Earth to Baby Dyke! Your Straight Friends Think You’re Hitting on Them (They’re Wrong)

Wow, her standards are LOW.

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One high school night, my friends and I all got drunk together and asked our only queer friend, Alexa*,  all of the questions we were thinking. We gathered around her (read: cornered her), our faces illuminated by the kitchen light and the muted TV, closely so we could all hear her answers. Donning sweatpants from our respective high school sports teams and cuddled up with our wine glasses, we looked up at her like we were waiting for a bedtime story. 

“What do vaginas feel like?”

“Does it smell?”

“Is it better than dating boys?”

Then it took a turn for the objectifying.

“Which one of us is the hottest?”

“Which one of us do you think is the best kisser?”

“Which one of us is your type?”

She SO didn’t want to answer these questions, but they kept coming. She saw us as friends and wanted to keep it that way, but it was hard for us to accept the fact that her attraction to women does not mean ALL women. Then the most annoying, inevitable straight girl question flew her way. 

“Are you hitting on me?” one of my friends side-eyed Alexa.

I was so embarrassed to have been a part of that. I wish I could go back and tell myself that what I was doing was wrong, that one day I would be in the same shoes, that I needed to shut the hell up and let my friend live.

It’s wildly different being on both sides of the conversation, but being on receiving end of these questions gives you a tiny bit of power. Your friends want to know everything, and are suddenly concerned over how hot you think they are — now that I’m out, I know how weird that can feel. 

So what is my Baby Dyke™ advice for when your straight friend inevitably asks if you are hitting on her? Mess with her, duh. If she has the audacity to ask you, then by all means, make this uncomfortable and inappropriate conversation fun. Like this. 

Actually hit on her.

All you did was comment heart eyes on her new-haircut Instagram post, and this girl thinks you are trying to get in her pants? Wow, her standards are LOW. These boys have no idea what they are doing, so it’s up to you, a hot and fresh lesbian, to show this girl that if you were hitting on her, she would KNOW it. Pull out all the stops, get her all the roses, and let her know that the heart eyes are nothing compared to what you are willing to do to turn her gay, too.

Make a list of all the things you’d rather do than sleep with her.

She thinks that sleeping with her is on the forefront of your mind, when in reality, that is one of the LAST things you want to do. After a hefty scoff, give her an extensive list of the things that would happen before you slept with her. This could include, but not be limited to, burning your entire scalp with a curling iron, fist-fighting a rabid raccoon, and being straight.

Cause a violent scene at the mere thought of touching her.

If the list is not enough, you may need to show her through your body language that you would never even FATHOM a universe in which you would be attracted to her. Start with a bout of hysterical laughter. Really get into a deep cackling of the witchy variety. You can even point at her while you do it. Once you’ve exhausted yourself with that, fall to your hands and knees and start retching like a cat coughing up a hairball. Heavy eye contact here will really drive the point across. What you want to focus on is demonstrating the visceral reaction your body has to a sexual thought about her.

Create a PowerPoint presentation explaining lesbian attraction.

If you want to spare her of her feelings, you can bridge the gap of misunderstanding. Where she is coming from, the Straight World, keep in mind, the men flock like horny seagulls around a french fry. To her, if someone has the ability to be attracted to her, they most likely are. That’s what she has been conditioned with her whole life. So the thought of someone who likes girls thinking that she is just a friend (or worse, rejecting her *gasp*) does not compute. Some people are visual learners, so create colorful pie charts and graphs explaining the very low percentage of women that you are attracted to. Lesbians are picky beings, and you don’t see her walking around trying to f*ck every single dude she makes eye contact with.

Tell her why she is being ignorant.

Given that this girl is your friend and you trusted her enough to come out to her, she is not intentionally trying to hurt you when she asks if you are hitting on her. Just like you were trying to figure out your sexual preferences, so is she. Everything she thought about your relationship could have changed to her, and she just wants to know where you stand. Yeah, it’s a little ridiculous for her to suddenly make all of this about her, but you gotta work with her. Maybe she is just trying to understand you.

I’m just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here. But all you need to do is just blatantly tell her she is being offensive. You could get into the false hyper-sexualized, predatory lesbian trope that is blasted in media — but if you don’t have the time or patience, just tell her that her assumption that your attraction to women means ALL women is wrong and offensive. You can have a normal friendship AND eat pussy in your free time. 

Ask her if she is hitting on you back.

Maybe there’s a reason she’s asking…


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