Haha, what the hell? Why did he even feel the need to say that? Couldn't he just have said "I have decided to look elsewhere but thank you for considering me"? It's not like you would have started interrogating him as to why exactly he didn't want to move in.
To all the people saying there's nothing wrong with what the guy did and that the OP has no reason to complain: of course it's offensive to be singled out on the basis of your sexuality when it has nothing to do with anything. The guy wasn't overly rude, but he was still a bigot. Stop acting as if the OP isn't entitled to be a little shocked at that guy's behaviour.
The guy would be moving from the apartment with the girls because he would feel uncomfortable living with three girls. The point being that if the bar for homophobia, racism, and possibly sexism is set this low, then these labels no longer mean anything particularly negative. Setting the bar this low therefore robs the terms of their meaning and can only help legitimize those who are actually racist, sexist, or homophobic in a meaningful (non-technical) way.
Well, I guess I agree with you to an extent. But my question is why eliminate the definition to people who only show slight signs of these conditions. Why allow for any leniency at all? Put them all in the same category together, the ones that don't like it will make an active attempt to get out.
I have to wonder: How would people react if the OP was a black person who had told the potential (presumably white, in this hypothetical example) roomate that there were, say, two black and one hispanic roommate living there, and that this roommate would have answered that they "aren't comfortable" living with them because they didn't have much experience with people of colour?
And no, the counter-example of a woman choosing not to move in with 3 guys is *not* equivalent.
I had the same thought as your first example, but didn't post because I didn't want to start q flame war. Amusingly, we even had the same races in mind...
And I'm wondering about your view that a woman choosing not to move in with 3 guys isn't equivalent. I think that they aren't as similar, but I'm not sure about your reasoning that the situations would be completely different. Why do you think that?
Okay, I can see that actually, I wasn't really clear at all (or maybe I was? I'm kinda tired right now). Basically, a woman choosing not to move in with 3 guys isn't the same as a (straight) guy choosing not to move in with 3 non-straight guys (based only on those criteria). There's an element of risk for women that's simply not there for men, regardless of the sexual orientation of anyone. And it's bigger than most people think.
Well, I guess I agree with you to an extent. But my question is why eliminate the definition to people who only show slight signs of these conditions. Why allow for any leniency at all? Put them all in the same category together, the ones that don't like it will make an active attempt to get out.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong here, but are you suggesting we should.. for example.. put an individual who just feels mildly uncomfortable and would rather not live with a group of homosexual or bisexual people, of their own gender, as the only straight one.. in the same box as someone who beats "queers" with baseball bats?
I'm sorry, but people should have the right to chose where they live for whatever reason they wish.. and if that is because they feel some slight discomfort in the idea of being surrounded by people with a different orientation, so be it. This is pretty much exactly the same as a girl not wanting to dorm with 3 straight men. They don't want to be surrounded by people that have a sexual interest, during college years, in their gender.
How about this... instead of being gay, make the OP a fundamental christian and all his dorm mates, now is it reasonable not to be comfortable living there?
ANY reason, is a good enough reason. Living somewhere is an incredibly personal matter.
[vent]
Okay, the explanation: my current roommate is transferring to a different school, and so I was given the e-mail of the person that was going to room with me in my dorm. We spoke for a bit, until it came up that I was bi and our suite mates are gay.[sup]1[/sup]
Silence ensued for several days.
A few minutes ago, I received the following message from the prospective roommate:
Hello there,
I regret to inform you that I switched rooms. I have nothing against bisexual or gay people at all, I just have never faced this situation before and it would be in my best interest to back out.
I really appreciate the honesty and straight forwardness about the subject. That's highly respectable.
I wish you the best of luck during the spring 2012 semester!
[sup]1[/sup]: For reference, the dorms at my school are set up with two rooms of two people conjoined by a shared bathroom. The people in the room connecting to us are called our suitemates.
Edit: Yes, I understand that Potential Roomie[sup]TM[/sup] reacted RELATIVLY well, and that life will (and in fact, it already has) move on.
I had been extraordinarily lucky enough in my life to have never been treated differently for my sexuality, even from people who are blatantly homophobic.
Zen Toombs said:
I -snip- had an ex-roommate who I had the following exchange with:
Homophobic roomie: *Homophobic slur directed at television!*
Toombs: So you've been using that word a lot. Do you have a problem with gay people?
Homophobic roomie immediately says "Yes".
Toombs: Erm, I'm bisexual.
