Thanks for sharing, M!

I’m working on it!

I agree that no one label can define all of one’s complexities. The whole of language can’t even accomplish that. But labels are just another tool of language, descriptors that help people relate and communicate, their (labels, that is) shortcomings notwithstanding.

Many people have misgivings about labels because they often come with judgment. I remember that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) created the “Men who have sex with Men” (MSM) self-reporting category in an effort to reach heterosexual-identified men who have sex with men and women. Or as most folk would think of them–bisexual men. Funny thing, though; many men don’t consider sexual encounters with men to be “sex.” And so we’re back to square one. This is the type of intellectual dishonesty and lack of personal integrity to which I allude.

As usual, thanks for your thoughtful response. I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Which I don’t get. I mean, women (straight and gay) are typically the ones who are quick to say “Actions speak louder than words” when counseling their friends about relationships (“Girl, he may SAY he loves you but when’s the last time he took care of you when you were sick? He don’t love you! Coz, actions speak louder than words, girl!”).

So why is it that so many women seem to willfully ignore those same words when it comes to themselves and/or to reading the signs in their own lives?

The worst of it is that it seems to be really prevalent in the lesbian community.

In heteronormative settings, for example, if a man were to, say, sleep with a woman, then say “yeah, i’ll call you”, and did not call, the woman may feel the need to send reach out to get a pulse check (“he may just be busy”, she’ll tell herself, to justify the call).

That’s fine. I get that.

But if the response that the woman then got from the man was just luke-warm or worse, if he didn’t call her back, a straight woman would likely take the hint (even though I’m sure her feelings/pride would be hurt) and conclude that “he’s just not that into me.” If she didn’t take the hint, and continued to text and call the guy, most folks would start calling her “crazy/needy/stalking”.

Not so for some lesbians.

Why??

Why is it that behavior that would be categorized as “desparate”, “stalker-ish” or downright “cray-cray” if a straight woman were to do it, is suddenly “excusable” when it’s a lesbian?

The worst of it is that some lesbians seem unwilling/able to call a spade a spade, when they see this happen. They’ll often explain away this kind of behavior with nonsense like “Aww, she’s just being thoughtful” (bouquet of flowers sent to a person’s job for the 5th day in a row, how did she get the work address??!). Or, “Aww, she’s just into you” (4th day of mushy text messages even though there have been no responses on the other end). Or, “Aww, she probably just enjoyed your date and wants to see you again” (this despite the fact that she has brushed you off with excuses like “i’m busy/out of town/moved away from the area).

Wtf?? I mean, let’s even assume that all of those are true, that the person really IS into you like that, or that they really DID enjoy the 2-hr coffee date you had after church/work/community service.

So freakin’ what?? That may very well be how YOU feel but does that give you the right to disregard all signs of lack of interest on the other person’s part, simply because of what “you” want? I don’t think so.

Smh.

So this was a long response! Just tryin’ to say, it’s OKAY to like someone folks, but sometimes, the folks we may like, may not like us back. And that’s OKAY too.

What’s NOT okay is to keep ignoring the signs. That’s just &@*%$#.

Good post! Keep ‘em comin…

Blessings!