhaps even who you lied about being in the first place? (In the se…

If you enjoy lying about anything, that's a serious red flag regarding you as a person.

[Flat Analytical Level]

An actor might be described as "a person who enjoys lying about who they are." The reference to Dylan is indexical.

[Deeper] Who the hell knows who they are in any sense other than who they choose to be? Am I the teenager who didn't understand the harm of casual racist behavior or participation in high school homophobia?

No. I am the adult who regrets those things and has chosen learn from the experience.

But I am also on the slippery slope to lying with the qualifiers "casual" and "high school."

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#133

Post by elemenohpee »

kgo wrote: post #91
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.

In the particular example of a cab driver... There are plenty of other reasons you might have kids but not a wife. Maybe you're a widower. Maybe they're actually your brother's kids, but he and his wife were killed by a drunk driver, and you're the godfather. Perfectly legitimate cases where you just have no reason to get into it with the freaking cab driver, and probably don't get into a serious conversation, and pr…

In all the examples you gave the reason is some unfortunate tragedy and not a part of his identity that we as a society are trying to become more inclusive of.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#134

Post by jrogers65 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #56

It's so easy to compromise, or cover up. I see it all the time in software dev. For every dev who cares enough to pursue an issue diligently to its root cause there are a dozen other devs who are perfectly willing to patch up symptoms of deeper problems or jump to faulty conclusions without bothering to seriously understand what's going on. Everyone wants the quick fix. They want the pain (the bugs, tickets, pages, s…

> It's so easy to compromise, or cover up. I see it all the time in software dev. For every dev who cares enough to pursue an issue diligently to its root cause there are a dozen other devs who are perfectly willing to patch up symptoms of deeper problems or jump to faulty conclusions without bothering to seriously understand what's going on. Everyone wants the quick fix. They want the pain (the bugs, tickets, pages, scrutiny, etc.) to stop.

There's a word for these types of people - 'liabilities'.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#135

Post by elemenohpee »

DannyBee wrote: post #95
elemenohpee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he welcomes the small talk but finds the process of correcting false assumptions laborious? I get what you're saying and I don't think you're trying to be homophobic, but realize that that attitude often comes off the same as "I don't mind people being gay, I just don't want to see it or have to hear about it". It's a subtle form of oppression, where gay people are made to feel that they are not free to engage…

I didn't say anything approaching what you claim the attitude is. My point was that small talk, particular cabby small talk, almost always involves false assumptions, and this has nothing to do with being ignorant. Otherwise, they have exactly the problem you mention in the last sentence. They see people from all walks of life. If they didn't make some set of assumptions (be it about sexuality, gender, typical behavi…

I agree, I don't think it's about ignorance either, and I don't think the author was trying to make that point.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#136

Post by king_jester »

mhurron wrote: post #119
king_jester wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's totally not, being straight in most places in the world is the default and everyone is seen through a lens of being straight. Coming out refers to revealing to people that you are not straight.

It may be the expectation but the reality is that it may not be true. Until you take an action to express your sexuality, everyone is just expecting you to be like them. Bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend is implicitly declaring your heterosexuality, telling your family you are gay is explicitly declaring you are gay. You could also implicitly declare it by bringing home a same-sex partner. Coming out is simply e…

> Bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend is implicitly declaring your heterosexuality, telling your family you are gay is explicitly declaring you are gay.

Well, if most people you know implicitly assume you are straight, bringing home the expected kind of partner doesn't declare anything because it was already assumed that you were straight.

> Coming out is simply expressing your sexuality.

No, coming out has its roots in being gay and explicitly revealing that information to others. The entire history of the concept and phrase of coming out exists in that context, you can't just re-contextualize it without throwing away the experiences of people who have come out in the past.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#137

Post by king_jester »

philwelch wrote: post #121
rmc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most places, people are seen as a default of straight. Yes and that's wrong.

Not wrong, just playing the odds. ~95% of people are sufficiently heterosexual.

It's not really about the odds though, it's more about creating norms and normative behavior. For folks that deviation from "normal", they tend to face microaggressions from others, and possibly outright discrimination and physical violence.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#138

Post by jiggy2011 »

elemenohpee wrote: post #131
jiggy2011 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of maybe very conservative areas or muslim countries I would imagine a cab driver being perturbed by gay people would not be in the business very long. I don't hang around in typically "gay" circles or even know that many people in general but I know enough gay people that homosexuality is not surprising for me at all. For the purposes of casual conversation with strangers, if someone asks about a wife surely…

There are a lot of muslim cab drivers, even in progressive areas of the country. I think it would not be uncommon to find ones that are uncomfortable with homosexuality.

In my experience with Muslims (in England at least) they really don't care what non muslims do in non muslim countries.

For example Muslims will not drink but almost every off license within a square mile of me is Muslim owned.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#139

Post by elemenohpee »

ams6110 wrote: post #107
jpxxx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your sexuality informs and alters 100% of your life. No it doesn't. And choice exists in almost everything.

Too bad you chose to be ignorant :/

The scientific evidence is not on your side, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Re: Never Lie About Who You Really Are

#140

Post by demallien »

typicalrunt wrote: post #120

People have the misconception that a gay person comes out once. It's not true. If you're gay and you're authentic, you're coming out constantly. You're on a business trip, for example. A cab driver asks if you have kids, and you say that you do. Then he asks about your wife. Even though you may be exhausted, you find yourself summoning the energy to have a transformative conversation with a total stranger on whom you…

I think you're missing the point. The author is very well aware of the fact that the question "Have you got kids?" is very likely going to lead to a question about their spouse, that's why he chose that example!

The problem is how should he respond to that first question about kids? He can lie, and say that he doesn't have any, heading off the awkward situation, or he can tell the truth "yeah, I've got a couple of boys" or whatever. But if he tells the truth, he knows there's a good chance that he is going to get asked about his partner, and once again he has to decide whether he is going to lie or tell the truth.

The real problem comes from the fact that he is in the back of someone else's car, and he knows that violence against homosexuals is a depressingly common phenomenon. He doesn't know the driver, and hence can't know if they guy is going to be cool, or if he's going to decide that tonight's the night that he looks the passenger doors and drives off into the night to kill his passenger in some dark alleyway. Being less melodramatic, he could very easily find himself being dumped on the sidewalk halfway to his destination.

Hence the lies. But lies are tiring. You have to keep track of which ones you've told "Wait, did I just mention that I have to get up really early tomorrow to get the kids to school for a rehearsal? Damn - I told him I didn't have kids!" Anyway, that's what he's getting at.

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