Homophobic roomie: Nah, that isn't a problem. You're cool.
Toombs: 0.o
I do realise that it was Potential Roomie[sup]TM[/sup]'s right to back out of an uncomfortable situation, and never said that it wasn't.I also do realize that I will be treated differently by some because I'm viewed as different. I simply wanted to take a moment vent.
It's completely his/her choice to back out. It would be no different than someone being uncomfortable with someone who chooses to smoke, do drugs, are vegan or practice a specific religion. It's a lifestyle choice and it doesn't automatically mean that people have to be comfortable with it. I can understand the frustration/irritation and I'm not trying to seem harsh but in my opinion they handled it alot better than they could have.
Also on being treated differently... Everyone is technically different and everyone is treated differently no matter how hard people try to treat people the same. It's one of those illusions of society such as equivalence.
The guy would be moving from the apartment with the girls because he would feel uncomfortable living with three girls. The point being that if the bar for homophobia, racism, and possibly sexism is set this low, then these labels no longer mean anything particularly negative. Setting the bar this low therefore robs the terms of their meaning and can only help legitimize those who are actually racist, sexist, or homophobic in a meaningful (non-technical) way.
Well, I guess I agree with you to an extent. But my question is why eliminate the definition to people who only show slight signs of these conditions. Why allow for any leniency at all? Put them all in the same category together, the ones that don't like it will make an active attempt to get out.
The first reason we wouldn't want to put them in the same category is because people generally don't like being accused of things they aren't guilty of. When we put a straight guy who is mildly uncomfortable living with two homosexual men and a bisexual man into the same category as people who beat homosexuals, we are not going to get the regular straight guy to say "Oh my, I suppose I AM a hate-mongering homophobe." No, he's going to mentally flip us the bird and redefine the classification of homophobe such that it includes both him and the ones that beat gays (assuming he doesn't just ignore us). At that point, the ones that beat gays will be able to hide behind the new, broader term "homophobe" until society inevitably develops a new term to cover them specifically, at which point we'll be back to square one. So in the end, we won't accomplish anything more than neutralizing the term "homophobe" and pissing off one regular straight guy who was polite to begin with.
The second reason is because it would be intolerant and hypocritical. It's one thing for society to shun truly hateful people. But applying social stigmas to people who are normal human beings having normal (and mild) reactions to things and people that are different from themselves is not tolerant. In fact, I'm pretty sure the argument for gay rights is based on the idea that they're just normal people who deserve to be treated the same as anyone else. So it's a bit two-faced to apply social stigmas to a normal straight guy to "fix" him while at the same time denouncing homophobes who apply social stigmas to homosexuals to try and oppress or "fix" them.
Honestly though, I don't find it to be hypocritical to not be okay with intolerance. I agree that Potential Roomie wasn't being a horrific homophobe and shouldn't be placed in the same category as people who assault gays for fun & profit. However, if his reasoning was based upon homophobic reasoning then he was being homophobic, which is not a good thing. Just the same as sexism, racism, classism, and munchkinism [sub]okay, maybe that's different[/sub] are not good things.
Honestly though, I don't find it to be hypocritical to not be okay with intolerance. I agree that Potential Roomie wasn't being a horrific homophobe and shouldn't be placed in the same category as people who assault gays for fun & profit. However, if his reasoning was based upon homophobic reasoning then he was being homophobic, which is not a good thing. Just the same as sexism, racism, classism, and munchkinism [sub]okay, maybe that's different[/sub] are not good things.
Refusing to tolerate intolerance is all fine and good - to a point. As I said, it's one thing for society to shun truly hateful people. But where's the line between personal preference and intolerance? The way I see it, that line is most reasonably drawn where a person goes from making choices or behaving in a manner that only affects himself to trying to forcibly prevent others from acting upon their personal preferences.
I see nothing in the poor guy's response that implies intolerance toward homosexuals. Discomfort, at the worst, but not intolerance. If what he did was intolerant, then intolerance is a laughably (and impotently) inclusive concept that pretty much means "he doesn't like what I like."
Walking into a situation where you'd potentially be sexually attractive to three other people you have no interest in, and living with them, might be a bit uncomfortable.
Then again, for a gay or bi guy I'd be extremely surprised if a lack of interest was something they hadn't experienced before and didn't know how to deal with.
Personally, I'd have happily moved in. I currently identify as straight male, but in the unlikely event that one of the three others changed my mind and something came of it, well... SCORE!
