Does anyone ever use closet references with your friends? For example I say stuff like I am emotionally a teenage girl, or I like to stay in closeted areas, etc. I say these things to say I'm in the closet, I don't expect people to figure it out it's just for my own entertainment. For me it's just one big riddle that I want people to solve or "open the door". Does anyone else do it?
I would do things that would be considered "gay" like wanting to sell Avon as a second job, or wanting to condition my hair to make it soft and smooth. To respond, I always would say that I'm just really in touch with my feminine side. Now, knowing me, my friends just accepted it and didn't question it because they couldn't picture me being gay. In that way, I kinda did what you do. Nobody got it. My aunt did say that she got a funny vibe when I said it, and that it clicked when I finally came out. It didn't lead her fully to it though. In my experience and from what I've read here, hints don't really work. People that are heterosexual just assume everyone is the same as them. They don't think about multiple meanings or cryptic riddles. It just goes over their head most of the time.
At one point, probably around the beginning of college, I stopped using female pronouns when referring about the future. Instead, I would use gender neutral phrases like: "When I meet my future spouse," "Whoever I choose to marry," "I haven't met the right person," etc. Though when I came out to some friends on whom I had used those phrases with, they hadn't picked up on the subtlety.
THIS I have always made an effort to lead the dating conversation with as much gender neutrality as possible. I'm not quite sure of the subtlety as well.
I agree, I usually try to use gender neutral pronouns when referring to my crush, but sometimes I slip up.
Even though I'm out, sometimes I hold back my sexuality for convenience. There's alot of biphobia, despite the growing acceptance of the LGBTQIA community. In fact, today, I experienced biphobia for the first time. Oh, but I've gone off-topic, bad me! I keep the pronouns gender-neutral when I feel like people will give me a hard time.
Oh man, hints never work. Since I didn't want to tell my friends directly that I was bi, I tried to come out using hints. I talked about bi characters quite a bit, mentioned coming out stories and even went so far as to tell two friends that my mom seemed to think I was a lesbian. Their response? Friend: "Your mom thinks your a lesbian? Ha ha ha! " :laugh: Me: :jawdrop: :bang: (Thinking)...They can't even imagine the possibility!!!!" And these are the same people with 85-90% averages.
Whenever I get into conversations with my friends about "guy stuff", I'm generally pretty quick to change the subject. On top of that, all my avatars for the games I play with friends are female. Even my DnD character's a girl. And you should see the chat log from a conversation I had with a friend from back home last week. I all but came right out and said it. I feel like my subconscious is screaming at everyone, but I'm still too scared to straight say it.
I sometimes answer quethchuns in a really lithpy fabuleth gay voithe, complete with gethchures and mannerithms. Like so: Teacher: Alright, can anyone tell us what happened at Fort Sumter? (raises hand) Me: So liek, the southernerth got liek really Pithed that Aby-baby Lincoln became the President of the Goddamn U Eth of A, and so they said like "Ohhh helllz no we don' want dat" and so they like seceded and opened all their cannons in a bad way on Fort Sumter! Usually gets a big laugh out of the class, and ticks off the teachers. Internalized homophobia? Maybe. Funny? Yep.
One of the Manhattan Project scientists, Robert Serber, tells a humorous anecdote, about how during the development of "the bomb", they decided that they needed a "cover story" to be circulated to mislead anyone about the true purpose of their project at Los Alamos. So, several of them go to two different bars in Santa Fe, and start trying to talk to people and hint about the false purpose of the lab being to develop "electric rockets". Instead of being intensely interested in what is going on at the lab, nobody seems to care or pick up the rumors they are trying to start. Finally he says, he grabbed one of the patrons by both lapels, and shook him to get his attention, and shouted the "rumor" right at his face, but "the guy was so drunk I'm sure he didn't remember a word of it. It's not as easy as it sounds to be a spy". Sometimes people really don't care about what you think is a real big secret that they are eager to pry out of you. You can drop hints subtly, or more overtly, but they are really thinking about their own lives not yours. As Dr. Phil says, "You wouldn't be concerned about what people would think, if you realize how little they do."