Do heterosexual people have "straightdar?"

[begin_within]

[electron_blue]

1. LOL! I just wish I had "majorjerk-dar"

I'm starting to get there, though.

[Neshanic]

2. No, they use Joan Rivers.

[Wapsie B]

3. I wish.

It'd be nice to be able to cut through the crap and get through to the available hetero females.

[LeftyMom]

4. If so, mine's broke.

I think people are gay when they're not all the time, so unless somebody says one way or the other or I see them with a obvious romantic interest, I try not to assume either way.

[NNadir]

5. No we don't or at least I don't.

When I was young I fell for a couple of gay women who were not interested in me because of my y chromosome.

There was one woman I recall who I liked and didn't ask out because I thought she was gay because of the books on the shelves in her apartment. (Her housemate was gay, but she wasn't - and I found this out through a mutual friend who told me years later that the woman had been crazy about me.)

I have also had several male friends who I thought were heterosexuals but later proved to be gay. I have also known a few people who I assumed to be gay who proved to be straight.

I have no kind of "dar."

[laheina]

6. Me neither.

I think they call it being clueless. :shrug:

[OrwellwasRight]

7. I, too, lack nearly every kind of "dar"

the infamous gay-dar, but also straight-dar, and lately my Jewish friends have made fun of me for lacking Jew-dar (Ju-dar?). And if I should also have Hindu-dar, Vegan-dar, Atheist-dar, Christo-Dar, Potsmoker-dar, or any other kind of "dar," I lack these as well.

I am, fortunately, beginning to develop Republo-dar.

The test? If he asks me out, chances are 4 out of 5 that must be a Republican. Truly.

How can I even be attractive to these people? It's not like I am moderate or a wall-flower in my views. My near-socialist tendencies are right there on my sleeve. Yet the Repubs ask me out, time after time. It is so weird. :shrug:

[zone]

8. Jew-dar?

Sounds like a dumb guy who can kick ass.

[OrwellwasRight]

10. I think it is more about recognizing the people you'd find on J-Date.

Whatever.

I'm just as happy learning about someone as I get to know them well as knowing things about them immediately upon meeting them because I have a good "dar."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. No, but I drink Straightorade. -nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Not me, unfortunately.

I have been fooled, and consequently disappointed, more than once.

[Benfea]

12. Absolutely not, but...

…I'm not so convinced gays have gaydar either.

[tjwmason]

13. I certainly don't have gaydar.

But some folk I've known definitely did. :shrug:

[donheld]

22. I have gaydar - and I'm grateful for it

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

[Benfea]

35. I know people who swear they can trust their "gut instict" too.

I know people who swear by their "feminine instinct" (which is just the female version of "gut instinct"). Some people swear their dreams are prescient.

What makes it possible for people to believe in something like feminine instinct? The answer is easy, and it has to do with human perception and memory, as pointed out by Carl Sagan: people who want to believe in it will easily remember instances where dreams (or whatever) turned out to be true and conveniently forget the instances in which it doesn't, which leads to a false positive identification of cause and effect. If you try and measure things like this scientifically, of course you find no evidence for it.

I admit that it is probably unfair to compare "gaydar" to the other mentioned phenomenon. There really are little things I'm sure you can perceive that most other people can't, little cues about exactly how someone goes about trying to hide the fact that they are homosexual. I'm sure if we tried taking a real scientific measurement of your "gaydar" it would be better than 50% (the same as flipping a coin and the general result of attempting to measure "gut instinct" or prescient dreams), but not very much better. I bet the result would be a lot closer to 50% than you would expect it to be, and certainly not 100%.

[El Fuego]

14. Definitely.

I have "straightdar" where men are concerned.

[Deep13]

15. I have "Blackdar."

:shrug:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

32. Me, too

I can pick out a black person from five feet if the lights are on.

[Deep13]

34. It's a rare talent.

Cherish it.:evilgrin:

[gollygee]

16. I think I can tell if guys are straight

I can think of several times I thought, "I think this guy is gay" and ended up being proven right despite circumstances suggesting they were straight. I guess straight-dar is gay-dar in reverse?

I am however hopeless in being able to tell if a woman is a lesbian.

[TrogL]

17. What about bi-dar?

Does straight-dar or gay-dar go off if you're bi?

[begin_within]

18. If the TV is on football but the throw-pillows match the curtains, he's bi

[realisticphish]

20. ah

but I am a straight guy, whose roommate is a girl, who decorates... that could throw a wrench
:shrug:

[noonwitch]

19. No but my friend is my gaydar-if she thinks a guy is attractive, he's gay

It never fails.

[patcox2]

21. No, but many have "on the make-dar."

Its not so much sensing orientation, I think, as sensing predatory intent. I can sense it loud and clear in women.

[Robb]

23. I've got Metrodar

Which, interestingly, is also a 9-story dancing robot.

[Crazy Dave]

24. Eddy Murphy once said:

If you see two big guys working out at the gym (or playing tennis, can't remember) and you are wondering which one is gay but you can't tell, you ask them what they're doing after they leave the gym. One will say, "I'm going to go have a beer", the other will say, "I'm going to suck a d___" and that's how you could tell.
But I guess he didn't ask that male prostitute a few years ago.

[BikeWriter]

29. Uh oh, doesn't that make him gay?

[Crazy Dave]

30. Naw, he was just being a nice guy, a good samaritan when he...

...picked up a male prostitute dressed up like a woman. At least that's his side of the story but in a news article it said it happened in an area "where male prostitutes are known to ply their trade".
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n26_v91/ai_19436593

It's all good Eddy, nobody cares, well except for cheating on your wife, that's bad but why don't you just come out already Eddy.

[BikeWriter]

33. Isn't it odd, though, to pick up hikers at 4:45 a.m.?

:shrug:

[northzax]

25. I do.

If I'm talking to a girl and she doesn't want to sleep with me, then she's obviously a lesbian. I tell you, there are so many lesbians in this city that I'm suprised anyone can reproduce.

[Fox Mulder]

26. Not that I know of...

:shrug:

[Radical Activist]

27. I have a problem getting crushes on lesbians.

Pardon me for not liking the artificial girly girls.

[Cats Against Frist]

28. Oh god no -- not this girl, anyway

I have had at least three "relationships" with homosexual men in denial. In retrospect, I should have known: candy dishes, flower arrangements on the back of the toilet, a roomate that looked like a 23-year-old Prince. (as in the musician)

One of the most terrifying moments in my life was when I fell in love-at-first-sight with this man, who I thought was the boyfriend of a girl my ex- knew. I said to him, "God damn, Beth's boyfriend is HOT!!" He said, "Uh, that's not Beth's boyfriend, that's X's (insert male name here) boyfriend." Since X had a boy crush on my ex-, and the hottie was bi, from that point on, I tried to rock the swap, but my straight ex- was the weak link in the chain. :(

At any rate, my conversations with the bi- hottie were some of the most beautiful and illuminating exchanges I've ever had. He talked about how he was able, because he was bi, to simply concentrate on the person inside the body. I thought that it must be wonderful to be able to do that. I wish that I were bi-. But, unfortunately, I'm not.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

31. I really don't think so.

Although it is basically just the opposite of gaydar, isn't it?

I guess I have some level of gaydar, but I'm rather ashamed to admit that it really only pertains to rather stereotypical behaviors..like if a guy has a lisp or something. That's just so stupid.

[Benfea]

36. Oh, to answer the original question, if it exists, I don't have it.

I've been disappointed in that way more times than I care to admit, but I've picked up a few good dart/beer buddies that way.

[6000eliot]

37. They might but they don't need it

Gay people are seeking sympathy in a hostile environment.