Then again, I'm weird like that, and figure that pleasure is pleasure. Oh, and that people who are sexually attracted to me won't randomly resort to rape regardless of gender.
Edit: To be fair, I was a different guy back when I lived in a college dorm. At that age, my views were totally defined by my parents, still. I was still a virgin, and a bit of a prude. So there's that... let him grow up a little.
If you (dude) says to some other guy (dude) "Hey! I'm bi!" I myself don't exactly know what you're expecting the other guy (dude) to say. Most folks I know would be somewhere between lusting for spontaenous, quick, dirty intercourse, being baffled and jumping out the window. We get all kinds of people and preferences around here. You can expect everyone to respect you as you are, but it is also common courtesy to respect others as they are. Respect is a double-edged sword without a handle, a true ***** to master, that one.
If you open-mindedly share your sexual preferences with someone you might have just met, non-bi random guy's life just got complicated.
If a dude hangs out with a dude, I think there is little that confuses or freaks him out more than the (imaginary) danger of being leg-humped or turned into fap material by a room-mate. A lot of people enjoy sex, obviously, but not a lot of people casually bring it up in conversation.
He might have responded differently, but I think he handled it rather well, and in a rather adult fashion. It's better than going with the flow before videotaping you or going murderous rampage on your sweet drama queen ass... I guess.
Fucked up even if he was nice about it. Like me telling a girl that I really like her and respect her, but her nose is a little to big and I can't roll with it. Oh course she is going to be pissed off because it's a dumb thing to hold against someone. All I got to say is that just because your nice doesn't mean it's an excuse to toss common sense out the window. The guy should of just told you something else and got the hell out of there. Very easy to lie, we do it all the time to spare people their feelings. Everybody does it when common sense tells them to. Like to say that the guy is a huge dumbass for trying to nice talk his way out of it.
Talking himself out of what? In his mind, orgies beyond his comprehension will now take place every night in the room that was to be his, with young men peeing on each other flinging warm poop around the room, singing and dancing very merrily and gaily while dressing up as the human Gloria Gaynor centipede, laughing at him in unison for being different, until he wakes up in his sweat-soaked bed devoid of warmth and comfort...
Tolerance doesn't mean to break and bend to everyone that's different, tolerance primarily means to know who and what you are and still make it possible to live with and amongst people who are different than you.
Everything else is on the brink of egocentric, totalitarian fascism. We'd all be great dictators and major cunts if given the cash, the armies and the opportunity, but we're just not all great people.
Yours sincerely (with pink pom poms dangling from my nether region),
Forgetting one thing, it's still none of his fucking business. Literally blowing guys at the foot of his bed, it won't really be a problem. Oh course your little rant at the beginning is something a 15 year old would conjure up, not a grown man. All I got to say is that he probably will be discreet without this guy having to worry about it. Think I want to hear you having sex with a female, its annoying either way. Very much need to read what people type because the guy is talking his way out of it. Even though hes being nice, hes still being a dick about something that is not his business. Leaving is his choice and your rant came off as stupid and a little bit drunk.
I think the room mate is a tool because seriously, it's not like you have a disease how can anyone feels that awkward around someone who sticks their genitals somewhere they haven't stuck their before I mean seriously. FFS it just irritates me that people make such a fuss about a trivial thing like enjoying buttsecks or mushing vaginas together or whatever.
Americans, from my experiences, seem to be overly homophobic also.
And thats why he didn't want to share a room with you? Holy balls some people are insane.
In my experience, Gay/Bi people are more chill about everything, because they have to put up with so much shit all the time. I'd kill to have a Gay/Bi roomie! Besides that, girls LOVE Gay guys. I'd have a foot in the door with evey girl I met just cuz my roomie is Gay!
Don't let this douchebag trouble you dude, he doesn't know what he's missing out on.
To be honest, I've never known a gay person. Small-town communities tend not to have people like that. I would probably do the same thing as your roommate did, not because I have anything against people with...Different sexual preferences, but just because it's slightly creepy. I guess that's because I'm a country boy, born and raised, and a situation like that would be utter chaos to me. At least he was polite, you should be happy about that.
Really though, I know that I'm going to get massively flamed about this, but think of it this way...Would you dorm with a pedophile? (Not relevant to this discussion, I can see the clear difference between bisexual and, er...Other fetishes.)
Probably the same feeling, just to a much lesser degree overall.
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