Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: bisexual

Sex and dating, dating and sex, part eight

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I’ve decided that I want to do ten posts about this topic, so three to go. Why? Because. This is one way my neurodivergent brain works, by the way. It insists on making patterns when there aren’t any. I know that’s normal to some extent with everyone, but my brain does it to a bothersome degree. I know it’s going to happen at some point, but I’m powerless to stop it. It’s easier to go with it and let it wear itself out–or not. Some of my obsessions continue whereas others are left in the dust.

One thing I’m working on is being not ashamed about the weird way my brain works. Look. I know I’m a freak. I’ve known it since I was a kid, even if I could not articulate it. It’s interesting. There is someone in the Discord I’m in who is clearly neurodivergent and not at all interested in masking. Yes, it’s a ‘he’, which is significant. He has upset/offended several people in the Discord, including me because of the way he’s phrased things.

He likes to state his opinion as if it’s fact, and many of them are inflammatory. I’m not against it, but I also think that you should have some care as to the feelings of other people. It’s hard for me to say because I’m too much to the other side. As an AFAB, I was taught to always care about other people’s feelings first. That’s not good, either, but I do think there needs to be a balance.

It’s frustrating because this person, let’s call him Jack, makes me want to defend him on some occasions, not because I necessarily agree with his viewpoint, but because I don’t like groupthink. All groups have it, and this is not the worst at it, by far, but there is a slight stifling that goes on that I do not approve of.

There are times when I eye a conversation and decide not to wade into it. Sometimes, it’s because I’m not up for an argument, and sometimes, it’s because I know that my opinion is so out there, it’s not going to be welcomed. Therefore, I’m self-censoring, which is not ideal. It’s what I do much of the time, though.

I do envy Jack for not giving a shit about how he says things, but I also think he needs to think a bit. He tries to defend himself by saying it’s how he and his friends talk. Well, we’re not his friends. Also, that’s a bad excuse for being a jackhole. Even if it’s not deliberate, it’s still off-putting.

I don’t know where I draw the line between being yourself and being a jerk, but he goes well past that line. Also, again, it’s dudes who are allowed to be their authentic selves while women and AFAB people are more penalized for not fitting in.

In Jack’s case, it’s also because he’s mostly online and on the younger side. And he hangs out with people just like him (I’m guessing the predominance of them are guys, too). It’s easy to think if everyone around you thinks the way you do, everyone in general does as well.

People have been very impatient and brusque with him. Neurotypicals, I mean. Or more specificially, people who are not autistic (since autism and ADHD are different things). I can often see what Jack is trying to say, but do I want to defend him? Sometimes. Othertimes, he makes me angry, too. Especially when he talks as if he’s the authority on America (he’s not from this country and doesn’t live in it).


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Dating, sex, and tech, part seven

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Apparently, I have more to say about dating, sex, and tech. Techs in the city? Text in the city? Oh, wait. It’s Sex AND the City. Whatever. I never watched the showl/movie?/whatever, anyway. This is my post from yesterday in which I talk about what I thought was going to happen in my life versus what I really wanted to happen in my life.

Today, I had my Taiji Zoom class. It’s in the basement of a church that is like a concrete bunker. My teacher uses a headset so we online can hear her. Without fail, at some point, the connection goes out. We may be able to see her, but we can’t hear her. Or vice-versa. This is usually when she switches from using her headset to not using it, which she does after ne do meditation. She takes off the headset during meditation, which makes sense. For whatever reason, when plugging the headset back in, it totally disconnects her from the internet.

Sometimes, it’s because she accidentally hits a button on her headset. Other times, who knows? Tech is going to tech.

I will say on my end, I had a few months of frustration with my audio when attending the Zoom classes. It was after a Zoom update, of course. I fucking hate updates because for every positive update, there’s two to three unintended negative consequences. Also, I really don’t need updates every month. Maybe keep it to once a quarter.

Of course I want my computer to run as smoothly as possible, but I hate it when the negatives outweighs the positives. And it’s often the case of , “How the fuck do I return this to the way it was? Fuck if I know!”

By the way, I’m playing a game called, Birdigo, by John August and Corey Martin. They say it’s inspired by Wordle and Balatro; it’s simple and addictive. However, it would not accept the word ‘fuck’, which made me lift an eyebrow. Really? ‘Fuck’ isn’t in the dictionary? I was very disappointed by that.

Anyway, back to my computer issues. Suddenly, after a Zoom update, my audio did not work in Zoom. It worked just fine the week before. I fiddled with my settings, and they said that they could hear me, but I was extremely quiet.

