Bisexuality ain’t a come-on

I was having lunch with a few friends of mine a week or so back.  We were at a cafe that has a lot of regulars, so you get to know people if you go there often enough.  So when one of my friends waved a guy over to our table, I didn’t even blink.  He sat next to me and we exchanged the usual introductory bull.  Around us, the talk had turned to the upcoming Pride Fair (this weekend, June 9 and 10, 2007), and I mentioned that I was no longer with an advocacy group and probably wouldn’t be going this year.

“You’re a lesbian?” my new tablemate asked me.

Used to a touch of consternation (or outright shock, for all that this is Los Angeles) that new acquaintances display when confronted with my sexual orientation,  I told him, no, I was bisexual.

“Oh.  Well, I’m married,” he declared.

I was baffled, until it dawned on me that this guy thought I was hitting on him.  But—why?  I didn’t immediately connect his declaration with my answer to his question.

“You think because I’m bisexual, I’m hitting on you?”

“Aren’t you? All women say that,” he told me.  I detected a smugness that set my teeth on edge.

“No,” I told him flatly. “And probably, neither were any of the other women.  I mean, you’re not really all that.”

Catty, surely.  But fuck that.  Since when has my sexuality, or anyone’s really, constituted an invitation?  I’m not sure who I should be more pissed at, the guy who assumes that bisexuality is a ploy to lure all these poor, unsuspecting men in, or the one—possibly two—women who gave him that impression?  I’m under no illusions, I know that there are women who play the bi card, and play it hard.  It works, because, let’s face it, this is something that is not only featured in porn but splayed across our TV shows, movies, and magazines.  Of course it doesn’t work with all men, and he was surely trying to let me know he wasn’t one of them.  But then again, it worked its arcane magic on his ego, and that, to me, is all the more insulting.  “Haha, I know you want me, but I know your game.”  See this finger?  Spin, baby.