On a scale of 1 to 10 how good do you think your gaydar is?

I would say probably a 7 or 8.

 

I'd say probably a 9.5 mainly just because saying 10 seems tacky. It's spot on, but I've been out for a long time.

 

I mean my gaydar normal functions at an 8ish... unfortunately my pleasebegaydar will kick in at an 11 on occasion!

 

Lousy, like down around 2 or 3.

 

Probably an 8

 

Like, 2, at best. Went to a "bear bar" last night and I feel like I would not be able to id the vast majority of guys I saw there if they were outside of the bar, lol.


I tend to be skeptical of people that claim to have good "gaydars" though. Or at least young people - folks like OGS, with a bunch of experience living in queer-heavy areas I don't doubt. But everyone else..there's 9 "normal" guys for every queen. Call me unobservant but I just don't see it.

 

@Browncoat my gaydar is definitely not based on experience in the community or being around a large group of those who identify as gay. It was developed with years of hiding in the closet, being very self aware of the things that made me different, etc. I’m very mindful of trying to respect others though, so I try am avoid saying out loud what I think about someone’s sexuality. At the end of the day the whole world can see you’re gay and if you’re not ready to embrace it you’ll end up pissed at the world, or that was me at least!

 

Makes sense and fair enough. Thank you for explaining further.

 

Sadly, I rate myself around 1 or lower. Unless I see a guy sitting on another guy's lap, I'd never pick it up. If I see two women hanging out with each other, I assume they are friends. I refuse to believe that there are no gay people out there, and given I can't detect *any*, my gaydar must be broken.

 

If I'm attracted to the person it functions at around a -10, but if its a random person it probably functions around a 5

 

My gaydar wasn't developed from exposure to gay people, since I've only paid attention to them for less than a year of knowing it myself. It's the opposite, I've been around such extreme straightness and masculinity for so long that I can almost immediately tell when someone does something even slightly out of place whether on purpose or accidentally. People who know they don't quite fit in with the group end up looking abnormal in ways they don't even realize. When you start finding out the people you saw abnormalities in originally are gay/bi from seeing them on an app or at a club the gaydar gets refined a bit more and next time instead of just seeing 'something that doesn't look right' you instead see 'sign of this person not being straight'.

I know it's not just in my mind too, the university psychology department had a study on gaydar I volunteered for where they showed us pictures/videos of straight/bi/gay people asking us to identify them and I had the highest score in the group.

 

I’d give it a 9.

 

probably around a 2. having grown up in very small conservative town any city person makes me question if they’re gay because they tend to be more self expressive (small towns can be very restrictive in that sense) than what i’m used to regardless of sexuality, and gender roles seem less strict in cities. so, living in a city now... i just assume everyone is gay! not surprisingly i’m wrong more often than i’m right

 

Maybe 7. Not always spot on but works more often than not.

 

I'm curious to know, what are the things that are considered out of place/abnormalities?

 

5 for guys.
2 for women.

 

Pretty poor but I'm not particularly good at observing people or noticing things unless it's blatantly obvious.

 

Looking at the rest of the group too often is a big one. When you see someone trying to subtly look at the other people they're with over and over again every few minutes it looks wrong - what they're actually doing is watching other people's behavior to try to copy it and fit in more to compensate for knowing they already don't fit in. The one that seems to apply most to gaydar is posture, they'll look at the straight guys and suddenly adjust their own posture to look taller and more masculine for no reason, afraid that not doing that will draw attention to their gayness by not being as stereotypically masculine as the rest of the group.

Their eyes lingering too long on attractive men is another sign. If they're scanning a crowd of people you can sometimes see their eyes focus more intently for an extra second or two while looking at an attractive guy before going back to normal speed again for the rest of the crowd.

Suspiciously going dead silent or having slowed responses when anything LGBT is brought up in a conversation. If someone makes a gay joke or whatever and everyone laughs immediately, but one person looks confused for a second or two like they're trying to decide how to handle the situation - laugh with everyone else and risk someone calling them out on the joke being applicable to them, or stay silent pretending to be distracted while hoping no one remembers/knows they're gay.

Things like that. Most of them are very small things that only last a second, but that one second is enough to give me the 'something is different' feeling and turn my attention towards them.