The next week, I realized that I was somehow had two Zooms open. One was the app and one was the in-browser Normally, I used the in-browser, but it didn’t automatically come up like it used to. Now, it was the app that came up, but I didn’t use the app. Therefore, there was no audio through the app. The audio would only come through the browser.

This took two sessions to figure out. I checked it after class, and it was correct. I had no idea why the app was opening since I did not use the app and did not want to use the app. I only used the browser, but Zoom didn’t like that. It wanted me to use the app, probably so it could get my details.


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Labels, labels, labels everywhere (part three)

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I want to talk more about gender identity, sexual orientation, and dating. And labels. Maybe. It’s been at the forefront of my mind for several reasons. I mentioned in the last post a few times when it was helpful to have labels (mostly with health issues), and I am not going to muse whether or not it’s helpful in dating.

I will say I don’t like the labels I’ve chosen for my sexual and gender identities. They are both the least worst of the bad, and I’m not satisfied with either. Bisexual and agender, by the way. I’ve had the former label for over thirty years, and it has never sat right with me. I like queer the best, but it now is synonymous with gay. I’m not happy about it, but it’s not a fight I’m up for fighting.

Same with genderqueer. I really like it as a descriptor for not being on the binary in the fullest sense of the term. But now it means nonbinary in the same way queer means gay.

Sigh.

I’m irritated with myself for always making life so difficult. This is part of being neurodivergent, too, though. I’ve read that people who are neurodivergent often feel the need to be really explicit and on point with their words. I can attest that this is me, and it’s annoying as fuck. Even to me when it’s me doing it.

I overexplain things and belabor the point until the other person is ready to scream. I can see the shift on their face (or hear it in their message), and yet, it takes a Herculean effort for me to shut the fuck up. The person I’m talking to doesn’t need a twenty-page backstory to every idea I want to present. When I found out this was a thing with autistic people, I felt validated.

Another thing is that everything is related in my brain. I can’t tell a story without bringing in what others would consider extraneous information and tidbits. When I talked to my autistic friend about it, she was in enthusiastic agreement that her brain worked that way, too. It’s one reason we can have comfortable conversations (in messages). We can pepper in as many non sequiturs as we want without worrying. And if one of us goes really far down a weird road, the other will bring the first person back again.

Or not. Sometimes, I join her on the side path to nowhere (and vice-versa), which can lead to some wild journeys. And once in a great while, I don’t know where she’s going. I can usually figure it out, but if I can’t, I just ask questions until I get the gist of what she was trying to say.

Knowing that this is a thing for neurodivergent people is such a relief to me. It doesn’t mean that I just let myself ramble all I want whenever I want, but it does mean that I can be a bit kinder to myself when I can’t seem to stop utter nonsense from coming out of my mouth.


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Invisibility is my superpower

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I’m used to being ignored. It’s a fact of life that people tend to think in the binary. It’s one reason it’s been so difficult to broaden the public consciousness on gender diversity. It’s also a fact that people are territorial. Us and them is pretty much innate (we can argue whether it’s more nature or nurture, but most people feel it to some extent).

I belong to several groups that are outside the binary. I am not black or white. I’m Asian (Taiwanese), so I get ignored when the question of race arises. I’m bisexual, so again, neither gay nor straight. It’s interesting because in the post about trans and gender-diverse people that I wrote about yesterday (at Ask A Manager), there were several bis in the comments (including me) who have said that we’ve  gotten shit from gays and lesbians, and it hurts more than the shit we get from hets.

Side note: I am not happy with the term bisexual, but I don’t like pansexual or omnisexual, either. If I had my druthers, I would call myself sexual and leave it at that. I reall ydon’t like labels (and not in that smarmy ‘no labels’ way), but it’s because I find them constraining. I’m a sloppy, messy person who doesn’t fit into any one category. That’s why I’ll default to the broadest category possible, but still not be satisfied with it.

I’m also areligious/agnostic, rather than an atheist–and I’m certainly not a Christian, I don’t know if there is a god (though I don’t think there is is a Christian God), but at this point, I don’t care. Not in a negative way, but in a ‘I don’t want to think about it any longer’ way.

I have a similar feeling about gender. I just don’t care about it. I had been chewing it over before I ended up in the hospital, and my brain went in many different directions. The reason I started stepping away from ‘woman’ was because of other women. All my life, I had been told that I was not acting properly as a woman.

This included, but was not limited to–not having children (the big one); not wanting children (a bigger one); not wanting to get married; not wearing makeup; not caring about fashion, cooking, or cleaning; liking to climb trees; dislkiking dolls; picturing strangers on the street naked and how they’d be in bed; liking sports; and that’s just the short list. I’m sure some people would put Taiji weapons and video games on that list, too.


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