Hi all,
I need some help unpacking something that happened recently. A friend told me that he thinks I am gay or bisexual and just don't want to admit it because of my religion. He said that he can tell because he is gay and he knows when other people are, even when they say they aren't. I'm not feeling so great about this. I generally identify as a straight man, though I sometimes experience aesthetic attraction towards men, which I explained (in different words). I didn't mind so much when he asked me whether I'm attracted to men, but it bothered me when he basically ignored my answer.
So, I know at least part of my discomfort is homophobia that I still need to work through. Even if I'm consciously choosing to embrace all sexual orientations, I still have shitty attitudes to unlearn. And that is my problem to deal with, not anyone else's. I DO NOT want to be shitty to my friend.
I also feel like this is still a boundary violation though. I don't really believe there's such thing as 'gaydar' as my friend put it, so I feel like he's stereotyping me. And besides that, I really don't feel comfortable with someone telling me they know me better than I do, especially not when we don't actually know each other that well. And while I would completely understand my friend criticizing how my religion treats queer people, I'm less ok with him assuming my relationship with my faith.
The thing is... I can't tell which is which? Like, I don't know how much of my discomfort is coming from legitimate concern with this interaction and how much is my own thinking needing to change. I also realize that it shows how privileged I am that this is a rare situation for me and part of me feels like I should just drop my concerns since this probably isn't anywhere near as bad as constantly being assumed straight when you're not. But another part of me thinks it still wasn't ok. And at this point I'm overthinking.
Does it make sense for me to feel weird about this interaction with my friend? Do you have any advice for how move forward?
Thank you