I was wondering if you guys had any tips to share me about how to deal with ignorance from people in everyday life. For example, when I had my friends over, I was slightly traumatized. One of them is really compassionate and considerate, and while the other one is really nice as well, he is quite ignorant on certain topics like LGBT+. Basically what happened was, we were talking about romance and stuff (we're all single) and I said like yeah I would kind of like to have a boyfriend, that'd be fun, and the slightly ignorant friend of mine was like "Yeah, there are lots of gay guys, maybe you can be with them" and I was like........................ put a mask on and smiled and tried to explain but internally I was :tears: Like I can't date a gay guy, that would never, ever work. How do you respond to people like that? I'm insecure and stuff too... I just don't know what to do
Maybe start by understanding that for non-LGBT people it can be very hard to grasp many aspects of LGBT life or anything related, because of the lifelong indoctrination with false ideas. Don't expect people to know things about your LGBT-things unless you had explained it to them previously.
I understand that perfectly fine. Some people have not had much exposure to it and thus don't understand. That is not hard to understand. It doesn't really help to understand, though. It still feels bad. What I was asking for is advice on how to deal with the situation.
Thing to remember is that everyone is ignorant of something. Don't take it personally or anything. Think about how many friends you have. ITd probably be fair to say that everyone of your friends has one subject or skill which they are highly knowledable or skilled at. LGBT issues is a subject which most people on this site probably look into and know quiet a lot about. Some of your friends might be experts in guitars, cars, sports, nutrition or anything... In comaprison to our friends and family, we are the ones which are more likely to be knowledable to understand things like sexual/romantic orientation and that sort of LGBT stuff. ITd be silly to expect all your friends to not ignroant in at least one thing :S it'd be strange if you didn't hear ignorant comments to be honest - id be worried that people arn't being true with me. The best advice I can give is to look inside yourself to find out why you feel so bad about this happening. IF you can doing something about it likely maybe talking to your friend or something then maybe try that... do you know why you feel so bad?
You could have tried to lecture him, but could you lecture every ignorant person you encounter? Would you even want to? The only practical advice I can think of is.. detachment. You can try to explain things here and there, but you can't let such ignorant comments "slightly traumatize" you. I don't think it is a good idea to ascribe that much value to what people think and say. Let alone the ignorant type, there are people out there who will never accept the issues of "sexual deviants" even if you do explain yourself to them. Indifference can be very helpful.
@DamienR I know everyone are ignorant in some way. And I'm perfectly certain of why it makes me feel bad - I'm a girl; gay guys don't date girls regardless of their physical appearance. So I don't want my friend assuming that I could date a gay man. and also..... not all my friends are male... some are experts in, idk, makeup. @Fentrion Actually I'm emotionally numb most of the time and I'm trying to overcome that.. but thanks anyway.
Unless people are educated about these matters, we'll continue to hear ignorant responses on topics such as LGBTQ+. Thankfully, some comments come from people who just don't know a lot about these topics, so telling them about it will help. However there are people who are just completely mindless and take it as a joke. I just try to think of it like this, some people will understand, others won't.
