I recently came out to one of my best friends, and she was much more accepting than I expected. However, she basically told me that she already knew I was a lesbian. I don't believe I act really "gay" so to speak, not that there even really is a way to act gay but you know what I mean. Maybe I just over look my "gay" habits? Also, I was recently in a room with people that I have been acquaintances with for a long time (this was before I came out to anyone) and someone mentioned homosexuality and, just for maybe less than a second, everyone looked at me. I definitely didn't imagine it because some people turned around in their chairs just to look at me. It doesn't bother me if people know about me, i'm just wondering, how do people tell if you are gay? My friend only listed that I do "boy things" although I don't believe that is a good indicator, and she said that she never saw me checking out guys. She also mentioned my body language. Is there like a "gay body language" or something, or how do you tell if someone is gay" (also, I am very aware that at some points of this I sound really ignorant, however i'm just trying to put myself in a straight persons mind, who sometimes may be ignorant without realizing)
You really can't tell. It's all based in stereotypes. You can "tell" because they fit the stereotypes (short hair, into things associated with lesbians, wear plaid) and act masculine. A better indicator is if you've known the person for a long time and they haven't shown interest in guys, but even that can be a straight person who keeps quiet about their crushes.
EYE CONTACT. The above poster is correct: stereotypes can't determine whether someone is gay or not. But talking to them, eye contact, and touchy actions may be clues.
There is no way to tell if someone is gay is the bottom line answer. I mean you can take a good guess by body language such as touching and eye contact but that's not 100% There's a funny episode in The L Word where one of the couples hire a female plumber. She rocks up looking the architypal 'diesel dyke' on her big motorbike, short crop hair, demin & flannel shirt, tool belt, work boots, masculine mannerisms etc. Then completely throws everyone by being totally straight and married to a man. ---------- Post added 17th Nov 2015 at 04:29 PM ---------- On this very subject. I was out with 2 (straight) female friends last night. We went to the cinema - it had those huge double seats for couples in the back row so we booked them - them to sit next to each other and meaning I had a double seat to myself. My friend jokingly said 'oh you might get someone lovely sitting next to you' and said to the ticket guy 'make sure you seat any hot guys next to her'. I said erm 'hot WOMEN please' and they all just laughed. I suddenly realised that despite they know me really well for a long time, apparently the fact they have never once seen me with a guy in well over 10 years, I have no interest in men, I have only ever mentioned meeting women is not enough information. Even when I explicitly said 'women' they actually thought I was joking! I looked at the ticket guy and said 'I'm being deadly serious' and he understood. But they were still like oh har har.
